Next year we will celebrate and honour Dad, but this year is too hard. Miss you so much, Dad, dancing and playing Irish Rovers, and enjoying pizza, green Strongbow and creme de menthe pie and ice cream. We’d always finish off with an appropriate Irish DVD Dad had queued up. 💚
Dad’s signature dessert above, creme de menthe and vanilla ice cream
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
Music. Many friends and family over the years were invited to choose a song, and join in at Dad’s side, by Dad’s music stand. He had several guitars and a steadfast drum machine providing the perfect rhythm and heartbeat to any song. You were invited to play on whatever instrument you had, or sing, or even shake a tambourine or egg maraca for the less skilled and self assured.
Dad was a performer, but also much more than that. He had that burning energy of creation deep within and he knew how the shared ritual of bringing together music, time, space, and those you love could create a transcendent experience of the sublime. For a man who held a life long passion of the written word, he held an equal passion for this alternate form of expression.
Below, I join Dad for a singalong in the makeshift basement studio a couple of years ago.
The music stand had originally been purchased for me in junior high during my foray into learning to play the French horn, and was later used as I sought to master the flute in high school. As life took me away from the flute, Dad repurposed it as his music stand. It travelled to many a gig, and had its home in his music studio space.
He had provided me with a guitar and encouraged me to play over the years. My sensitive fingertips could never get past the breaking in stage despite best intentions. He passed along a tuner to tune my guitar, and tuned it as recently as a year ago. Although I still love my guitar, I’ve never gotten past a very rudimentary level due to the pain barrier. Regardless, I would join in with Dad to sing, to play, in whatever way I could, along side him over the years.
Then came July 29. The Breaking. The day the music, my music died. I haven’t been able to listen to songs since. Slowly, with healing, I was able to listen to ambient and jazz, but I’ve not progressed past this yet. My soul is not joyful enough to listen to and embrace music yet….
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
This birthday was a deeply painful one, my first without Dad. Amidst the darkness and mourning I was blessed with a gift of the beautiful Roosebeck Heather harp. The harp is just the perfect size, serious enough to be able to play different keys with levers, but much less formal than concert harps. The name was simply calling to me, it seemed like too good of a sign to be true.
Being gifted now with this beautiful instrument during these darkest of winter days and the darkest nights of my soul made me realize the powerful transformative opportunity before me. Perhaps music would help me in my healing journey…
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
I found the tuner Dad had given me and tuned the harp. I had the exercise books to start, but I was missing… a stand. And so over 30 years after Dad had taken it over, I lovingly took the stand that had given Dad so much joy over the years to my home, and set it up.
Below, my harp beside the music stand and red tuner. My rescue rabbit Skye sniffs the new curiosity.
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
The vibrations of the strings fill the room. They are strong but gentle with my tender heart. Slowly I’m learning to play. The past year I have very much felt the mercy of fate. I’ve been cast off my moorings and been adrift on an endless sea. The series of events leading to the breaking was such a catastrophic series of failings and misfortunes. My broken heart still cries every day. But I am trying to reconnect with that infinite love. I know Dad would be proud of me learning a new instrument. He would no question excitedly suggest a song or two in his catalogue we could try to play together. I hope somehow, he can hear my tenuous notes as I pluck each string. I play every note with love, with love for him.
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
The quotes interspersing my writings in this post is from Leonard Cohen’s prayer-song If It Be Your Will. Dad and I shared a love of Leonard Cohen’s poetry and songs, and he took me with Mom to a magical concert long ago. Two backup singers – the Webb sisters, otherwise known as “Cohen’s angels” – took centre stage, one with guitar, one with harp, to perform this song and leaving the audience breathless and enchanted. A magical evening ending with each lady receiving a red rose from Cohen.
And to draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
I realized yesterday, as I was playing the harp, just what I needed to do. It was one of those moments where the forest growth parts a la Enchanted Beauty, and a path opens before you.
