When my feet are in stirrups you laugh at my jokes!

The box of letters I wrote my Gramma Hazel while I was in College that she kept till the day she died.  I added the ones my Gramma Bernice sent me to the box - this is the most treasured item I own and when I feel down and lost I re-read these letters and I find strength to move forward and reading those letters from 20-year-old me, I fall a little in love with that girl who was so idealistic and funny.... and become so damned sad that I nearly threw it all away and killed myself.  If only I could have seen then what I see now.  (By the way, the return address on that envelope said Wendy Einstein-Gray - I thought I was so damned clever, but fuck it I made the Dean's List I was impressed!

It's a pretty nice view I have from my cozy bed, it looks super cold out this morning, one of those sunny, crisp days where you just know your snot is gonna freeze the second you step outside.  Still, when my grandparents were alive often on these cold Sunday mornings we'd all bundle up - the whole gang, my family and aunts, uncles and cousins - and head back to the woods where my grandpa had built a cabin nestled in this little clearing.  In general I have a shit memory but to this day you could blindfold me at their front porch and I could lead you through those trails they had cut through the bush to that clearing.  That sweep of lawn that used to have those four big oak trees (I think they're oak. Fuck it they're big, I got that part right anyway).  There are only two now, the one up by the road they cut down when I was in my teens, it was messing with the power lines, Grampa cut a big whiskey barrel in half and put on top of that stump and filled it with soil so Gramma could plant flowers in it............

..........On a totally unrelated to this blog note, in an impressive feat of driving I managed to put my Dad's truck up on top of that whiskey barrel when I was learning to drive.  I got freaked out when I had to turn and instead of putting on the brakes I just pressed harder on the gas.  Long story short, Grampa made one killer speed bump which luckily stopped me and the truck from barreling (pun intended) into their living room.  Funny enough my Dad was not even a little bit impressed with my mad driving skills.  Oh well...back to my story...........

My Uncle Donald... aka: The Fucker.
Funny, even those people who he
wasn't related to called him that.  He
teased me and tormented me as a kid, but
I know that's how he showed me that he
loved me.  And I love him, more than he'll
ever know.  When I was a kid and stayed
at my grandparents house for dinner
he'd do anything to drive me nuts
like take his half eaten pork
chop and put it in my mashed potatoes.
Anything to make me yell at him.
Or, I'd call to talk to Gramma and he would
answer and instead of passing the phone
to her he'd try to get me to tell him what I wanted
and when I wouldn't he'd hang up on me.
Such a fucker - yet my favourite uncle and yes,
it should have been my
Dad who said the words "I loved you
from the moment you were born", but
coming from him it was just as sweet.

Where was I?  Right, the Stephen King-like long ass description of a lawn.  So anyway, past the lawn to where the cars were parked - in the summer time Gramma planted rubarb and peonies (to this day peonies are my favourite flower) in alternating bushes beside Robert's shed.  It's weird, Robert (my grampa's Dad) had died decades ago, yet it always remained his shed.  The chicken coop was to the left - the place where my fear of chickens was born.  In the fall when it was time to kill the chickens my bastard uncles would force me to hold them and I'd inevitably drop the damned things because I got creeped out by their talons of doom.  Then they'd make me hold the string that they had tied around the chicken's neck as it was placed between the two nails on the block of wood - you would think that I would find some small satisfaction in knowing that one less chicken would be on the earth to plot against me but I didn't have time for that as they'd toss the newly severed head at me making me scream.  Then you had to pass the barn where we used to explore and play in and through the gate to the field.  That field sometimes had cattle grazing in it and we would have to jump the electric fence - and not stand too close to that fucker Uncle Donald who would try to grab your hand and then the electric fence so you would get the shock.  The wind whipped across that field because there was no trees to buffer it and between that and dodging fresh cow patties that was probably the least fun part of the trip...but once you got to the end of the field and entered that gate oh that is when the fun started.  My grampa had a whole "graveyard" of old cars and trucks back there from the 50's onwards.... it was almost creepy and cool at the same time seeing those abandoned cars and making up extraordinary stories about them in my head.  There were probably 30 or 40 of them, half of them that my Uncle Allan (the mechanic) would restore when he was younger and use in cop chases with my Uncle Donald.  When Grampa died the auto wreckers came through and took away those vehicles and I felt a sadness at that time I couldn't quite explain.  Then came the actual forest, that path was full of cedar trees that just smelled so damned yummy, the air was so clean and crisp and we'd all frolic and play - some jerk would eventually take one of the snow leaden branches and grab it so the person behind them got covered in snow... or barring that a snow ball fight would ensue.  That path wound through the woods, you could hear the creek trickling in the background...and it was so warm there, sheltered from the winds.  The path split at one point and if you went to the left there was another, bigger clearing where the tree that got hit by lightning was but if you went to the right that led to that special place - Grampa's Shagging Shack.  It was a little wooden cabin with a wood stove, it was far from fancy yet it had Grampa's old recliner there and their old kitchen set and of course the obligatory topless Sunshine Girl pictures.  Just in front of the cabin was this perfect spot that was surrounded by huge cedar trees (yes, for sure they were cedar trees)...and we would build a fire and put hay bales around it and talk and roast hot dogs and marshmallows and talk and laugh.  Those days, they were magic.  And when your hands got cold you would go into the cabin and the heat from that wood stove would warm you right to your bones.  Oh how I miss those days.

