Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

The Innsbruck 2012 Youth Olympic Winter Games are over.  Both Roni and her fan club are now back in Canada although she will be on a plane again very soon.  She’s been invited to join the Canadian Prospect Team in Vail for a series of NorAm races which is amazing.  It’s a great opportunity for a 15 year old and no doubt that lovely Silver Medal that she picked up in Innsbruck helped to get her the invite.  :)

The last days in Innsbruck were busy.  The Ladies GS race was a disappointment for Roni as she finished 15th but again, I thought this was awfully good given that she was racing against the top female 15-16 year olds in the world!  But she knew she could do better and anything less than her very best is not good enough for her.

So on her last race, the Ladies Slalom, she showed everyone what she was capable of.  The weather was sketchy and some events were cancelled, including Bobsled training runs and Ski Cross.  Heavy, wet snow came down all day which made the roads disastrous later but they managed to get both runs of the Slalom in.

When Roni came down 5th in the first run, we were ecstatic.  It takes two runs in Slalom and there are a lot of DNF’s typically (and even more than usual on this day with the tricky conditions).  5th means she has a chance of reaching the podium with a good second run.  And, anyway, 5th overall would have been great.

But she did better, made even easier by the trail of European racers who didn’t make it to the bottom of the course.  She finished Second Overall in the Slalom!  Which meant a lot of attention, press interviews, two podium events (the ‘mascot ceremony’ at the hill and the Medals Ceremony in the square that night), and it also meant they whisked her away to do her doping test.  (Two people watch the medalist pee to make sure there’s no funny business!)

So, everyone (including Roni) had a new date for the Medals Ceremony that evening, instead of going to the Canada v. Russia Hockey Game that night.  And the celebration continued after the event…

Roni’s father, my brother Randy, put together a youtube video with some highlights from the opening ceremony and races.  Here it is:

The first Winter Youth Olympic Games will begin in Innsbruck, Austria on January 13, 2012.  I will be travelling there with a family group next week to watch the games, experience the skiing, scenery, and villages in the Tyrol area of Austria but most especially, to support our niece who is representing Canada for Alpine Skiing.

Roni Remme is just 15 and has already demonstrated that she is someone to watch.  She is one of only two young ladies chosen for the Canadian Youth Olympic Team for Alpine Skiing, and in the youngest age possible for this event.

Her ‘fan club’/family will be sporting red and white hats knit by her maternal grandmother and red sweatshirts with the following graphic (of her competing in the Whistler Cup), purchased by her paternal grandfather.  I do hope we don’t embarrass her too much.  :)

I’ll publish updates from Innsbruck on Roni’s and other Team Canada results as well as any new adventures.  The famous Kitzbuehl downhill race will be happening nearby, while we are there so we may go watch that, as well.

Go Roni!

To keep track of events and schedules, here are some URL’s:

http://www.olympic.org/

http://www.innsbruck2012.com/en

www.youtube.com/innsbruck2012

The athlete list can be found here:

http://www.innsbruck2012.com/en/sports/athletes

http://www.innsbruck2012.com/en/sports/athleten/103444_remme_roni

and results on the FIS site:

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/1228.html?event_id=30465&cal_suchsector=AL

Winter is here and with it, at last, the first snowfalls which turn dead, dreary landscapes and forests into magical, white wonderlands.

Many prefer to stay indoors, avoiding the cold and sometimes bitter winds.  As someone who grew up skiing in Ontario, I’ve always been accustomed to outdoor activity during the winter although I must confess that I find the cold uncomfortable and my ski days are sporadic and short (more like half-days).   But, I also enjoy snowshoeing and walking in the woods.  Part of the allure with walking instead of soaring down the hills is to shoot the scenes of winter.  It’s almost a painful thing for me, now, to drive by something beautiful and not be able to take a picture of it.  So strange, this new obsession, but also so engrossing.  By capturing the beauty of an outdoor scene, after I process it, I can put it on my iPhone, my computer, or even print it and come back to stare at it, feeling again that sense of awe.  This picture above is of the bridge in Collingwood accessible from the backyard which connects the neighbourhood to beautiful walking trails in the woods.

Christmas and New Year’s 2011 are over and now it is January 2nd, the beginning of a new year.  Back to work tomorrow but soon, we will be on our way to Innsbruck, Austria to watch the Youth Olympic Games from January 13th to 22nd.  My niece, Roni, is one of two girls representing Canada for Alpine Skiing so it is very exciting.  I will post some updates on how she’s doing from Innsbruck.

Happy New Year to all…

In early October, I heard an advertisement on 95.1 radio station about the First Annual Wasaga Beach Short Film Festival.  Wasaga Beach is a neighbouring community to Collingwood (our weekend retreat) and a common beach/resort destination from Toronto (just 1.5 hour drive).  When I was in high school, we would often drive up for the day and sometimes camp nearby.  And when my sons graduated from high school, they came up in droves to rent cabins at Wasaga and celebrate.

As an amateur photographer and videographer, I was intrigued by the opportunity to produce a video for this competition but also conscious of the fact that the entries were due in two weeks.  I originally planned to develop a short film, working together with some others in my family.  There are 5 categories for entries – Romance, Action, Documentary, and Comedy (all 4 to 8 minutes in length) with the fifth category being a 30 second advertisement for Wasaga Beach.  Following the release of my novel, “Vision Speak”, I’ve been exploring how to tell stories using other media, or perhaps mixed media with my writing, so this seemed like a nice chance to experiment with video production.