Above, harp music for If It Be Your Will
Although the song is a reach beyond my beginner harp skills, along with my weekly etudes, I will slowly, methodically begin to learn the song, measure by measure. And so my journey of healing and trying to transform my pain and anguish to meaning continues.
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
And end this night
If it be your will
(Leonard Cohen, If It Be Your Will)
Oh, to end this night…
Webb sister’s haunting performance of If It Be Your Will, with introduction by Leonard Cohen, is here: https://youtu.be/O_XcMAGZjuY?si=dj1Jyl_d54XaYEL7
Relentlessly tumbling over and over in my mind’s ears today as the sorrow of the heart seems extra heavy- a snippet from one of Dad’s favourite songs on Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints album..
There may come a time
When I will lose you
Lose you as I lose my sight
Days falling backward into velvet night
The open palm of desire
The rose of Jericho
Soil as soft as summer
The strength to let you go
Today Mom shared with me she unexpectedly found a note a couple of days ago (Valentine’s Day) from Dad in my old bedroom at the house, a room she has been in and out hundreds of times since August.
Suddenly he was in the room. It was my Dad’s voice, reaching out——
Although Mom doesn’t remember when Dad had originally left the Post-It for her (!), she suspects it was a day where they were both busy on projects, and he would have left the note for a smile. Kenk was one of Dad’s pet names for my Mom – a version of Karen her sister was unable to pronounce when very young. The sound of R trips up many a youngster, as I discovered when working with Speech and Language Pathologists for my 4-5 year old kindergarten students. In the spirit of Kenk, Dad would similarly use “Dick”, an odd version of Richard, for a laugh (or, on a Christmas present or two, “Denk”).
As many who knew Dad well may know, Post-It Notes were a tool for brainstorming, planning, organizing thoughts, and communicating. That the note was on a Post-It makes the note even more endearing and so typically Dad…
The timing of Mom’s discovery of this note, too, was truly remarkable.
In confession between you and I, I had begged Dad for a sign on my birthday on Valentine’s Day. A feather? A song? Something, anything, just to feel his love, to be reassured his presence was still here with us. Little did I know, as Mom was only able to share with me today (February 16), that he had indeed left a message.
Valentine’s Day, 2023. Mom and Dad and heart-shaped pizza, a tradition.
Above, a car that slid off into a field has been towed to a windrow, but the tow appears to have snapped. A car coming toward me that had blindly entered my lane is crossing back over to get around the accident. Feb 4, 2025 10:15 AM.
We are several days into bitterly cold temps, with windchills approaching -40C/F. Salt does not melt the snow. The snow on the roads is compacted into a glacial hard substance further polished to glare ice by exhaust and rejects the well-intentioned attempts of sanding trucks at corners. Cars are on life support, kept together with gasline antifreeze and block heaters – forgetting to plug in your car overnight can be the kiss of death. Some cars die at intersections when the lights turn green; others simply freeze up en route and sit abandoned on the side of the road, emergency lights long since burned out in 3+ day wait times for a tow.
I am reminded of a poem Dad would often quote during deep freezes:
Canadian January Night
-Alden Nowlan
Ice storm; the hill
pyramid of black crystal
down which the cars
slide like phosphorescent beetles
while I, walking backwards in obedience
to the wind, am possessed
of the fearful knowledge
my compatriots share
but almost never utter:
this is a country
where a man can die
simply from being
caught outside.
“A man can die/simply from being/caught outside”. That’s the crux of it, isn’t it. Nature itself forces you to confront your own imminent mortality, reminding you you’re not in control.
Dad was keenly aware of man’s limitations vs nature. Despite humankind’s ceaseless attempts to dominate the landscape, we remain remarkably fragile beings, reliant on just the right conditions – including gravity, temperature, and pressure – to survive. Cold snaps and hostile environmental conditions tend to crystallize this awareness.
Energy brownouts and threats of blackouts in the province a year ago exacted terror. Loss of power and heat can easily end in frostbite, or even worse, death, at these temperatures. For many houseless, every night is a struggle with the elements to stay alive. A hobo friend of mine nearly died in a fire from a heater in a tent trying desperately to stay warm. An unhoused individual a few days ago in Edmonton wasn’t nearly as lucky.
