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February 28, 2003
16 Weeks, 5 Days
I have some very sad news to put into this entry. On Wednesday morning, I received a phone call from my cousin who lives here in the city, and I knew immediately that something was wrong, because it was far too early in the morning for him to be calling just to say hello. He asked me if I had talked to our family yet and when I replied that I had not, he informed me that his dad, my uncle, had passed away last night. He was very emotional, and I was just in shock. My cousin was his first born son, and carried his name. I was having a very difficult time coming to terms with this information – it was far too soon to for my uncle to pass away. He was in his early sixties and just embarking on a new path in his life.
I asked what Simon and I could do for my cousin and instructed him that he was to use us right now for whatever he needed. I knew that he would have to fly back home to Calgary immediately and also sensed that he would not have the cash to carry out this endeavour, nor a ride to the airport. I asked him whether he had any flight plans yet and when he replied that he did not, I told him that we would be ready to drive him to the airport the moment that he needed it. He was clearly taken aback by this, only having met Simon twice before, when we coincidentally found ourselves on the same flight back from our Grandmother’s funeral, just three months prior, and we gave him a ride back to his place, and then a few weeks later when we had him over for dinner. He said that he would phone in a bit to get a ride.
I put the phone back on the desk and called Simon. He stood on the outside of the glass French doors into the office and asked who it was on the phone because I was visibly upset. I motioned to him to come in and told him that Uncle John had died the night before, and that the phone call was from my cousin. Simon was also very shocked at this news. I think that it was then that I started to cry, but I may have been crying before then – I just don’t remember. I told him that I had made clear to my cousin that were here for him, regardless of what he needed, and that we would be giving him a ride to the airport soon. I closed down the computer and we went upstairs to get ready to go out, so that when my cousin phoned we would just have to put Brook in her kennel and get into the car.
Perhaps the most tragic thing about my uncle’s death is that it was exactly three months and a day after the death of his mother, my grandmother. You will all remember that my diary starts with that event and the positive test that I was pregnant. My uncle was the primary executor for her Will and was working extremely hard to deal with all of her possessions, houses, cars and other affairs. I remember him so vividly – he was a man who very accurately could be described as ‘larger than life.’ He was powerful, robust, extremely intelligent, hardworking, charitable and conscientious to a fault about his family history and obligations. He was a truly great great man who did so many things for the Canadian business economy and Canadian sports.
Only a couple of minutes after I told Simon the phone rang again and I almost didn’t have to look to know it would be my mum phoning. This was a very emotional phone call for both of us. I remember the sensation that I was sweating, my heart was pounding. I told her that I had just gotten off the phone with my cousin and that he had told me the news. I said that I was so sorry he had passed away and asked how she was doing. I told her that I loved her – that I needed to tell her that, right then and right there. I’m crying right now writing this all down. I said that I wanted to make sure that we talked to each other regularly while this was all happening and she agreed to that plan. I told her about our plan to help my cousin to the airport and she sounded really glad that we were able to do that for him and that I would call her to let her know when he would be arriving in Calgary when we found out what flight he could make. I just remember being rather shaky and my vision was acting funny throughout the conversation. We said goodbye and I sat while Simon hugged me and ran his hand gently over my head and back.
My Mum and I are hardly what you would call close – we don’t talk frequently and there have been many long periods where our relationship was very poor. One of my greatest weaknesses as a person is that I crave love and approval – this comes from, essentially, a complete lack of attention given while I was a child. I was raised by a Nanny, and have very few memories of my parents until I reached 12 or 13 years of age. They were simply not around during the days, and were at parties every night. My need for this love and attention peaks around mother figures and time after time I had reached out my hand to my own mother only to have her disrespect it in some manner and leave me in tears once again. This is the history of my relationship with my mother that runs through me every day and one that I vowed never to repeat to my own children. I would always be there to give them love and support, whatever their accomplishment, regardless of their goals, because this was the one thing that has scarred me the deepest from my own childhood, and I refuse to do that to my own children. So, our relationship is fairly superficial and shallow now – I would like for it to be more and have proven time and time again that I am able to go into those deeper waters, but for my mother, it is too difficult for her to handle for where she is in her life’s learning. Regardless of all of this history, or perhaps because of it, I still love her – I can understand why she cannot meet me in a deeper relationship and I do not hate her for it.
