In our 20's Doris and Me

Today is my younger sister's birthday. When I speak with her the first thing she says when I ask how she is, is 'not good'. She's been saying that for many years. Up until eight months ago when her husband died, he looked after every aspect of her life. For the past five years she rarely ventured out of their house. She had a litany of physical problems, from compromised lungs, pain in her legs and back, and a memory that did not serve her well. Our mother had died of complications of frontal lobe dementia, at age 84. My sister ministered to her at a time when she recognized no one else, even her own sister who was housed in the same elder-care institution.

Now my sister is in the very same predicament; a widow, physically and mentally incapacitated, diagnosed with Alzheimers, housed in an institution where amenities for the elderly as well as medical care is available around the clock. Her three children and a grandchild visit when they can, but it is our younger brother, whose hermit personality makes him alienated from society, who visits her the most often. I called to wish her happy 85, and we spoke for a while, but the energy toll that takes is too much of an exertion for her and when she began that deep, moist coughing, we ended our conversation. 

Beyond sobering, a sure-fire way to dampen one's enthusiasm for anything. Granted, a temporary condition for us. My own birthday is four days after my sister's when I 'turn' 89. I have no complaints other than those mostly transitory aches and pains that afflict most people my age. When I wake in the morning and rouse out of bed, it's the physical low point of the day. Once I get moving and involved with everything, those aches and pains leave the premises. My zest for housekeeping, cooking and baking keeps me engrossed in doing both. Since Irving enjoys rice dishes so much, when I prepare a fish meal for dinner, I often do my own version of Paella; colourful and exuberantly zesty with saffron and hot smoked paprika.

Yesterday I baked a maraschino cherry/cream cheese bundt-type cake for dessert. I've turned to baking cakes more frequently lately, leaving behind summer fruit pies and other, lighter pastries for the nonce. Many years ago there was a chocolate maraschino cherry cake I used to bake that was a favourite with our family; this was kind of a take-off of that cake. I really enjoy experimenting with a variety of flavours and ingredients, melding them and savouring the results. Somewhat, I suspect, like a chemist in a laboratory. For me, it's a challenge and enjoyable.

This is turning out to be quite a cold winter; unexpected after the relatively mild fall we'd enjoyed. Even though we've also had intermittent mild spells with rain to wash away much of the winter snowpack that has been building up in the ravine. When we went out for our afternoon hike through the ravine yesterday, the forest trails were well packed with snow from last week's snowstorm, plus the occasional snow events that followed. And it was cold, at -14C, with wind sweeping the snow about, under partially sunny skies.

We still occasionally come across other community hikers who note our missing puppy and ask about her. Irving usually does the explaining, it's just so painful I find myself helpless to stop weeping whenever I think of Jillie's departure from life. Just too sudden and unexpected, leaving us helpless and in grief. Jackie still hasn't fully recovered and possibly never will. He was always sensitive to our going out without them, both of them were particularly prone to separation anxiety, but that has now intensified for Jackie given the circumstances, and so we don't. We haven't left him  on his own for a month and a half. 

When we're out on the forest trails, he now does all the barking that Jillie used to do. There are other behavioral traits of hers that he now assumes as well, oddly enough. He's as curious as always about the outside world of the forest; his intense enjoyment is obvious. His relationship with other dogs is as remote as always. As siblings Jackie and Jillie knew only one another; playmates and confidantes sharing life. Despite that we tried to socialize them early in their puppyhood through contact with other dogs, nothing seemed to work; they remained standoffish. Their interest in other dogs was always problematic; they simply had no interest in socializing, though they did on occasion evince some shallow level of curiosity that was never sustained.

We had some more snow fall overnight. The winds were so high they swept the snow everywhere. In the morning we shovelled out backyard pathways for Jackie. On the newfallen snow we could see rabbit tracks everywhere. When he goes out to the backyard, Jackie follows the tracks, sniffing energetically. Some of them end under the big garden shed. I haven't put any food out in the backyard, depending on the rabbits to come around to the side door or the porch for the carrots and peanuts and peanut-buttered bread squares we put out for our neighbouring wildlife. Occasionally we're lucky enough to see one of them on the porch.

The crows are far more evident, as are black squirrels; we don't see many red or grey squirrels about as we used to. The juncos, cardinals and chickadees come scrounging about as well. Whatever we put out is not left for very long, which explains why we rarely see raccoons on the porch this winter since Irving stopped putting out kibbles.

Today's hike through the ravine saw us out a little longer. It was cold at -6C this afternoon but nowhere near as icy as yesterday. Ice is just beginning to form at the edges of the creek. Already at 3:30 p.m. dusk has entered and in another hour the darkness of the short winter days would make sightlines difficult if it were not for the generous coverlet of snow over the landscape.

 

As far as weather this November of 2022 is concerned up to the present our cup runneth over. We've had a much-appreciated spate of warm days, and ample sun, just what we don't normally expect from the penultimate month of the year. And today was no different. It dawned mild and continued that way. But since the forecast was for early afternoon rain, we decided we'd take our puppies out for their usual afternoon walk a little earlier than usual.

Before that happened, however, we tuned in to the annual Remembrance Day ceremonies. A ritual of sadness but one that ensures that the memory of those who fought and died -- against an ideology whose issues run counter to all that civilized nations value; peace, security and rule of law leading to equal justice for all -- would be  gratefully remembered. 

The ceremonial military acknowledgements married to the civilian version of remembrance held in quiet review of another year gone by in an 80-year history of the last global war that wasted too many lives. The ceremonial focus on the military role in its critical mission to free humanity from the talons of fascist Germany and its Axis partners. The deaths and disablement of countless numbers of military personnel to be grieved in a public gesture of memory renewed.

Countless other deaths of civilians, men, women, children, the elderly who died as 'collateral' damage unspeakably awful in its wide sweep of indigestible numbers. And finally, the unthinkable reality of a war within a war that led to the carefully orchestrated murders of millions of Nazi victims considered society's outcasts in Nazi ideology. To focus on the dreadful plight of Europe's Jews alone, illustrates the epitome of human depravity. We mourn them all, each and every one. And mourn more deeply that the world in turmoil made no effort to 'notice' the genocide by a stratagem that would lessen the number of its victims. A stratagem as simple as welcoming Jewish refugees from the slaughterhouse of Europe into the lands of the free world.

We who now populate the world barely recall the grimness of those war years; those alive at that time are becoming more scarce among the living. But the veterans and the civilians who were young in 1939 to 1945 live with their dim and distant memories. We ourselves recall a post-war influx of refugees. And recall the war years as well when rumours of gas chambers and giant ovens were validated in hushed, shocked tones.

Humanity is adept at surfacing through the murky depths of disasters we ourselves produce. We are resilient and live in hope for the future. The future we live in now as the present sees dreadful regional wars taking their toll now just as they did then. Now and again there are attempted genocides but none quite so successful as the Holocaust proved to be.

We, in the present era, can leave the distemper of the past behind as we pursue daily lives of peace and tranquility even while there is an awareness of the deep dysfunction within the global community of humanity.We acknowledge the haven of life in wealthy and peaceful countries where we can, while deploring bloodshed elsewhere, take our own lives to the level of deep satisfaction in the pleasure of existence.

For us, it is the simple pleasures, the fact that we can do as we please in a free and equal society. For us, the simple pleasures revolve around comfort and plenty; there is nothing we lack to enhance our lives. Danger always lurks, whether it is the threat of racism raising its voice, random violence in the streets committed by the psychopaths around us, or nature imposing a pathogenic pestilence to alert us to the preciousness of life.