My heart always breaks for the wildlife facing bitterly cold nights. In -35 even birds who don’t get along will sit side by side on the food tray, fluffed up and huddling together to take in the day’s necessary nutrients. Mom continues to feed Dad’s birds and squirrels, and I leave small offerings for the magically silent, white hares who visit my front lawn under the cold moon’s light.
Below, Dad feeds the birds and squirrel in robe on a winter morning in 2014
Dad was very intentional with the importance of staying safe and warm during cold snaps. He’d equip me with extension cords to plug my car in at work, and, before the advent of light up extension cords, a light to plug in to ensure power was flowing to the plug. I remember the silence in the darkness of the prairies at my rural school, being the first one to arrive in the morning, plugging in my heater, waiting for the telltale hiss of the heater kicking in, and then breathing a sigh of relief.
Heating blankets and pads, warm layers, heated plug in seats, and portable heaters would be gifted back and forth. During the beginning of this cold snap I could hear Dad asking if I’d checked the tire pressure in the car lately, and if I had enough gasline antifreeze. (Speaking of car advice, I dutifully throw the car into neutral at corners- this trick of his that has saved my hide more than a few times, including at an icy intersection just this morning!)
One poem Dad would read me often as a young child was Robert W. Service’s 1907 poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. The poem featured a man who followed the gold rush from Tennessee up to the Yukon, but was perpetually cold. Eventually he succumbed to hypothermia, but prior to passing, his last request was to be cremated so he could be warm again at last. The poem is from Robert W. Service’s book Songs of a Sourdough.
On a very strange but slightly related tangent, a few years ago I obtained 1898 sourdough starter from the gold rush from Yukon (125+ years old – https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-sourdough-gold-rush-dna-1.5289030), and Dad thoroughly enjoyed a slice of bread from a still-warm loaf.
Here’s another tangent – below is a little excerpt of one of Dad’s posts mentioning the poem (January 17, 2020), and the connection to his own “Connections” series:
“The Cremation of Sam McGee” perfectly describes how bone-chilling cold it gets up here, and how difficult it can be to warm back up once you’ve been out in the elements.
Dad knew the importance of intentionally heating up from within – with warm tea, coffee, and hot chocolate and with warm soups and hearty meals. Sometimes he’d serve Baileys Irish Cream after dinner, and sometimes after coming in from the cold after travelling over he’d greet you with Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry to warm up (below pic).
Along with the bitter cold, ice, mountains of snow, windchills, and dryness battles fought with creams and humidifiers, there is another just as pervasive hurdle in overcoming winter living this far north. The days are short, the darkness is long, and can bring along symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Depression, lethargy, loneliness and isolation easily settles in. Although most of us live in urban areas, the desolate isolation felt during winter in the prairies – portrayed so well in Sinclair Ross’ short story “The Painted Door” – is still entirely relatable. We become prisoners of our homes in this weather, our isolation punctuated by brief treks out on treacherous, wagon-trail like roads.
Below, the ice wagon trails of roads with windrows on the twice daily trek to Mom’s
It can be a struggle to stay vital during the winter months – motivated, active, healthy, and engaged. Dad spoke to this in his Dec 2015 post (originally published in Dec 2013). As usual, he says it best, and I quote directly here:
“Always at this time of year, at the most frigid of times, I resort to imagination and healthful viewing to warm the cockles of mind, heart and soul. It is as simple as putting on my Visions of Italy, Sicily, and Greece DVDs. And there it all is–all that any frozen human could ever want–the regions of the beginnings of Western civilization in their warm sunny splendor gloriously from the air! The quaint red-roofed towns, the grey rocky coasts that spill into the sea, the warm sun-baked lands with vineyards, the deserted but often intact ruins and castles and churches, the green trees springing up from the sun-baked streets, the dark blue or green waters and the pale or brilliant blue skies.