Why am I telling this story?  Because I'm stuck in my bed, the pain has reached the level where I can't breathe without it hurting and my stomach is upset and I have to focus on something good or this will consume me.  I'm hurting from the Oncologist appointment where they took the biopsy to test for uterine cancer and the bleeding and pain hasn't stopped since.  Everyone asks me why I didn't take someone with me to my appointment but there is just that part of me inside who feels that this is my fault - that I didn't take care of myself, let myself get so fat and I brought it on myself so I need to deal with the consequences on my own.  I know that's stupid, I do in my head, but it is my heart that needs convincing.  I have never felt so much dread going into a hospital ever before - because I had walked this walk before, I had a cancer diagnosis and I knew what was coming.  So in typical Wendy fashion I started cracking jokes.  The doctor who instructed me to put my feet in the stirrups didn't even crack a smile.  I panicked, tensed up knowing what was coming next and that probably made it even worse.  I sobbed through the entire procedure.  The tears ran down my face, I couldn't stop it, I couldn't control it the intense, sharp pain of her using that instrument inside me was unbearable.  The nurse held my hand as the doctor kept telling me to relax and I fought the urge to kick her in the face.  It probably only took ten minutes for her to get the sample but it felt like hours.  And all I kept thinking was please God, make this stop - I can't do this anymore.  After she was done they left me to get dressed but I couldn't, I just sat there and sobbed, covered in blood and doubled over in pain. Finally I was able to get dressed and walked to the bus stop and took the long bus ride home.

So now I have to wait until March 4th for the results - a full year since the original problem and referral took place so until then I am going to focus on me, continue that archaeological dig of my past - sift through the debris for the truth - because as I mentioned before my memory is shit and I really need to look to find the good and the wonderful of who I was and who I am and looking through these photos I think I am finally getting a glimpse of that.

Gramma Hazel & my niece Montana

My Gramma Hazel  was so proper, an English teacher and Sunday school teacher to boot.  She still had that sense of humour about her though - I remember when she was 80 how she was listening to a rock station every morning to listen to the DJ's daily funny - it was always a pretty inappropriate joke.  When I was little she lived across the street and would come and babysit me while my Mom was off driving the bus.  She made every little thing special - she would make us tomato and mayo sandwiches and serve them on my little table and chair set my Uncle Donald had bought me.  When my brother and Patricia & Elyn would stay over on New Year's Eve she would always have a little bottle of champagne and give it to us in fancy mini plastic wine glasses.  She died a few months before my wedding - and I was devastated....she was such a huge part of my life.  She was classy, generous and she had such a solid sense of self that I always admired and still try to attain.  Her faith in God was unwavering but equal to that was her faith in herself and I carry a part of her with me that brings me such comfort.  She was so
different from my Gramma Bernice, she came from a more affluent city background, she definitely had more education and she was very, very practical - and I loved her - still do actually, but in a way that
was so different from my other Gram.  It's weird though when I went to college and all the stuff around the sexual abuse came out, it was her who I told about it all - wrote about it to.

My Gramma Bernice and
Uncle Doug

This lady... oh how she holds such a tender place in my heart, I loved her smile and her laugh...still when I'm sad I think about her and her laugh and it brings me such comfort.  My Gramma Bernice (my Mom's mother), she was my rock in the world.  I always knew just how very much she loved me and thought I hung the moon - because that look in her eyes was reflected in mine.  She faced some really rough times with an abusive first husband - but she persevered and left that bastard and married her childhood sweetheart.    Because of her I have a love of Smarties, she used them to teach me how to count and my colours and at Christmas time when she was doing her baking and making her special Smartie cookies she made a batch just for me.  She found humour in everything... .and she suffered, oh how she suffered with colitis and then the cancer.  When I am hurting and scared I think of her and of how brave she was, how she handled things with such grace.  I love her and miss her every day - and I am so happy that she was in my life, she saved me.  It's funny, she never had as much money as my Gramma Hazel but she gifted me with something I have treasured far more than any gift I have been ever given - she shared herself with me.  She talked about her past, how she felt....about who she was as a person and she gave me the space to share the same with her.  If I'm even half the woman that she was I will be happy.



