April 18th

Happy Birthday, Mom. It's a beautiful spring day, with a strong gusty warm wind.

Walking outside today I went by the very spot where I remember you turning to me, gesturing at the forest around, and saying, "This is my church." I was a teenager at the time but it still seemed like a perfectly sensible statement, now as an adult I can truly appreciate what you were saying.

Thank you for those moments where you tried to communicate yourself to me, where you treated me not just like a son, but as a thinking, feeling human. I always assumed that when I was older we would have many conversations like that - but instead I must treasure those few we did. Thanks for all the love your poured into me to make me who I am. I miss you.

I spent a great deal of yesterday thinking about mom as I was down with a back injury. There is far to much to write here as her influence on me, you, and everyone else who knew her goes deep and she made all of feel loved. Patty Cano said to me shortly after moms death that Cal didn't just love people she was Love. And I think you said it best and I say the same thing often - I miss you mom.

Happy Birthday, Cal! You'll be glad to know I spent the weekend with close friends and their dogs, including a nice walk to the park today. But you've always been nothing but supportive to me in every aspect of my life. You've taught me much about love. You are deeply missed and lovingly thought of often. Love you, Cal.

One of my most treasured memories of teenage life is my 18th birthday. My own family never did things on the day they happened, because weekends were always more convenient. I remember Rob and I being picked up at Lockerby and heading back to the house, and somehow it came out that it was my birthday and that nothing was happening at home. She was driving and said that wouldn't do. Soon after there was a cake and supper for my birthday and the beatles on the stereo.

She was a second mom to so many, and I learned much about how to talk to young people from her. She was the first adult to talk to me like a human being. I never joked with my own parents, but I do with my kids, because of how I saw her with Rob and Reb. She is missed.

In talking with Patrica Cano I began to realized that my Mom was kind of a 'Mom' to other kids in the neighborhood. I never realized that growing up.

Thanks John.

I was also unaware of this until Patty told us stories as well. It is great to hear that she managed to positively influence more they just us. I wish we had more time with her as there is so much more I'd like to talk with her about but I am grateful for the time we got.

Today is an anniversary for Torgo. He lost his mom 3 years ago today. I had the joy of meeting his mom on many occassions. So I would like to thank Verna Boulet for Torgo and the many found memories I have of her and Torgo.

My condolences to Torgo.

Spring has become a bitter-sweet season where the glory of the returning green is contrasted with the pain of not being able to share this glory with some of our loved ones.

Your Mom was a great person, and a great mom to us all. I have so many great memories. Thanks for inviting me into your lives and having the opportunity to be part of a life with her. My life was enriched because of it.

After a week of clear skies, today is cloudy. It's nice when nature reflects your mood but you cannot depend on it - nature does as it pleases with little regard to the niceties of human emotion. This is one of the iron-cast lessons of death.

For the first time since she died, I felt angry at my mom. Angry that she didn't get to a hospital sooner and maybe have a few more months. I was the one that had to finally convince her to go to the hospital that day. Others had convinced her of the necessity of going there but I talked her into actually going to the hospital on that day. A month of nightmares later and she was dead in that hospital. I convinced her to go into the medical system that killed her. She was right to not want to go.

There are a thousand rational arguments why I'm not responsible for my mother's death but they don't dent the guilt I feel.

Later on, mid-way through the nightmare, the doctors asked me if they should continue doing operations or not - I looked at them in despair and said: "If this was your mother, what would you do?" I don't remember the answer.

Some of the anger is just in being 'abandoned', it is a child's grief, I remember crying after her death and I could feel my face contorting back in a child. Wrinkles forming in places where they had been absent for three decades. It was full out crying.

This abandonment anger is deep but mild, I pat it on the head and it whimpers in loss not rage. My mother did not choose to leave, she was snatched away by cancer. She did not want to leave us because she knew we'd be worse off with out her - and she was right.

But she was a nurse and an adult and she knew she was sick. If she didn't want to get medical help that would be fine, but then she should have chosen not to go in. Instead the responsibility lay on the rest of us. And I get angry.

Angry because I have to see my mom as a flawed, conflicted, scared human being. I flawed scared human I could not help. Rather I helped bring them to their death.
And the hurt is so great, that converting it to anger is easier. Sometimes a few minutes of anger is a strange relief from the grief. The anger is harsh but shallow and it is never enough to dent the love I have for her.

My mother died a bad death - both too quick and too slow. But that was one month of her life, a life full of compassion and I was lucky enough to receive a childhood full of that care. Nature can be amorally cruel but the love that poured through my mother thoroughly imprinted the opposite lesson on me - because in being around her you learnt that nothing could be more natural then compassion and caring.

I still miss you, Mom.

7 years later - a measure of time.
A summer thunder-storm for sun-set, clouds raising kilometers in greys and golds.
A wet racoon and the whistles of woodpeckers (a mother and chick)
Pollen covering my desk.
Cricket racing in a dirt-milky pool re-formed over the cracked clay.
Today - just one day.
I think you would have like today.

09:14 <Kalcifur> Happy Birthday Mom
09:16 <Kalcifur> The house and camps I grew-up in are gone, the primary school I went to is gone, the hospital Reb and I were born and you died is gone, the university I learnt at and taught is gone...
09:17 <Kalcifur> the family I grew up in is gone....
09:19 <Kalcifur> even my memories of you are faded.... but the imprint you left on me, left on all of us - of mercy and reason over selfishness and judgementalism - is as strong as ever
09:20 <Kalcifur> and that's not even true ... without your living example we're probably lesser people
09:21 <Kalcifur> I guess hurt just hurts and I cannot type it better