On Birthdays, Life Choices and the Sacrifices of Being a Mom - For Shawna

On special days, like birthdays and Mother's day and during graduation or award speeches you will hear lots and lots about how much people love their Moms. 

And that, of course, is true. 

But, is loving your Mom so special, so different? I love my Mom and my Dad and my spouse and my kids and my kitties and my house and my Nintendo Switch and the beer I'm drinking now. 

So, are Moms really different? 

Yes. 

Moms are different. 

I'm sorry if you didn't have this experience. Moms, of course, can be awful and a pain in the ass and terrible and abusive and neglectful and all of those other things that people in positions of power can be. 

However, at their best, they are the absolute centre of your universe. 

Maybe, at their worst they are too. 

There is a fiction that exists in our popular imagination that Motherhood is easy, or it is always rewarding. As someone who has watched a Mom raise three kids I assure you it is a fucking sleep-deprived, chaotic shit-show most of the time. 

And, it was that way before you were even born. 

Kids are a menace to the body and minds of their mothers. They are parasites, first biologically, and then emotionally and socially. They carve out space in someone's uterus and then detonate a space in their personal lives.

Kids are an absolute nightmare. 

But, like most nightmares, kids are an extraordinary gift over time. They make you face your own reality and the person you wanted to be. Kids are a fuck you to dreams and you can only surface from the nightmare if you cling to the here and now. 

Kids are a test of your presence. 

If you are wrapped up in aspiration the realities of motherhood will swamp you. Most of us, and especially most Moms, are swimming too hard against the tide of aspiration without realizing we need to be floated by the vest of inspiration. Put simply: aspiration is what you want the world to be; inspiration happens when you take comfort from what the world actually is, and can be. 

I don't know if that makes sense, but it's late and I'm tired and a little tipsy. 

Like everything about Motherhood, this is a tricky lesson. It's tricky for Dad's too. But, our burdens tend to be different. We have society on our side and more tangible markers of success, whereas Moms get forgotten in the day to day grind of adulthood. This is true for even the most successful working Moms. Their successes aren't seen as a fulfillment of their life's goals and their true purpose. That is stupid and wrapped in Patriarchal fuckery and yet doesn't change how many Moms feel and how the world feels about them. It's totally unfair and there isn't consistent recognition of the sacrifice a Mom makes for her family. But there is a reason grown men call for their Mommy when they are scared. 

Mom is always home. Dad and our siblings and our Grandparents can be part of home. But Mom is usually the centre of that symbolic place of comfort and love. This isn't more or less complicated than when they were the person who was always there. They picked you up and kissed your boo boo. They cuddled you to sleep when you had a bad dream. They fed you when you were hungriest and calmed you when you were angriest. They were always the one who was around - it isn't some kind of magic. 

Except that it is. It is the mundane magic that we overlook for the world of hero's journeys and fairy tales and super heroes. Moms are real world magicians. They are like our Gandalf and we are their hobbits. We are in awe of them as much as they are in awe of us. But, they are ahead of us in the journey as well. And, that is a difficult lesson. 

In some traditions, they would call you Sensei, or "One who has gone before". 

But all of us, whether child or spouse, know you as Mama. And we are all, equally, in awe. 

So, thank you love. Thank you Shawna, for being the Mom to our minions and living with the consequences of that bomb in your life. I know the shock was devastating and the shrapnel lingers and I'm torturing a dumb metaphor too much. 

But, seriously, thank you for our family and opening the world to a love I didn't understand or imagine I could have or give or even deserve. 

It doesn't, and shouldn't, define all that you are. But, as Hector likes to say; "You're a good Mom". 

So, Happy Birthday Love. I hope this year is more gift than nightmare, more inspiration than aspiration and more fulfillment than sacrifice. 

And, if that isn't happening you can rest assured Hector will simply say, "Try to be a better Mom, okay".

The Puzzle of Missing Pieces (for Papa Sid)

Papa Sid loved puzzles, like the young Sidney Dixon loved trouble. 

Was Sid trying to understand the puzzle of his own existence? Were puzzles a simple metaphor for a life misunderstood and misplaced and misspent? 

Sid was a great Papa, and a decent Dad and an uneven Husband and Lover, and a Great and misunderstood Son. Sidney was an unending project and a possibility of greatness and sadness and the unexpected joy and hatred of the past wrapped in a sensitive layer of smiles and smirks and grumpy displays of anger. 

Sid was a puzzle. 

We would spend hours putting him together and revealing stories at the end. 

This is an analogy of life.

Each memory is a suggestion of what the puzzle might be.

Our brains are tricking us into seeking calm in the chaos and entropy of the past? 

Sidney was always a child seeking his own comfort and love. 

Sid was a great Papa, and a very good Father-in-Law, and an exceptional neighbour. Sid wasn't a finished project, but he had realized the importance of joy and acceptance and the unconditional love of his family. 

Sid loved his grandkids. He loved Sean and Lynae and Andrea and Nick and Noodle and his namesake Sidney and his buddy Hec-a-loo. 

Sid was also a puzzle - hours together didn't reveal the whole of his story. 

This is life. 

Each remembrance is a suggestion of what we wanted things to be?

Our brains are constructing the puzzles to our past?

I think Sidney Dixon was always seeking the centre of his story. But the corners of his puzzle were too vague. He wanted to find the centre of a world scattered and chaotic. And when it finally came he was too proud to be a perfect husband, too old and scared to be a perfect Dad, and just scarred enough to be a perfect Papa. 

We miss you Papa Sid. You are always the empty chair at our feasts, the empty smile in our warm hearts and the multi-sided missing piece of love we all cherish and cling to forever. 

Your piece has faded from the picture, but our lives only make sense and our futures are only possible because of the place you will always hold in the puzzle of our lives. 

Thank you Richard

I'd normally write this when someone has died, and I can hide from feelings in the moment when the focus shines on others than me, but Richard deserves his flowers now. 

I was afraid this was coming, but hoped Richard was recovering and would be back in the department as soon as he was able. Obviously, there are no magic words to make this okay and make us feel better about losing a colleague and, too soon I fear, a friend. And, I hope I am wrong. I hope Richard will recover and be back to challenge the status quo again. 

I don't know Richard well, but I think of him often. 

There are people you meet and interact with thousands of times and they quickly fade into the background of a thousand other interactions. And there are those you meet a handful of times and you hold each of those meetings close and reflect upon them fondly and often. 

Richards is definitely the latter for me. He always seems solid, stable, certain, passionate and deep. There isn't the wasted energy to force a connection or contrive a sense of belonging. He knows who he is, and he is comfortable in that space. He made me feel comfortable too - and I'm rarely that comfortable around people, especially people I don't know that well. To borrow a cliche - "Still waters run deep". 

All I can I say is: "Fuck". 

I think everyone in the department is of an age that we've stared down the ending of this book - either personally or with loved ones. I think we would all want to know we mattered to the ones who love us and our life's work mattered as well. 

Richard Fredericks' deserves his flowers. He deserves more, but I can't acquire those things. Richard, right now and forever, will be someone I hold close to my memories of VIU. Despite our few interactions he feels like a cornerstone. He is someone who could have offered so much more, but life and circumstance curtailed his gifts. I think a lot of us feel that. We would like to focus more on the work and the students, but our lives and circumstances scatter our demands. 

But Richard, like so many of us, still gave as much as he could. He gave all he could without bending or breaking. I know, right now, there is a student who is influenced in their ways of being, their thoughts and their actions because of Richard. 

Richard deserves his flowers now. 

Thank you.  

And, Fucking fuck. 

Thanks for sharing yourself and your gifts, Richard.