Thankful

     Sometimes you or someone you love gets a surprise, a treat so unexpected that you are caught off guard. It is not that the generosity is out-of-character but that the gesture is large and the gift, exceptional. Exceptional because it is the perfect present for the person receiving it. And it is not that the gift is costly necessarily; it is the expression of love and confidence in the one being gifted, that tells the tale.
     Our eldest daughter is not a complicated girl. She loves her family and friends, Justin Bieber and money. She also loves the electronics which connect her with the music, the images and the news that are important to her. She starts high school soon and having the latest technology at her disposal will help her immeasurably. Her best chance for success in the future is going to be the skills and knowledge that she acquires in the next 5 to 6 years. So to be gifted with the latest Apple technology is a huge boost to her academic success as well as her connectedness to the world. 
     Written output has always been an issue for our daughter. And unlike many kids with ASD, she is no computer whizz. Typing is not coming easily and one of the new dictation applications may be just the thing to help her accomplish the work she will have to do in order to finish high school.
     So she is grateful for her new iPad. We are thankful for it as well. It is not a gift that we were planning to give her on her 13th birthday--- it was not possible at this time. But someone kind and caring, generous and thoughtful found a way to make it happen....and for that we say thank you. 

Grandma

     I know that I am showing my age here, but when I was young, mother-in-law jokes were the thing. There was the ever popular "Take my mother-in-law---please!" I am sufficiently old now that I don't know what is popular and what isn't except as it pertains to the world of young girls; Selena Gomez is hot, Miley Cyrus is not.
     I must tell you though about a woman who, regardless of whose mother-in-law she was, would never inspire those kinds of jokes. My husband's mother is a quiet reader of books, a lover of children--- she gave birth to ten, and a woman of almost 90 years, generous and goodhearted. That is not to say that she is a wall-flower or a push-over. She has very definite views about very definite things; she likes what she likes. Hot dogs must be barbecued, not boiled, milk chocolate is better than dark, Coke is preferable to Pepsi. Her pleasures include children but not dogs necessarily, a day warm and bright but not too hot, food that satisfies, a book about an interesting person but one that is not too long or with too small a print.
     She was born in Pembroke and has had an interesting journey especially because of the aforementioned children and all the different places that they were born: Montreal, Martinique, Oliver, Phoenix, Cottonwood, Cobourg, Toronto. She is well loved by those children and their children and their children's children because of her big heart and kind ways. I know my daughters' summer would not be complete without her.  When I look at her sitting in our yard rocking on the swing, patting and having a word or two with one of our cats, I realize that she is who I want to be when I grow up: a mother respected, accepted and adored by her family; a person for whom they would do anything because she did everything for them. It was not an easy life; money was tight and times were sometimes really tough. One baby died but more came after. The marriage did not survive but she had trained to be a nurse and went to work.
    I know I don't know all there is to know about this lady. I am a relative new-comer to this family having only known her for 20 years or so and only sometimes from a distance as she lives most of the year in Texas. I do know that I treasure the time she has with my daughters. Having left England when babies, my brothers, sisters and I never knew our grandparents very well and I regret that. With her help, my children are learning patience and compassion; in her they see an even-tempered individual whose generosity and mild manner shines in a world of greed and extremes. When I ask them about her, she is funny, caring and fashionable says one daughter. She is nice, friendly and cheerful says the other. Yes I say, yes she is.

Duck

      Lulu, the best duck in the world, was killed a couple of days ago in our driveway. It seems that she settled in there for a snooze and somebody ran her over with their car.  She liked to sleep on hard surfaces; in fact the day I found her she was on a road. I was driving to the grocery store one day when I came across a Muscovy duck in the middle of the road. I pulled over and herded her over to the side of the road and continued on my way. When I was finished shopping, I thought that I would drive back the same way that I came, to make sure that she was still safe. Sure enough, she was back on the road. So I herded her over to the side again and noticed a phone number on the mailbox, indicating that eggs were for sale. I called the number and the woman who answered said that yes it was hers but the duck really didn't like her dog and if I could catch her I could have her. So catch her we did. Our younger daughter promptly named her Lulu.  After we had had her for a couple of weeks, I called Lulu’s previous owner to thank her again and tell her how much we were enjoying her. The woman told me that it was a good thing that I had taken her when I did because a couple of days later, a coyote had come and taken everything in her chicken coop. 

     Lulu was a pretty Muscovy duck and as we had a couple of male ducks on our pond already, she laid a lot of eggs, some of which hatched into the cutest little creatures you’ve ever seen. The important thing to know about baby ducks is that they are impossibly cute; only the most jaded and miserable individual could be immune to their charms. Another thing to know is that there is a reason why ducks lay so many eggs; not all of those little cuties are going to make it to adult duck hood. And the third thing is that, like most of nature, we have very little control over these babies and their mama, so keeping them safe is difficult, if not impossible.  They have grown up now of course and are now very handsome, unusual looking ducks.  Such is the circle of life. And so it is that Lulu is no more. I will miss her terribly. We had some good times together, working our way through the garden, looking for slugs.

     I have had quite a few ducks on our farm over time but none had the charm or the grace under pressure that Lulu had. Every once in a while you meet someone special; someone with rare qualities, someone that makes you feel special, like you have known them your whole life. It could be a person or even a dog or maybe even a duck. For me, Lulu was that duck.

