All over emotions...

When my dad died I asked myself, and was asked by others if I thought I could continue doing what I do for a living or if it would make me mental.  I decided - 1. My experience would make me better at what I currently do, as I will now truly understand what someone is going through, and 2. My dad would be very disappointed in me if I used his death as an excuse to give up a career I still very much loved.  So I'm still here and I was right...it has made me a better person and funeral director. 

Eric pointed out to me a while ago that I was subconsciously pushing my emotions to the back of my mind during the week, and when my emotions overwhelm me it tends to happen on the weekends when I'm not at work.  I think I'm doing what I need to do to survive my work week. 

My dad is always front and centre in my mind when I'm alone.  Be it in my car, just falling asleep, anywhere when I am alone with my thoughts.  I used to dwell on stuff I had no control over or think about inane things when I had this private time, but since April 9th, he is who I think of when it's just me (and him). 

Anyway, this past couple of weeks I've been feeling lousy physically and kind of melancholy.  I had the last week of July off and the boys were with Rob so it was just Eric and I.  We had no real plans and basically just hung around the house.  I read a lot, we played Cribbage, we just chilled.  I was feeling blaise over all.  I couldn't put my finger on what it was but I suspect it was just a lousy week emotionally for me.  I had nothing major to occupy my time and thoughts, so I often found myself thinking about him.  And thinking about him makes me both want to smile and very sad at the same time. 

Eric wants me to go see my doctor about feeling physically ill, but I secretly (though not so much anymore) wonder if my physical ailments aren't a direct cause of my emotional ailments.  (Saying that out loud to anyone would make them want me to talk about my feelings though.  I don't do that so well...)  I don't 'feel' depressed though...but perhaps I've just pushed my feelings so far to the bottom that they are manifesting themselves through my physical being. I don't know. 

Four days after my dad was diagnosed, a woman walked into the funeral home to do her pre-arrangement.  She had been diagnosed with same thing my dad had earlier that morning and she too was given a grave prognosis.  She was the first person I had dealings with, at work, following the blow our family had been dealt and since she too was going through the exact same thing as my own father it was a difficult arrangement and I cried a lot after she left.  She has stuck with me in my mind.  I have spoken to her husband on a couple of occasions following our initial meeting so I have been aware of the steps she has taken and I kind of know where she's currently at in her fight with the big C.  On Friday, she randomly popped into my head and I wondered how she was making out.  I wondered how she was doing mentally, I wondered how her kids took the news, I wondered how her husband was coping.  I smiled and hoped she was doing ok as it's been 4 months since I met her and I still haven't received the call, so that's good news! 

On Saturday a co-worker texted me to tell me she died, early in the morning.  I have never in my 14 years been so affected by the death of a 'stranger'.  My physical ailments seemed to get worse...my mood remained blah.  I met her daughter on Monday at the funeral home and started crying in the hallway while I was talking to her.  I have never done that before.  Yesterday was the four month anniversary of my dad's passing.  Today I buried this woman.  I stood at her grave and I wept.  I wept for her.  I wept for her husband. I wept for her daughters.  I wept for her grandchildren.  I wept for my dad. I wept for me. 

I'm not feeling any peace right now. 

I think about this woman and the horrible things she went through physically and emotionally since I met her in April.  And I wonder...  Was my dad better off?  Was he the lucky one for only getting 12 days?  Were we lucky for not having to watch him suffer any longer than he did?  Or was she the lucky one?  Lucky because she had the time to write all of her family individual letters letting them know how important each of them was to her?  Lucky because they all got to go to Disneyworld together for one last family vacation?  Lucky because last week she got to take her grandchildren to the drive-in to see Cars 2 and the Smurfs movie?  Lucky because she suffered in pain for four extra months physically?  Lucky because she fought her mind for four months longer?  Lucky because of what the cancer did physically to her body?  

I don't know that answer. I do know this. I'm jealous and that makes me selfish.  I'm jealous her husband, daughters and grandsons each have one last letter.  I was jealous looking at their family photos from Disneyworld.  But I was grateful that my father didn't go through the physical changes that she went through.  I'm so grateful that my father looked like my father.  For my sake, but more importantly for my children's sake. 

I am a ball of emotions and today was a rough day for me.  I wasn't able to separate work life and home life today.  Today I was weak.  Today I was human.  Today I was a daughter who has lost her dad.  All over again. 

Hook, Line and Sinker!

