Category: Opinion

Well, here we are. Zero hour. This morning, I start packing up my rucksack and starting the arduous journey south to Moncton where I will catch the two consecutive flights to get me back to Saskatchewan. It’s been a rough few days, with life delivering a significant one, two punch to my soul. Only just a few short years ago, I used to relish these trips back to the place I was born. I’d get to laugh with my father, connect with my mother and enjoy many of the connections that have been in place since I was a young child. Bit-by-bit and one-by-one, those connections have disappeared. Granted, I got to see Sensei and Guillaume, my friend Ricky and enjoy the beautiful splendor of the sea and mountains that nowhere else could provide. But most of my family have passed away or are gone in some fashion. Did raises the question; when everything and everyone you know and love have gone and only you remain, is it really still home?

I stopped in to see my father yesterday just prior to lunch. Obviously and necessarily, he was still unconscious. They identified a fungal infection in his lungs that will likely see him sedated for days to come. I leave the area without ever having spoken to him (at least while he’s awake). I updated the care home and sat with my mother for a time. I found her sitting in the dining area alone. When asked why she wasn’t sitting on comfier chairs in the living room area, she responded that she could see the open sea here and preferred it. We had some light conversation about everything but each other, mixed with some mild moments of lucidity where I saw hints of the woman she used to be. Mostly berating me for spending money to travel out and asking me if I needed any. Motherhood is a powerful thing, I guess.

It’s currently 5:30 am here and I can no longer sleep. Having woken up pretty much every hour over the past few hours hinted that I would get no further sleep. That puts me at 2:30 am Saskatchewan time, which is pretty much in keeping with how I departed a few short days ago. Since my flight is scheduled to land in Saskatchewan around 10:30 pm tonight, it promises to be a long fuckin’ day. I’ll start by grabbing a hot shower and tracking down a reasonable breakfast before potentially stopping in at the hospital one last time before getting on the highway. I anticipate I may have to come back in the weeks that follow, depending on my father’s outcome. But for now, I need to trust the hospital and the care home to do the best they can for him. For a man who has spent his career solving problems, the most helpless feeling is seeing a loved one in a situation you can’t prevent.

As with all things in life, there will always be some light to meet the darkness. Given the negative connotation of this trip, there has been some positive. I’ve had an awakening of sorts. Some of the specifics, I won’t get into with this post, but I have some changes within my own life that I need to make. Things that I would like to start working towards getting back and improving within my own life. It’s a hard thing when you see two once hard-working and capable people reduced to the mercy of everyone else with nothing left to show for it. Some would argue that they raised a child who’s gone out into the world and done well for himself. And to those people, I would say they are right. Within reason. There should still be some driving element to bring one’s own life to a conclusion that shows some element of accomplishment. I need to make sure I’m happy with myself BEFORE I reach the stage that my parents are in. I have some work to do.

This post will be significantly shorter than the previous ones because the story’s been told. There have been no miracle recoveries, no laughs and hugs with my mother, no smart-ass comments from my father (although my mother did flip me the bird on Monday) and no night out with the friends to have drinks and shoot pool. This was a trip home unlike any other I’ve ever had. If was a trip home to essentially take away the mantle of home. The next time I come here, instead of saying “I need to go home,” I’ll be telling my wife “I need to go to New Brunswick.” Sensei asked an open question that didn’t require an answer but that got my mind thinking. He stared off at one point and asked, “When your parents go, you won’t be coming back, will you?” I

t was obvious he didn’t expect an answer but rather was making a statement. And it got me to honestly ask myself the question. WILL I ever come back once my parents are gone? Since I’ll always be close to Sensei, I would like to think that I will. But I think we’ve reached the point of no return where I can be certain that he’ll never test me for my next dan grading. SO it would only ever be for a social visit. And with my parents gone and no tourist draw to the area besides camping, would there ever really be a reason to come back? I commented a day or two ago about how strange it felt as this was the first visit to New Brunswick I’ve ever had where I don’t have a “mon and dad’s” house to go to. My home is no longer here. A chapter in the story of my life has concluded. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. I may need to meditate on it. ☯️