The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that the main essence/raison d’etre remains consciousness, (especially that fostered and developed by imagination), the raising of spirits as simple as some will, some consciousness of what is most needed, and then the application of whatever resources. If this means spending $$$ for whatever, it hardly/never matters to me. One must finally minister to one’s self and be responsible for whatever attitudes, soul-moods, and freedom one wishes to have. Will logically follows (‘A man can do all things if he will.”–Alberti), then the availability and application of whatever resources, taking/making the time for such, and exercising those soul-nurturing choices.
-30 windchill Edmonton no longer exists for me as I now go outdoors today. Only Sicily–the inner warmth of that state of soul, that so-civilized climate, that sunny warm disposition and sensibility. It all begins with imagination and the conscious individual.“ (Richard Davies)
As I take Dad’s words to heart and face a -37C windchill again tonight, I am reminded of his last written post-it note, handed to me the morning of his surgery:
Dad is right. When you distill life right down to its essence, it really is about staying warm, staying vital, both outside and in – in body, heart, and mind. I am trying my best to keep warm, feeling my love for him and his love for me and holding close the wisdom he shared with me over many decades. Each day I try to survive a winter much colder than the one outside – the winter of grief and unfathomable loss within my soul. He’s given me a map of the way and he’s given me the tools, but I’m still fumbling quite a bit trying to pull it together and but am continuing to try to forge ahead.
It all went well
till I got to the end
of Thompson Drive
which ran out of houses
at the edge of the prairie.
518 was next on the list
but Thompson proper
ended in the 400s.
In -30 I trudged aimlessly
back and forth on Ness
pondering the glitch:
a customer without
an actual house.
Some 15 minutes later
I noticed a black spot
150 yards away
across the barren field.
Could that, irrationally,
be it? It was north
of the 400s after all.
The Arctic wind blew–
unforgiving from the north,
lifting snow to sting and freeze
my unscarfed face,
but I got there.
The iron numbers frostily
on the house: 518.
And was welcomed by
a bent, suspendered man
with thick green glasses:
Mr. Steele. Francis or Frank
as his wife called him.
She was Dorothy or Dot
in that last year before
the old guy’s death.
They insisted I step in
and sat me by the window
with a hot drink
looking back at civilization.
They were grateful
I had come bringing
news of the world
(albeit late).
The “new carrier”.
I sat and listened to them
quietly argue for 20 minutes
till my feet had thawed.
The old man was nice
and congenial.
She did what he told her to,
but I wouldn’t have trusted
her edges for a minute.
Another strange beginning
that winter of yore,
being taken in abruptly
to their so-isolated life.
I wondered after
how they survived,
and plodding back,
I realized why
the last carrier
had quit the route
after Christmas tips.
-Richard Davies
with every paper I delivered.
Bad news on the doorstep.
I couldn’t take one more step.”
–Don McLean (“American Pie”)
Dad originally posted this February 1, 2021 on a cold February morning. Feeling this deeply today…
…I’m just putting this out there so I can refer back to this post someday.. .. it will come out eventually that Trump used a Milania double during his presidency. I first noted this last term and as of this morning’s interview the sheister is using her again. Not sure if it says more about him or the people who follow him…
Above, a screenshot from this morning’s interview. An imposter stands beside him- this is not Milania, but he’s banking on you thinking it is.
Democracy to our south has washed away like a sandcastle in the rising tide. It is too late to to stop the erosion now. The rule of law and court system is now meaningless; amendments to the constitution itself can be arbitrarily signed away by a single hand of an autocratic ruler. The United States is no longer a democracy.
Money, power, and foreign influence have converged behind a demagogue who effectively harnesses plebiscite rage and distracts a la bread and circuses while the real agendas roll out. Unelected billionaires strut through the people’s halls defining policy. Was it really that easy? Just keep tossing out the sacrificial red (scapegoat) meat, rinse, and repeat. No need for a successful coup (and besides, you can simply pardon those who try that more taxing route); the system has rotted from within.
This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. – T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