A couple of months ago I stole a brilliant idea from my sister in law and created a summer wish list of all the things I would like to attempt to do through my favourite months of the year.  I've come to decide (after the loss of my dad) that life is FAR too short and sometimes just the simplicity of creating a list to help us stay focused on what is important is all that's needed.

I'm a Virgo.  Lists and organization is ideal to me.  It comforts me.  I'm at peace with both.  So I keep coming back to my list and smile as I cross off yet another item.  I know this is probably the last summer where I'll basically have both boys at my disposal to do things with, even if they bitch about hanging with us and not their friends. 

So as I look through my list, I'm pleased as punch with the number of items I've been privileged to state I've accomplished. One of those said items was taking my boys fishing.

Let me back that statement up to let you know that I have NEVER been fishing in my life.  Nope, never.  Back in the spring I was approached by a sales rep for a distributor we use at work and offered the opportunity to go on a fishing charter with my kids for a day.  I thought, meh, what the hell?  It's better than a kick in the ass. 

So after a failed (gratefully) attempt in June to take them we finally got out on the waters this past weekend.  The weather was perfect.  Calm with just a slight breeze, and the waters were serene.  We headed out to the middle of Lake Ontario at 6 a.m. so the sun was right where we wanted it to be.  Low.  The boys both tried to get out the trip and hurt my feelings immensely in the process but I dragged them along after Eric laid them both with guilt trips and I refused to speak to them.

We met up with Steve from Fish Trap Charters in Port Dalhousie and headed out.  Within 1/2 an hour we had pulled in our first fish of the day.  Well Roan did.  She was too little to keep so we snapped a picture and tossed her back in to be caught another day.  We were quite successful throughout the whole day.  The second fish we pulled in was reeled in by yours truly and it was a beaut.  She was a Rainbow Trout and she weighed 15 lbs once we got her in.  She fought me tooth and nail the entire time, flipping all over the place.  I thought my left arm was going to burn off from the extreme workout I was giving it and almost felt close to how I felt when I was in labour trying to push my first kid out.  I felt drained and tired and sure that I didn't have an ounce of strength left in me to finish the job.  I did though.  And I'm gonna EAT her too!!

The boys both had the opportunity to reel in a butt load of fish themselves which was great because it kept the trip enjoyable for them.  Eric, who didn't want to catch any fish got caught up in the excitement and decided he too wanted to take a crack at reeling one in.  And one he caught!  She was a fighter, she pulled almost all of his line out and was probably closer to Hamilton than the boat, but he dragged her back in kicking and screaming.  Got her all the way up to the back of the boat where Steve was waiting with the net and she snapped the lure.  Gone.  Just like that.  Steve reckoned she was over 20 lbs.  Man, that loss stung for the rest of the day.  He felt a sense of redemption when he reeled in an 18 lbs salmon towards the end of the trip.

By the time we turned to head back to dock we figure we had about 100 lbs of fish and once Steve filleted it all for us, we are pretty sure we walked away with about 50 lbs of eatable meat.  So now my freezer is full of trout and salmon.  I've given some away and likely will give away more because I don't want it to be wasted.

Anyway, it was a great 5 1/2 hours on the water with Eric and the boys and Steve was an amazing host and I would HIGHLY recommend his services to anyone who would be interested in this sort of activity.  Eric and I are thinking of going out with him again with our friends Jon and Laura sooner than later.  Jon is a fisherman and would probably get a kick out of it.

I'm so grateful to the sales rep who put me onto this idea.  I honestly would have never given this a thought otherwise and I'm so glad we got to experience it.  The boys even admitted that they had fun and enjoyed it as well!!  Double score!

Sister Sister

I'm only posting this picture because my sister has heard so many times that she looks like me in photos and I've rarely heard the same said about her.  I stumbled across this photo from PRIDE and I immediately though, "Holy shit, I look like Dawn in this picture".  So this one is for my sister.

PRIDE!!

I've decided that going forward I'm always going to make lists of things I want to do over a certain period of time.  It's quite helpful actually, I've managed to stay focused and I've been blessed and lucky enough to be able to cross off a lot of the small goals I had on my summer wish list so far. 

For many, MANY, years I've wanted to sneak away to Toronto and join the festivities of PRIDE weekend.  We have (I believe) the largest gay PRIDE festival in the entire world.  We even beat out NYC and San Fransisco.  It's a week long thing but the only day I've ever really wanted to get to was the parade.  Over a million people come out to line the streets be in gay, straight, transgender, whatever to show their support and encouragement to that community. 