My morning is starting with the fact that my chirps motel mini fridge appeared to freeze my two energy drinks last night and the cans burst inside the fridge, leaving me with a mess AND no caffeine to start my day. By virtue of this catastrophe, I’m going to try and keep this brief. Yesterday was the diffuser day, the one where I had to attend the hospital and see to my father.I hadn’t been back to that hospital since my grandfather was living in the veterans’ ward within it. Referred to as a “regional” hospital, it’s quite large for the town that it sits in a town of approximately on 7,000 people. As a comparison, Regina has two hospital of equal size and boasts a population of approximately 250,000 people. Kind makes you wonder what they were thinking. But I digress…

Never one to go any way but his own, I walked into the hospital and looked at the directory board and located the intensive care unit. First floor. Fuckin’ marvelous. I walked down the hall and followed the sign until I encountered two ominous doors with signs to report to the nurse’s station. You know, the kind of doors where they wheel someone in while holding back a family member saying “Sorry, sir. You can’t go in there?” Yeah. Those. I looked around absently but saw no nurses station anywhere. Therefore, I pushed my way through and found the doors opened quite easily. That’s because it turns out the nurses station is JUST inside the doors. Go figure. They pointed out my father’s room and told me they would have the doctor join me.

I walked in and saw a tableau that no child should ever have to see of their parent. Unconscious, hooked to tubes and tied to the bed, my father seemed smaller somehow. He was breathing slowly, with a machine beating in time with the breath ring. A strange, beige slurry was dripping from a bag into the tube running into his nose, feeding him artificially. His vitals and numbers were brightly displayed on multiple screens and low volume blips and beeps went off, every few seconds. It’s hard to picture the once strong, powerful man who raised me in such a state. Even more disturbing is finding someone who appeared to be sleeping that couldn’t be roused.

I spoke briefly with his doctor about his condition. In the interest of my father’s privacy and because it doesn’t matter, I’ll leave the details of that conversation out of the post but suffice it to say we discussed next steps, which unfortunately included the end of life-sustaining treatment if it became indefinite. I spent a few moments speaking to my father because I’m one of those people who can never be certain if an unconscious person can actually hear you or not and I wanted him to hear my voice. I left the hospital pretty despondent and wondering how I had gotten to this point in my life so quickly. Now I would get to go visit my mother and see what the state of union is there.

A positive spin on the day is the fact that I was now driving through the area in the daylight for the first time since landing. I got to see the spectacular open bay and the Appalachian mountains that are a signature of the North shore of New Brunswick. Growing up, I never appreciated this view the way it deserved. And that the way of life, isn’t it? We never quite appreciated the beauty around us while we’re in it. One needs to go without and come back to it to realize what they had. And that a little sad in and of itself. To know that I would be able to walk up to the salty water and dip my toes in whenever I wanted to seems like a pretty sweet deal. But I got to enjoy the view on the transit between Campbellton and Dalhousie.

My visit to the nursing home was almost worse than seeing my father on a ventilator. I scoped out the dining room and living room in anticipation of seeing my mother somewhere. No dice. I walked down the hall to her room and discovered she was nowhere to be found. I started walking back towards the nurse’s station when I met with an employee I had passed in the hallway. When asked who I was looking for, I named my mother and was told she had just been sat in the dining room. Let that sink in for a moment. I looked at every face in the dining room and didn’t recognize my mother in any of them. We found her sitting at a table with some other residents.

When the staff did the whole “Look who’s here?” thing, my mother had no idea who I was. When told I was her son, she stated she had no son. Despite this oversight, they convinced her to come sit in the living room with me. We sat on comfortable chairs and I asked how she was. She mentioned that she didn’t know where her husband was, so I explained that he was in the hospital getting his lungs checked. She asked why. I explained. Wash, rinse and repeat over the next hour. The nurse came over to try and have her take some meds. She fought her off and refused. It took a few minutes of back and forth before I switched to French and intervened, explaining to my mother that she spent all those years ensuring I took insulin so that I could stay healthy. So now, it was her turn to take these pills so that SHE could stay healthy.