Seizure

     After an almost 2 year break, our eldest daughter has had another seizure. We had hoped and prayed that she had perhaps outgrown them as they had seemed like febrile or fever-related seizures when she was younger. The sense of loss, after such a long hiatus, is overwhelming. We are back to hyper-vigilance, worry and being unable to treat her like a typical 13 year old.  She is not a typical 13 year old but she yearns to be and not having seizures would have been one step closer to her dream, however unlikely.
     Our daughter had her first seizure on Christmas Day when she was a year and a half old. I picked her up to put her in her high chair so we could eat our turkey dinner and she slumped in my arms, lifeless. I put her in the hands of my father and brother-in-law who both had First Aid training and then called 911. The fire truck arrived shortly just as her seizure ended and we rode to the hospital in an ambulance. It was the first of many similar experiences but none of them matched the horror of the first. I had no idea that children could have seizures; I thought that she was dying in my arms. We determined that although atypical, our daughter's seizures usually accompanied illness with a fever, regardless of how slight. We still cling to the hope that this is the cause of all of her seizures and that she will indeed grow out of them.
     Meanwhile we start again and we stay close, we watch her and we make sure someone is with her always: no baths or showers or swimming without supervision, no babysitting for now. We keep her close and we keep her well and we start all over again....
    

Canada Day

     Yesterday my daughters and I headed off for a spontaneous visit to our relative's RV resort in Harrison Hot Springs. We had an opportunity to take part in the parade by riding in their older brother's orange 1947 Chevy pickup truck along with the other kids from the RV resort. The other vehicles in the parade consisted of community groups, Scottish pipers, boat sales, fire trucks, ambulances and more than one candy-bearing Sasquatch. One daughter sat in the back on the hay bales, one in the cab and I walked beside the truck waving a small Canadian flag, while the other kids in the truck sang "Happy Birthday" and waved flags, blew bubbles and waved to the parade crowd. The crowd by normal parade standards was tiny I'm sure, but for the little community we were in it seemed substantial. There were folks from the area waving from their homes but many visitors there as well; tourists from near and far, bundled up against the less than warm July weather smiling, waving and calling out "Happy Canada Day!" What struck me was that no one seemed immune to the pride and excitement of the occasion: a large Muslim family dressed in traditional garb, many families of South Asian descent dressed in colourful kurtas and saris; families of many diverse cultures waving and singing and smiling and calling and loving the day. Loving Canada Day. Loving Canada.

      I was very moved by the whole experience. I am the type of person who gets goosebumps every time I sing O' Canada so I am a sucker for a day like Canada Day. I am not sure if it is because my family immigrated to this country or if it is just wired into my DNA, but I loved this experience. The urge to tear up and cry was so great that I had to smile my biggest smiles, just to keep it in check. The smiles that I received in return were unbelievably beautiful, and different from each other in so many ways. Thank you to everyone who made this experience possible for my family. It was another reason why I am so proud of "our home and native land."

Friends

     Friends are important to life; vital to feeling at peace and one with the world. Friendship is not easy for all of us. Being of a quieter, more solitary type, I find the pursuit of friendships and the time and effort involved in the care and maintenance of them can be arduous. Others like my husband make friends on a daily basis. These relationships are sometimes not long lasting or of a profound nature but the gift of connecting with others is certainly his and others like him.    

     When you are socially awkward like my daughter, friendship can be a mystery. One day someone can be totally warm and welcoming, the next, not so much... The up and down nature of some people's manner and moods is just the beginning of the puzzle for my daughter. She also struggles with the difficulty folks honest-to-a-fault can have getting along in our society. It does not reward the brutal honesty which is a feature of Non-Verbal Learning Disorder.  And then there are things like voice tone, expressions, hand gestures, body language and eye contact which further complicate the issue. 

     Good friends can be amazing. They can make you feel like someone actually gets who you are, accepts who you are, and even likes you after all that. Wow! What could be better than that? We all want to belong, to feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves. They say that your child’s friends’ parents usually end up being your friends. This seems true to some extent. Most of the mums and dads at my daughters’ school are young enough to be my kids, which is great, because it keeps me young--- as if my kids weren’t keeping me young already!

Graduation

     My almost-a-teenager daughter graduated from elementary school on Friday. For most kids it is not that big a deal: you leave elementary school, then you go to high school; grade 7 is over, grade 8 begins soon. For a girl like my daughter however, this is a much more important transition.
     Elementary school has not been easy for my daughter. She came late to reading; really only in this past year has she felt able to read on her own. Writing is and will probably always be a labourious process for her. She prints like a much younger child, holding the pencil and writing with deliberate and tiring ferocity. Despite her unusual memory, basic math skills such as multiplication elude her with counting still done on fingers and in the air. The answer she produces after this exercise is rarely correct. And then there are the social differences: she does not lie, takes everything at face value, rarely understands non-verbal communication and more. It probably sounds as though she is not ready to leave elementary school--- that may well be. However children are rarely kept back these days as the social ramifications of "failing" a child are thought to outweigh the benefits.
     We had thought that we would do an extra year at elementary school but when it came time, my daughter was ready to move ahead. She physically appears older than her grade six and even some of her grade 7 classmates (at a school population of 92, every division is a split) and in so many ways except scholastically, was appropriate for high school. As it appears now, she will be in a class of about 2 dozen kids who are all at a similar place academically. There we hope she will go through high school at her own pace, learning the basic skills needed to become an independent young adult. She will not be doing calculus, PowerPoint projects on the life cycle of Gypsy moths or writing papers about Shakespeare's plays; rather she will be learning to tell time, how to handle money and what basic hygiene is expected of her.
     One chapter ending, another beginning: all part of the rhythm of life. As one of my daughter's heroes Temple Grandin wrote to her in a short but wise note: "Work hard and you can achieve your dreams." That's what my daughter will be doing. It is all hard work for her but she will do it and we will be right beside her. And there is no place that we would rather be.