Me and my best friend Patricia (we are the two standing on the ground), I was always taller than her, but looking at this picture I wasn't that big - I thought I was the size of a moose.  Trish and I always joke that we were put in the crib together, but it's not far from the truth.  She has always been in my life, she knows me the best of anyone in the whole wide world. She knows my fucked up family and laughs when I tell stories about them.  I never had a sister, but she pretty much was.  I love her with all of my heart - and I consider

Me and my best friend Patricia - that's her sister Elyn on the float
doing her Canada's Next Top Model pose.

her family mine....although I'm still not that cool with vacuuming when I go to her parent's house or going down the stairs to that creepy ass basement to get bread from the freezer.  Some of my best memories of my life involve her, a lot of times at my parents cottage laying on the dock and looking at the expanse of stars and talking about everything that was in our hearts....or just laughing and being highly inappropriate.  Even though we have had times where we didn't even live in the same country when we came together it was like we had never left each other's side. This woman, she was God's gift to me and I hope she knows how much she means to me.

Grampa Jimmy (R) & Len Barr (L) at New Year's Eve

And then there's my Grampa....yep, the dude with the Kenny Rogers beard and festive hat.    I can't even look at his picture without wanting to cry.  He was such a good man, when I was a little girl he would let me sit on his lap and comb his mustache.  He treated my Gramma Bernice like a Princess, yeah he was human and he would get mad but he also had such grace and love in him.  He was tender and in my world men weren't tender.  He was a father to kids that he didn't have to be, he was respectful and loyal and amazing.  He stayed by my Gramma's side when she had a heart attack, they were each other's best friend and when he had cancer and was on morphine and snapped at her he cried because he had hurt her and apologized profusely.  If I ever decide to pursue a relationship in the future it will be with a man like my Grampa, I won't settle anymore.  I remember after he died and we went back to my Gramma's house after the funeral and I swear I saw him in that green chair in the living room - his presence never left that house.  When my grandma died and my aunt and uncle took over the place I felt like I couldn't go in that house anymore because it would be too painful to be there without them in it but once I did I felt such peace because I knew that they would have wanted my Uncle Allan and Aunt Donna to live there - things were as they were supposed to be.


I laid in my bed surrounded by these pictures and I felt so very loved at that moment, but it is still so hard some days to reconcile that girl who was adored with memories of feeling so ugly and damaged and broken inside.  I do an exercise with groups - I have them sit in a circle and in the middle I put an object - usually a cardboard paper towel tube and I color it all different colors so if you are sitting on one side of the circle you won't see the same thing someone on the opposite side of the circle will see.  The lesson is about perspective and seeing things from someone else's point of view.  I think I need to learn that lesson, perspective and what other people are seeing, not just my tiny point of view that is coloured with my own self-judgment and shame.

I had a friend (who shall remain nameless) email me a picture - when I saw it I stopped breathing, that ugliness of the past it was there again in my face.  My immediate thought was to judge, to look away from that girl and pretend she wasn't me.  Then I read the note my friend wrote with it....

I'd like you to meet my friend Wendy from grade school/high school. She is a zany girl and always laughing and cracking jokes. 

I kinda wished I was more like her. I was always worried about what people would think. I think that's why I chose photojournalism in school. I was comfortable behind the camera, it gave me power or a shield. It made me feel like people actually wanted me around, like I wasn't just some afterthought. 

I always wanted to be confident like Wendy. 

This was taken the last day of grade 13 right before exams. We went down to the locks and had lunch. I think we had Mary Browns Chicken. 

For some reason, you had a pinwheel. 

I always wanted that joy. 

Makes you think.

Yes, it really does.  This friend who I always thought had it all: a kick ass personality, boyfriends, popularity.... well she was hurting too and I was so damned wrapped up in my pain I didn't see that either and I missed out on having an even deeper friendship with her than I could have.....but like the blog is named, it's not too late.  

It took a lot of courage for me to post that picture of myself - part of me thinks that people will say look how fat she is and ugly, but I need to let that go.  I need to love that girl, love me....all parts of me, and those things that I bring into the light - the pain I share, the vulnerability they only help me to be someone better, freer.  

And there are still days when I feel so lost, so scared and overwhelmed about the future and what it holds and I don't know if I have the strength to go on but I'm going to keep playing this song - it is my new anthem - and I'm going to keep playing it till I believe it.  

Thank you friends for letting me share myself with you. xo  

Wendy