There are three things that made the news even more disturbing than what one would expect to feel when hearing news of this sort. On Tuesday night, when John passed away, both Simon and I slept very very poorly. I continuously woke up with nightmares and halfway through the night I awoke to extreme pain in my foot – it was so acute that I was crying and trying to explain to Simon that I needed him to fix it, yet he couldn’t understand what I was saying or even trying to say. I ended up taking his hand and placing it on my ankle and telling him to massage it, whatever, to make the pain go away. Once that had passed, I fell back into an uneasy sleep, only to be awakened by our puppy, who at three in the morning was up and literally pacing the room – a very unusual behaviour from her. We have never had her do this in the past. If she has to go out to pee, she will wake us up by licking our hands or something of the like, we couldn’t understand what was making her behave this way. It took Simon almost 15 minutes to calm her down and get her back onto her mat by the bed. That morning at breakfast we talked about the strange night and came to the conclusion that there was something amiss – something very bad had to have happened in our families. It didn’t really surprise us that Brook had picked up on the energy; pets are known to be very sensitive to changes like this. Come to think of it, Scarlett too was acting funny, but not as oddly as Brook’s behaviour.
The second thing was that we got a package that morning. My mum had phoned a few weeks prior to tell me that while she and her sister were sorting through some of their mum’s possessions, she was setting aside some things that she thought I might like, and had packed it into a box and shipped it to me. I opened up the box and at the top was a letter from my uncle. It was his reflections of the past year, including the funeral and the homily by the Reverend for our (the children’s) grandmother. It talked about how we should each take to heart the questions that the Reverend had posed to the family and congregation that morning and how he was taking them to heart. It was on his customary cream coloured stationary, on which I have received a few other notes or letters throughout my life. It also included the whole Homily given by the Reverend on another sheet. I had been very deeply touched by the Reverend’s words during the funeral and reading them again had me very teary-eyed.
The last thing was that last week was our Study Break and I spoke to my cousin the day before he was going home for a few days. He had received a phone call from his dad who requested his presence back at the family home. He was there for four days, leaving on Saturday night. The reason why this was important is that my cousin and his dad have had a rough relationship. My cousin has generally been the black sheep of his family, often sent away from the family home because of one reason or another. Clearly, his dad was making an effort to reconcile with his first born son at this time. I think the primary reason for their difficult relationship was that they were almost mirror images of each other. Looking at the son, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that my uncle was his dad and I am certain that the resemblance passed further than that and into character traits and personalities. It is never easy to look at a younger version of oneself and realize the truth of it.
We picked up my cousin at his house and it is hard to describe his moods and feelings. He was distraught, angry, frustrated, bleak… On the ride, we talked about lots of different things about what repercussions this event had on the family, on my uncle’s business ventures and more. The one good thing we brought was that my pregnancy has been going so well, and we told a couple short stories to him, making him laugh and at least smile once or twice. My cousin was in his final term of his degree and exams were just a couple of weeks away for him, but he knew he would not be able to be back in time to write them, let alone study for them. As the first born son (he has an older sister) there was much for him to find out and make sure that certain deals and partnerships did not fall through. My uncle had a very able right-hand man, but this much work for him would make an extremely busy man even more so, and my cousin would most likely be needed. We arrived at the airport and he had not had the chance to see what kind of flights he could take. At the ticket counter he told the agent where he needed to be and why, and that he had to be there tonight. I stood back just a bit, there to give him support, but also just giving him space. We had asked him on the ride out how much cash he had, if he’d be able to cover the cost of the ticket but when he counted all the money he’d been able to get from friends in the short time before we picked him up, Simon and I knew that it would be nowhere near close enough to cover the cost of a ticket given the short notice.
It only took me a moment to decide at the airport that we would pay for his ticket – I went over to Simon, who was standing further back to give us space, and he agreed immediately. What was this little amount of money when it was so important to get him home? I took my cousin aside and told him that we would pay for his ticket, that he would need any cash he could get when he got to Calgary and I think we overwhelmed him again with this offer. He asked if this was alright, which of course it was as we have oodles of credit – essentially I made him accept our offer. I am only grateful that we were there to help him because the ticket was just under $4000 round trip, I have no idea how he would have paid for it if we weren’t there, he didn’t even have a quarter of the cash to cover such an expense.
The earliest flight was two and a half hours away, so we sat at the food court as none of us had had lunch yet, and ate a bit. Basically, we were just there to prop my cousin up before he passed through security and was alone for the trip to Calgary. He went through a couple of moments where he just started to cry during this wait and I have to say that it just made me feel so much better that both Simon and I were able to just spend that time with him. Initially, before we ordered the food, he told us that we didn’t have to stay with him as we probably had work to do and it was Simon that time who said that he was family and that ranked higher than any school work that needed to be completed. The other times when I noticed that he was overwhelmed by our support for him was almost nothing compared to this moment. He was so shocked by Simon’s comment, by his and my willingness to just drop everything to make sure that my cousin was okay. My cousin said that Simon wasn’t really his family, to which Simon replied that he was my family, that we together made a family, and therefore my cousin was made Simon’s family through my connection. This small conversation in the middle of the afternoon the day after his dad died made a great deal of impact on my cousin – I could by no means say that we were close friends, but at the same time, I knew this.