Something in the change of language reached her and something in her eyes changed. She asked me how I had gotten there and I told her I took a plane. She asked why I would take a plane to watch her take pills. I then asked her where her glasses were. She claimed she’s never worn glasses. I explain that indeed she had. When she argued further, I held up three fingers and asked her how many she saw. She responded by flipping me the bird and asking ME how many I say. Now I know where I get my attitude. But there were some laughs. The fact she doesn’t remember me or even know my name is hurtful but it really isn’t the worst part. The worst part for me is knowing that losing her mind was the ONLY way she didn’t want to go out. For years, while watching my mother deteriorate, she always said she’d rather get hit by a bus than lose her mind. And now here she is. The woman I knew is no longer there.

Although the day was filled with emotion and difficulty, I found some comfort in seeing them both. And that’s what it comes down to, in the end. The only real emotional value is for the child, who still sees their mother and father instead of a man in a coma and a woman whose mind makes you a stranger. It’s not a way to remember them, nor should I, considering they’re not gone yet. But they both deserve better. They both deserved a better life. Even now, they teach the valuable life lesson that you don’t always get what you want. Food for thought… And now, before I accidentally commit a homicide, I need to go find some caffeine. ☯️

Well, here we are… Back in Northern New Brunswick and I made it in one piece, albeit not without the fates throwing a few monkey wrenches into the mix. My first flight left Regina without incident and saw me experience a mix of difficulty staying awake (I usually can’t fall asleep on planes) and watching some downloaded movies on my iPad. While the flight itself was uneventful and I even lucked out and had the seat between myself and the other passenger vacant, it was what came next that chose to challenge the very limits of my ability to maintain my calm.

Walking through the Toronto Pearson International Airport is a bit of a surreal experience. A major travel hub for people from across the world into Canada, it’s ALWAYS packed, ALWAYS busy and people seem to lose the very little semblance of common sense they may have had. It blows my mind how people can be in such a rush but have no concept of situational awareness or what’s in front of them. I literally had a lady walking next to me, who… you know when you have someone who’s going JUST slow enough that you can’t overtake them but they’re still going to slow to be behind? Yeah. That. I was right next to her, keeping pace and I was very obviously in plain view but yet she suddenly darted in front of me to cut across. I wasn’t able to stop my next step in time and my foot essentially swept both her legs and very nearly sent her hurdling to the floor. She was pretty indignant until I told her to either watch where she was going or to step BEHIND the person she would bypass.

I had a 3-hour layover in Toronto that saw me enjoy an overpriced meal before finding someplace to hunker down to wait for my next flight. Considering good ol’ PSTD and my general propensity to dislike large crowds, I was NOT in my element. I got an email while I was waiting that said that there were expected high winds at my landing point in New Brunswick and that it may affect the availability of a landing site. IN a bit of a panic, I started brainstorming the possibilities. If I rented a car right then and there, it would take 12 hours to drive to New Brunswick from Toronto. Not very feasible, considering how exhausted I already was. But luckily, my flight boarded without incident. The fight itself was uneventful and I even found myself falling asleep for a bout half an hour, a testament to just bow very tired I in fact was.

When we were on final approach for Moncton, New Brunswick, the winds started to rock the plane to a concern degree. I swear, it was something that I had only seen in the movies. The wings kept flopping back and forth, to the point where a couple of times we almost touch the tree line. When we finally touched down, we did so at an angle that saw the plane buck and right itself in a violent jerking motion that had everyone in the cabin scream and question whether they would be walking off or being carted off. All’s well that ended well, I guess. But it was an experience I could have done without. I made my way down the airport corridor to the car rental kiosk and began the annoying process of checking out the rental IO would be using for the days that followed. While there, I noted a lady speaking with the other rep. She was obviously a bit panicked and was in a situation.

