I, try

I live in-between regret.

I love in-between rejection.

I learn in-between remorse. 

My Boys

My boys just turned seven. 

I'm slightly cautious calling them my boys, for two reasons. One, I don't know where they will fall on the spectrum of gender - especially in a world once again open to possibilities the modern world tried to suppress. Two, I don't own them. They are not 'mine'. 

But I don't know what else to say. 

Like everyone else, I'm trapped by social conditioning and expectations. Plus, more than a little of me wants things to be easy. I mean no disrespect. I know I shouldn't wallow in all my privileges. But life is difficult for everyone - even a straight, cis-gendered white man like me has been kicked around by existence. It would be easier if my boys were boys. It would be easier if they were straight. I don't mean better, and I wish the world was not the way it is. 

I don't know what else to say, except it won't matter to me. 

I love Sid and Hector with all my heart. I wake up thinking about their happiness and I go to bed hoping they are happy. I know I fuck this up during the day, but tomorrow I will try again. 

I love my family more than I can reasonably express. And, that means, they cause me the most stress, anxiety and discomfort I can experience. The equation of love plus connection times years together does not equal a commensurable state with what I wanted from life. The equation is hard to balance. The math on life is uncomfortable. 

Life is hard to figure out. 

I need to express everything I am and wanted to be, without letting the failures weigh down on my boys. I need my failures to be lessons and not obstacles. I want obstacles to be of their own making and their own desires. This, like all balances, is hard to exclaim. 

Balance is the enemy of growth, which means it is the enemy of understanding. I want my boys to grow and to understand. This means life is is a constant back and forth, a to and fro, and fuck you and fuck me. 

Life is hard to navigate. 

I think travel is a better metaphor than math, I'm not reaching the end of an equation, I am turning towards the truth. It is a truth that isn't static, or a truth that isn't absolute. But, it is singular, even for my twins. 

Hector's truth is his own

Sid's truth is his own. 

The truth of each of them means something for the truth of both of them as well. 

Life is hard to realize. It all makes sense for moments, and then doesn't make sense at all.

Perhaps a more concrete example makes sense of this all. Every night my kids go to bed together. Sometimes they are awake and playful and silly. They wrestle and tickle and make the ordeal go on and on and on. Sometimes one of them is exhausted and wants nothing to do with anyone else. They cry and kick and scream to be left alone .On rare occasions they all collapse as one. They cuddle with Mom and Dad and each other and fall into peaceful rest. 

There is only one thing that each of these nights has in common. When Mom and Dad go to check on them after an hour or more they are always together. They may be on top of each other like a pile of puppies, or cuddled like dolls. But, they always reach each other. 

They always find one another in the dark. 

This is the most important gift we can give them. One day Grandma and Papa will be gone. One day Mom and Dad will be gone. One day, everyone they love will be gone. I need to lay the foundations for their experience that makes this fact never quite true. I need to be with them always, just like their Mom will. 

I don't give two fucks about the pronouns they choose. I don't care about sexuality and gender, except in the most selfish way I want things to be simple. I want their paths to be flat and easy to navigate. If they aren't, I will be with them until I can't be with them anymore. 

And, if I've done my job right, I'll be there still. 

I love you Sid. I love you Hector. You are the centre of my whole world and I hope I will always be yours. 

Love, Dad. 

The Tale of Joan Gerow

This is a misleading title. 

I don't really know the tale of Joan Gerow, despite being her grandson. 

My Grandma is a mystery. She is a family legend. Most families have these legends. And, like most families, I suspect the legend is more about misunderstanding and questions never asked. . 

In the end, I suspect she might just be a Grandma, like a thousand others out there.  

Too long have women's tales been secret and hidden. The triumphs and pains and sacrifices of women's lives have been the norm. 

My Grandma fits that pattern. 

Joan (Shermer) Gerow was born outside London, England and became a young woman in the thirties in one of the most cosmopolitan of places. I suspect she saw more and experienced more than she ever let us know. I only saw glimpses of this when I was older and it surprised my younger self. A lot of things surprised my younger self, but nothing shocked me more than women labelled Mom or Grandma or Sister being for more than I imagined or was allowed to understand. 

My Grandma grew up near London in a time of prosperity and cosmopolitan adventure. I wish I had some idea of who she was back then. But, like so many, the war changed her memories forever.  

My Grandma became a part of WWII. I can't say exactly what she became, except she said she was in "communications". In my imagination she was a part of "Bletchley Park" and was a code breaker. In reality, she was likely a cog in a machine that use women as glorified secretaries and assistants. 

The truth may never be known. That is the funny thing. That is the thing we rest our family legend upon. Grandma never really told us what she did. We knew she could translate Morse code for my big sister when Jen went away to Sea Cadets many decades after the war. We knew she recognized former heads of MI5 on the cover of books when we shopped for presents during one holiday season when all her grandchildren were grown. But, we had no idea what she really did. 

Like my Grandpa, she doesn't talk about it. 

I reality, I know she wasn't a spy. I knew someone whose Mom was a spy in WWII - and until the day her Mother died the British secret service would show up and tell her what was still classified and what wasn't. 

My Grandma didn't have those experiences. My Grandma, I suspect, was one of many, many women who did what their country asked for them, without recognition and without celebration. She is another cog in the machine of the Patriarchy. 

This isn't meant to belittle her. It is, in fact, a celebration of life lived and which is still lived. 

My Grandma turned 99 this week. She is alone in a home, cut off from family and friends due to Covid-19. She is still a mystery to me. But, she is a mystery I understand a little more each year. 

My Grandma took one of a very few paths available to her, so that her children may have more. She married my Grandpa as a war bride and came to Canada to expand the possibilities she didn't have. She was still constrained by so many things I did not understand as a child. But, her choices and sacrifices have made my life possible. 

Thank you Grandma. I am sorry I didn't see it earlier. You were stoic and calm and an unwavering presence when I suspect you would have appreciated a "Thank you Grandma, I love you" even more. Or maybe your British upbringing wouldn't have allowed it.

Well, I'm not British, and my upbringing is slowly being peeled away, so I will say it now: 

Thank you Grandma. I love you.