I've always wanted to experience it first hand but the stars have never aligned for me.  I've either had the kids or been working on the weekend of the parade.  This is the first year that I was able to attend.  I was totally stoked.  Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I love 'the gays'.  With my whole heart!!  I just love that for the most part these are people who just want to be themselves and not care or have to care what other's think of them.  I wish every single homosexual and straight person was able to be carefree about what other's thought of them.  Too often we allow other people's opinions of us to control us or inhibit us.  I believe that everyone is equal and deserve the same rights.  Sadly this still is not the case even in 2011. 

Mayor Rob Ford's representative.

Anyway, Eric and I headed to Toronto for PRIDE.  We stayed at R & A's house Saturday night and braved Toronto transit and made our way over to "Boy's Town" to start the fesitivities.  It was hotter than hell out there.  It was crazy busy to put it mildly.  We saw every walk of life wandering the streets today.  Some dressed, some wearing only what mother nature gave them.  I have to pause to do a shout out to those folks.  They weren't walking around flaunting their nakedness and being all 'in your face' about it.  They were simply doing what the rest of us were doing, wandering around, checking out booths, eating, enjoying the day.  Except without clothes.  Props to them for having the courage to do that. I simply couldn't even if I wanted to.  I'm just too self conscious. 

We headed over to Yonge Street to watch the parade from there.  It was inspiring, and the number of people both literally and figuratively took my breath away.  It was insane.  There were people on the roof tops and hanging out of apartment windows.  There were no problems that I saw though the irony is the only two people I heard fighting at all on this day was a straight couple!  But that's the sanctity of marriage for ya!!  I even got free rainbow wrist bands and Eric got a free Gay Dating Site wife-beater.  Free stuff and an amazing source of people watching all in one day??  How can this be beat? 

Hot gay army dudes.

I was hoping to catch a glimpse of my fellow co-worker and friend Ian as he's been the Junior Leather Boy for the past year.  I suspected I'd see him in the parade at some point but I wasn't sure I'd get an opportunity to speak with him as there were so many people there and trying to pick one person out of that crowd would have been unrealistic.  Towards the end of the parade we did see him in the back of a SMART car wearing his sash and waving to the crowd.  He didn't hear me calling his name though. 

IAN!

We watched the whole parade and eventually made our way back over to Church St.  to look at the booths set up before making our way back over to R & A's for a BBQ.  I was starving and had to snag a sandwich of meat or I was just gonna DIE!!  Eric spotted his most favourite gay Star Trek captain enroute as well.  We grabbed some condoms for Gage (who really didn't appreciate our thoughtful gift!!).  And low and behold!  We actually ran head first into Ian coming off the parade route!  So yeah!!  Below are the rest of the pictures we took at PRIDE.  It was loads of fun and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to experience that kind of comradering and coming together as a community.  If you ever get the chance to go, you should.  Mark it off of your life list of things to experience at least once! 

Eric and Captain Picard (obviously gay)

Me and my meat sandwich!

Gay Soccer Club!

Me and Ian!!

Just a crazy crowd shot!

Just a Sweet Transvestite, actually Transgender, from Transilvania....

Meaty kisses

Us at PRIDE!

Cobra Clan go Camping!

Gage, Derek and Eric

The last week of school I pulled the boys out of school and we took them and one of Gage's friends Derek, camping up at Rock Point Provincial Park which is only about an hour from here.  The weather was a little too windy so the surf was rough and the water still too cool, but over all we had a good time. 

We had campfires, and beach time.  We slept in tents, in sleeping bags with NO air mattresses.  We had nocturnal visitors at night that weren't terribly welcomed.  A couple skunk visits and a couple racoon visits.  LB paid us a visit on day two to hang out for bit as well. 

Doing his most favourite thing from the whole trip!

We played cards, we hunted on the beach for drift wood firewood, we ate roasted marshmallows, hotdogs and smores, we got sunburned, we buried each other in sand, we built sand castles and a stick house complete with a full yard with furnishings, fence and pond...and we took loads of pictures!

Classy kid eating a roasted marshmallow.

However, following our camping trip, Eric's (pretty new) camera shit the bed.  He seemed to be able to upload the pictures that were still on it, but for some reason his laptop keeps crapping out when he tries to load the camping photos.  We took so many more pictures of our but only three are salvagable.  Pretty bummed about that.  I'm hoping he'll be able to save them later when he has the time and patience to work on the computer. 

Anyway, I think everyone had a good time for the most part and I'm glad we were able to sneak away for a few days to spend this time together. 

Sad Night at the Races

Took the boys with my mom to the horse races last night and a horsey dropped dead on the track of a suspected heart attack.  Typical Holly luck.