Turns out she had landed about 45 minutes before I had and had missed the passenger bus that would carry her north, She had to make her way home to her elderly parents because she would be placing her father into a care home tomorrow. Sound familiar? If my heart hadn’t already been going out to her, it beat extra strong when she mentioned she needed to get to the North shore; the very area that I was traveling to. When asked, she mentioned she needed to get to Charlo, which is literally along the way to Dalhousie/Campbellton. I offered to give her a ride, which she gratefully accepted. We piled into my rented Nissan Sentra and took to the open road.

Typically, I prefer to travel alone than with people, with the exception of my wife, of course, And traveling with strangers is almost a definite no-no. It’s awkward, people have different taste in music, difference in climate needs, etc. But this lady was a class act and became quite welcome in the vehicle. We had good conversation and discussed a variety of topics, including but not limited to education, child care, the state of the country and our preferred scenic spots along the North shore. After being awake since 2 am, it was a welcomed distraction that helped keep me awake and steady on the road, given my level of fatigue. I got her to her parents’ home in Charlottesville just shortly after 8 pm. She was grateful, especially after I refused to any offer of compensation and I drove away feeling good that I had helped someone from back home. A positive spin on an otherwise negative trip.

I got to my hotel shortly after 9 pm. Now folks, the internet being what it is, I never quite know how far reaching my posts can get, although I am aware there are folks in India and Orient who have read my posts but my main concern is naming a business where there’s the potential they may get pissed and sue me for my comments. So forgive me for keeping the name of the hotel to myself but it feels like something out of a B-horror film. I did try to book the most inexpensive room I could find in the interest of saving as much money as I could, but this is ridiculous. The last time I saw a sleeping space this sparse and without amenities was when I lived in the dormitories at Depot! But at least the floors and the bed are clean and the shower was hot with decent pressure. Although the skinny sliver of soap they provided wouldn’t wash an infant, much less a 200-pound man.

If I sound a little bit negative and on the cranky side, it’s likely because this morning I get to storm the local hospital and try to access my father. Considering the health region in this area is a little weird with accessing people, I don’t know what challenge I’m in for or even what I’ll find once I access him. I suppose I should look on the bright side. I made it here safely, I have a warm place to sleep and I’ll also get to see my mother this morning, which will be nice. I haven’t seen her since I brought her to the care home to be placed as a resident. I’ll also have the opportunity to see Sensei this afternoon. So while it may have been a rushed trip for a generally negative reason, at least there will some positive aspects. And isn’t that the important thing to life in order to eliminate one’s personal suffering? Finding the positive? ☯️

For those of you who have read my posts in the past, you likely recognize the fact that having “day 1” in the title signifies this will be a multi-day post and I am likely traveling. Well, right on both counts. They often say that nothing is certain life, I’m inclined to disagree with this concept. What binds us together as human beings is that the story of all our lives begins and ends in exactly the same way; a birth and a death. There’s no getting out of it or avoiding it. It is, much like the passage of time, inevitable. What makes each of us unique as human beings is how we fill the chapters of the story between those two certain events. But the mixture of certain and uncertain can lend what one could refer to as the spice of life. And it’s is the depth of my philosophical musings for 4 am in the morning.

My father has always been what I like to describe as an unlikely warrior. From the moment he met my mother, he stepped up and took responsibility in areas that others had abandoned or faltered. My best example of this is stepping up to be a father to my late brother, whose biological father was presumptuous enough to claim he couldn’t be positive the child was his. But my father never faltered in taking on responsibility for my brothers and treated him the same as if he’d conceived him. That’s just one example of how my father has always fought for and taken care of his family as a whole. Growing up, it became a routine thing that every few months, he would experience what he described as “back spasms,” which would include debilitating back pain.

Usually, this would involve three or four days of my father laid up in bed allowing his back to recover before returning to work. I used to actually cherish these times as I would not only help my father by tending to him and getting him whatever he needed but these were some of the times that we’d make our way through Star Trek movies, have deep conversations about life and I would share my perspectives on life while gaining the wisdom of his. Often in life, it can be difficult to recognize a silver lining, even when one is staring you in the face. 1980’s medicine being the wonderfully ineffective thing that it was, there was never a diagnosis for this back pain. He simply had to grin and bear it, as it were.

