Off to Grande Prairie - Again

At some point in the next 24 hrs we will pile into the Avalanche and make our third pilgrimage up north to Grande Prairie in less than five months. Three funerals in five months. In many ways this is beginning to remind me of my childhood back in Dubuque. Around the time my Uncle Jimmy died back in 1972, there was a rash of deaths on my dad’s side of the family that had us attending wakes and funerals almost constantly, or so it seemed to me at the time. For a while, between my dad’s relatives dropping like flies and my mother’s nieces and nephews weddings, the only time I saw my extended family was in church or in a church basement after for dinner. Chicken, ham, and turkey and dressing sandwiches. Artery clogging side dishes. Homemade desserts brought in by the ladies of the various rosary societies. Food and death. Food and marriage. Linked eternally in my nine year old mind.

The only other spate of death I can remember in my life came the summer between my junior and senior year in college. All in July. My ten year old cousin died in a farm accident on the 4th. My great-uncle, Father John, one of the nastiest men I have ever know died in Texas mid-month. And Kyle died. I am fairly certain it was around the same time, but it’s been over twenty years now, so I am not totally sure. Kyle was my friend Sarah’s boyfriend’s roommate and friend at the Lambda Chi house. He was funny and very cute and a tad bit on the wild side. We ran into each other here and there over the course of my junior year. In bars or at parties. We flirted. We eyed each other and on occasion, we made out a bit. He was not interested in a girlfriend and I was not auditioning for the part - mostly because I might have gotten the job and I really didn’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend at that point in my life. Despite my laments to the contrary, I did my best to keep relationships at bay. For a lot of reasons.

The last time I saw Kyle was one of the last nights of finals week. It was warm. People were running around from bar to this party and that. I kept my eye out for Kyle and eventually ran across him. It was awkward. The last time I’d seen him, I’d sorta blown him off to go running about with my friend, Leslie. Guys don’t like that when they are trying to put moves on you. Anyway, we left it as “see ya in August and we’ll see”.

I was twenty-one. You don’t think at that age that you won’t see someone again. That anything bad could happen. But, Kyle drowned that summer and there was no “see ya”. I remember that I cried when I found out. I was at home in Dubuque for my uncle’s funeral, and I was owly the whole rest of my stay. My mother especially found my behavior irksome. She had never understood my aversion to the social aspects of death - the visiting and the eating. I could have explained, I suppose, but I really didn’t share much of my life with her. I still don’t really.

I went back to school. I didn’t discuss it. I am sure no one knew about how I felt about Kyle or that we had tentatively reached out to each other a bit. It was just a school girl thing and I still think of that way.

I only thought about this because Rob had mentioned that this will be the fourth funeral up there for him, starting with Shelley’s back in August of 2006. It will Jordan’s fifth funeral overall as she lost a friend to suicide around the time her grandmother died in December. It seems unfair when these cycles catch us up, but it’s life, right? Just as there are cycles of happiness and joy, there are darker periods of sadness and grief.

So, we are off to Grande Prairie.

My First Published Piece is Online Now

I have been checking and checking and today my first online submission made it to “print”, so to speak. I am psyched and hungry for more. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Yesterdays Magazette

And thank you to Karen of Ann Arbor, Michigan who copped to being my 10,000 viewer at the original blog site, Second Edition at .mac. Thank you so much. And thank you all, dear readers. Though you don’t post much, I know you are out there and I am happy to “see” you day after day.

Also, many thanks to my husband Rob who supplies me with many of the photos you see every day there at Second Edition. He is a wonderful photographer and very generously endeavors to get shots of all sorts of things that strike my fancy.

Idaho Falls: It's Been a Year Now

When Rob and I first began dancing with the idea of meeting in person, we were still just friends. He and Cheryl were trying to organize a Bago in Manitoba for July and I made up my mind to attend, so we could meet. Well, that quickly went from meeting at the Bago to his picking me up at the airport to my flying to Edmonton first and driving out to Manitoba with him. I guess we should have known at that point we were already more than friends.

Once the cat, who was already out of the bag and sitting there watching us expectantly, was formally acknowledged we began planning our March trip that eventually became Devils Den. But even knowing we would be seeing each other then did not stop us from plotting an earlier meeting. And then came Idaho Falls. Rob and Shelley had met a couple at the cancer clinic in Mexico who lived just outside of Idaho Falls. Tee has breast cancer and Rob wanted to visit her as she wasn’t doing well. He was also taking her some things of Shelley’s, and could I manage to fly out to spend the weekend with him there?

My best friend, Vicki, wouldn’t even let me use Katy as an excuse not to go. She barely took a breath before agreeing to assume responsibility for my child for the weekend and with that - I was on my way.

I remember posting about my upcoming trip on the board, as so many people did and still do. I remember all the cautionary advice and pooh-poohing of the notion that Rob and I could have gotten to know each other via email, IM and the phone. I remember specifically that I didn’t ask for any advice and I didn’t take any that was given. I was beyond polling the board. But, I was still nervous. How could I not be? There is much one can learn about another person via their words - in any form, but there is a tangibleness about physical presence that goes beyond knowing on an intellectual level. I actually felt as though I was missing him in that concrete way even before that night in the airport when I saw him and rushed into his arms.

We’d speculated quite a bit about those first moments and each scenario became a bit more intimate. Our first kiss in those first moments was interrupted by my mother. She called Rob on his cell phone and wanted to know if I had arrived yet. It was a bit like having your one of your folks walk in on you as a teenager making out or something. It didn’t break the mood though and we smooched away the waiting for luggage to the point where a TSA officer broke us up to inquire if the last bags standing were in fact ours.

Rob likes to joke now that the woman he sometimes can’t get to stop talking barely strung more than a couple of sentences together that first weekend. But I was just drinking him in with all my senses to a point where I was overwhelmed.

A year later and we are sitting in our robes at the dining room table, me blogging and him scouring the net for a used car for Jordan and Katy in the living room chattering away with her imaginary friends while watching cartoons. All that is sandwiched in between then and now is our history together. History. Wow. You dream about being swept away. And love. Intimacy. Never does it occur to you that there comes a point where the newness is the comfy familiar and you are sharing an existence with touchstones, high and low points, and a future to chart together.

Happy Anniversary my Sasquatch lover. I love you, always.

Giving a Eulogy

My father-in-law Fraser - Shelley's step-dad - passed away last night. It's been less than three months since his wife - Leona - died.

I've been asked to give the eulogy at his service. I accepted this honour.

I've started many a blog post for here but due to other commitments have not taken the time to finish and post any. Writing the eulogy will be one piece I have to finish.