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.
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.
…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
Before Christmas, all three of our individual Christmas trees fell apart in unique ways. For my brother and I the lights simply failed; the other family tree was slowly disintegrating and is nearing the rubicon of being unusable. It seemed fitting since all traditions were wrong, awry, and quite broken.
In our family, lights burning out have often either heralded death or occurred relentlessly afterwards. The extreme case was my Grandfather’s passing, that is for another post, perhaps.
Right before Christmas, a light in the ensuite Mom and I use burned out. The symbolism did not escape my notice or heart; I chose not to replace it for the duration of the holidays. A light is indeed out; a family of four reduced to three.