It wouldn’t be until the early 2010’s that his condition would worsen to a point where he and my mother made the decision to have him housed in a care home. My father is a rather large man, sitting at well over 300 pounds, meaning my mother would be unable to care for him on a daily basis to the extent he needed. It wasn’t ideal but my mother moved into a small, one-bedroom apartment conveniently next door to the care home so she could see him and be with him on a daily basis. Having modernized a touch, medicine improved and we came to discover that my father had defects in his vertebrae and his spine is slowly degenerating. Nothing pleasant about as, you know, you need your fuckin’ spine to control EVERYTHING in your body.

There have been some rough patches through the years but my father is a war horse who refuses to go down. Stubborn and almost constantly angry, he muddles through life while overcoming any obstacle that he encounters. Damn, I wonder why that sounds so familiar…? But I digress… A few days ago, I received word that my father had been brought to the hospital by ambulance because he was having difficulty breathing. While not entirely unusual, a couple of days later I would be updated that he’s been placed in the ICU and intubated. In true hospital style and one of the biggest frustrations with living on the other side of the country, is that I don’t have immediate access to people and it’s far easier for them to decline to provide information over the phone than in person. So this morning, I’m casually sitting in the Regina Airport awaiting a long day’s flight to make my way back to New Brunswick, once again NOT for vacation or pleasure but to take care of family matters.

It stands to reason that with a couple of hours to kill, I’m going to write a post. Why not, right? I always make a point of getting to the airport a couple of hours ahead of boarding. Over the years, I’ve come to accept the necessity of this, even it poses some inconvenience. Traveling as a Type-1 Diabetic can have its share of challenges. Considering I travel with various liquids, medications and needles, there always the potential for issues through checkpoints. Given that I wear an insulin pump, I avoid going through scanning devices, since depending on the type of device, it can damage the pump and/or render the insulin inert. Neither one is a good scenario.I forget what the reasoning is behind this, but I’ve been warned on multiple occasions to simply avoid it so that there would be no issues.

My alarm woke me at 2 am, which could be manageable if I hadn’t of fallen asleep at 9:30 and woken every hour on the hour to use the washroom and stress about the trip. When I finally struck REM sleep shortly past midnight, the 2 am wake up call was NOT welcome. My scheduled cab showed up on time and without delay. My driver was intuitive enough to read my tone and recognized that it was too early for banter and chit chat. While I usually don’t mind a bit of conversation to pass the time during a drive, my pre-caffeinated soul had little room for it this morning. I hit the airport, got my boarding passes and made my way up to security. I decided to go a bit different this time around. I managed to fit several days’ clothes, insulin and pump supplies and my iPad into a military-style backpack I had recently purchased. By virtue of this, I will be traveling for four days with only one carry on and no baggage. One last stress to contend with.

My security bypass search was efficient and the man with the rubber gloves was surprisingly gentle. All kidding aside, I used to feel bad about pilling one of the security staff off their post for a pat down but I’ve come to learn that this is simply one of the pieces of being Diabetic. As it always does, it adds a layer of complication to an otherwise common and simple thing. Now, as I sit in a lobby, slowly becoming surrounded by strangers, I can’t help but wonder what I’ll be walking into when I get home. Home. Strange term for me now. Is Dalhousie, New Brunswick truly still my home? This will be the first time I travel out where my mother no longer has hearth and home to receive me. I’ll be completely on my own. Visiting the area like some tourist. As my father is likely to be unconscious from the intubation, I likely won’t be able to communicate with him. The important part will be speaking with his doctor to determine what’s actually happening and exactly how long this trip will end up being.

A strange thing, life. We go through our childhood never contemplating death and adulthood. It’s one of the things that makes childhood the best part of one’s life. Unless you spent most of it being sick like my brother and I did. But as an adult, I’ve come to make my peace with the fact that I’m in a nexus of sorts. I’m at the point in my existence where life is beginning to take away at LEAST as much as it gives. There may still be plenty of good things coming in life. One must remain optimistic. But there are certainly some big losses coming. Such is life. That final chapter comes to us all. Food for thought… I’ll be writing and updating in the days to come so stay tunes. ☯️