When it was time to walk him to security I knew that he was going to be alright. It is hard to describe the past hours that we had spent together – they were very emotionally charged and we talked about so much stuff. I gave him one last good long hug, and Simon shook his hand and said we would see him in a couple of days. We had talked about trying to get a way for Simon to come (my grandmother’s estate covered the airfare for all the descendents, and would be the only way I could have flown on that short notice) and I was equally certain that my uncle’s estate would function the same way. However, it was made clear when my grandmother passed away that only my airfare would be covered, not Simon’s. Thus, I flew alone and it was an extremely difficult trip for me to deal with all the emotions and family drama without my rock, my best friend by my side. Anyway, standing there, my cousin said that he would make sure, somehow and someway, that Simon’s airfare would be covered – he was family. I can’t honestly say what that meant to me, the relief that I felt that I would not have to travel alone and pregnant to another family funeral in such a short space of time.
We’d given him our phone numbers already and instructed him one last time that if he needed absolutely anything done here that he was to phone us or instant message me and that we would get it done for him. We also confirmed that we would talk in a day or so over instant message about when we would be coming out and when the funeral would be scheduled. With that, we watched as he walked through security.
The shock of it had worn off a bit for myself and Simon was typically strong, letting me just go through the emotions I needed to go through without worrying about anything that needed to be thought of. Both of our minds were whirling and buzzing from the enormous list of things that would need to be done before we left. We would need to make sure we had appropriate clothes to wear to the funeral – and that I still fit into the outfit I had bought to where to my grandmother’s funeral. We would have to pack. We would have to make arrangements with our professors. I would have to talk to my group about this travel. Simon would have to find someone to go and take samples and deal with any packages that arrived while he was away. We would have to find someone to take care of Brook and Scarlett, who would be without us for the longest period since we had brought them home. We would have to get tickets, talk to my mum and arrange a car rental… We knew that the funeral would be early in the week, and that we would most likely leave on Saturday, leaving us just two days to get all of this arranged.
I had another Dr’s appointment with my Family Dr yesterday and left feeling even more disturbed than the last appointment. I have decided that I will not see her again. I do not trust that she is giving me effective care, so how can I possibly trust that she will give my babies effective care? She asked to see me in two months and I went to the secretary to make the appointment, never intending to fulfill it. The good thing about this is that while I am faced once again with the task of finding a Family Doctor, I am relieved that I do not have to return to this one. I would perhaps write more about what happened during this appointment, but find that I just don’t want to go into the details with all that is happening in my life this week. So, I will leave it at that – the search will begin when we return to Halifax and I think I will start by asking the ladies at Yoga whether they know of any doctors accepting new patients.
I told my professors yesterday as well that I would be away. In one of the classes I have a draft copy of a paper due on Monday, I had actually been working on it when my cousin phoned. Simon and I talked about what this would mean for me, not completing this draft, but I knew that I would simply have neither the ability nor much opportunity to work on it while we were away. So, that meant it would have to be done afterwards. In my other class, we were literally just forming new groups that class and so I told them that I didn’t know whether or not I would be able to check mail but could they just email me the gist of the meetings and I would see them the following Thursday. I got the feeling that some of them were frustrated that I would not be there for the initial work that would need to be completed, but to tell you the truth, I was beyond caring at that point. My life had changed to another level on which they were not operating – it is as simple as that.
I just finished booking the tickets today, we will leave tomorrow afternoon and return late on Wednesday night. I have no idea as to where we might be sleeping while in Calgary, but there are a number of family and friends who live there and I am sure we will find a bed somewhere. The only problem that remains is that we still have not located someone to take care of Brook. One person can do it for one part of the day, another person for another and so on. I just feel very uneasy about this situation, something is not sitting well with me on this and I don’t know why. Unfortunately, neither Simon nor I have the time or ability to deal with it better; we have almost 12 hours before we need to leave the house for the airport.
Symptoms: My sleep has, understandably, been poor the past couple of nights. I have had very very vivid dreams, some of them hard to understand and I’m sure that if I had someone analyse them there would be some profound meanings within them. My complexion has cleared up a bit, which is nice. My belly keeps growing and I really am amazed every day because of it. Maternity clothes cannot be too much further away! I just can’t think of anything else to include for now, so I will leave it at this.
**Talk to Me**
Was there an event during your pregnancy which really brought home the reality that the babe you carry is truly an amazing event?
Namaste, Laura and the Little One
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