It came down to the weekend before the entries were due, Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend, which was unbelievably hot for mid-October in my area of the world.  It was hot enough to go to the beach, swim, and shoot some film.  With such limited time, we ended up just submitting one video in the Ad category.  There just wasn’t enough time to produce a longer film for this first event.

Since then we are among the finalists and the Film Festival has placed all the final videos on Youtube.  The Gala event/Award ceremony is on January 21st in Wasaga Beach, however, we will be in Austria for the Youth Olympic Games to watch our niece compete for Canada in Alpine Skiing at that time.  So, our sons who participated in this production will go to the event and hopefully collect our prize.

Here is our video, entitled “Share the Magic at Wasaga”:

For the Winter 2010-11 issue of Women with Vision magazine, I’m on the cover.  As is customary for Vision magazine’s ‘cover girls’, the feature story is my life story.  Lorraine Leslie, editor of the magazine, wrote the story.  My cover shot and the picture included inside the magazine were taken by Catherine J Capek, an extraodinarily talented photographer and good friend.   In fact, I look so fabulous in her pictures (aided by the great work of Mac Cosmetics at the Bay) that I might stay in hiding and let people think I look like this everyday.     If I were really vain, I might fashion a paper bag for my head and paste this picture on the front.  Fortunately, at 48 years of age, I am not as hung up on my appearance as in my younger years.  So, I’ll forego the paperbag.  My friends can continue to rave about the picture and wonder how I managed it.

This issue came out two weeks ago.  I read it once but couldn’t do it again.  Now with a bit of distance, I can begin to talk about this experience.

Before I share my perspective and so that this is not misconstrued as being negative in any way towards the writer or magazine, I’d like to say a few words in general about Women with Vision (WwV) and Lorraine.   Lorraine is an admirable woman who pulled herself up from rock bottom to build an inspirational magazine and women’s networking groups who meet regularly around Southern Ontario, with roots in the Georgian Triangle.  It really astounds me what she has accomplished and I hope she tells her own life story in the magazine one of these days.  The article she wrote about me, based on material that I shared with her and sent her, is nothing but positive and I thank her for it.

But there are a few mistakes and, as I’ve also learned from a previous article written about me in the Era Banner, a common format for this type of article is to “quote” the person being interviewed to bring the story along.  However, because in real conversation, one explains something in fits and starts and long paragraphs – not short sound bites – the tendency is to paraphrase and shorten what one says to lead the story along more effectively.  But in so doing, sometimes the original intent can be misconstrued.  And generally, one is not allowed to proofread or approve the story before it goes to print.  So, it is a natural reaction, I believe, to cringe a little bit when you first read such a story about yourself at the same time as the rest of the world.

In fact, it’s not just the little inaccuracies but actually reading some of the things you say in print, is always uncomfortable.  I should be used to that by writing this blog.  You’re probably thinking, yeah right Eden, obviously you’re not shy and you want people to see you and hear about you.  But that’s not exactly true.

Plus for me, it caused some conflict between my mother and I, which always launches me onto an emotional rollercoaster, perhaps the one I rode for most of my teenage years.  As Lorraine’s story about me relates, I was once a bit of a ‘rebel’ and surviving my teenage years left behind a few scars.  

In this generation, with so many people on Facebook or LinkedIn, with blogs and twitter and youtube, with the inexplicable fascination with reality TV, real-life trainwrecks, and memoir style non-fiction, privacy is becoming less of an expectation.  People are sharing their day to day thoughts and feelings, experiences, embarrassments, angst, break-ups, desires, and even what they had for lunch with anyone who cares to listen/read/follow.

My sons – aged 23, 20, 19 don’t seem to think anything of this.  They update their status on facebook regularly, telling their hundreds of ‘friends’ what’s happening, where they’re going, how they feel about the Leafs, their exam that day, their birthday present or whatever happens to be on their mind in the moment. 

For me, I am on Facebook (personal and fan page for Vision Speak), Twitter, LinkedIn, now Youtube and of course I have this blog and my Vision Speak web site but I am not yet ‘comfortable’ with my online presence and being a ‘public’ person as compared to my kids’ generation who take this for granted.  As an author who wants to share my work with the world, I have moved in this direction but I have to confess that every step along this path is uncomfortable (like wearing underwear washed with fiberglass). My inclination is to run back inside, shut the doors, close the blinds and hide.  I rarely update my Facebook status and most of my tweets are retweeting interesting quotes or science stories or blogs.  I’ve not yet reached the stage where I can daily or hourly share my activities or innermost thoughts in these shared public forums. 

Well, perhaps until today.  My story is out there now so I might as well face it.

This relates to the “generational comfort” of having a public presence that our kids have always known.  Those of my generation seem to be mixed, some have embraced this (take my old high school friend Karen who first convinced me to go to Facebook a few years ago) but many of us are still not quite comfortable although we are ‘out there’, still others won’t consider joining Facebook or Twitter.

If we consider the older generation – my parents and grandparents, for many of them they can’t fathom what everyone is doing on Facebook.  They abhor the idea of sharing their day to day existence in this manner.  They grew up with an intense need for keeping certain things private.  Even now, in their 60′s and 70′s, there are aspects of their ‘story’, their youth perhaps, that they don’t want people to know.  These are things that many of us wouldn’t think twice about advertising on our status and our friends wouldn’t think twice about commenting on.  But for them, it’s deeply personal.

So imagine someone of this generation, someone who is extremely private and uncomfortable with people knowing the intimate details of their life.  Then think about how they might feel if some of this information is published because they are part of someone else’s story. And if those details are a bit mixed up, it might be even more embarrasing for them. 

The thing that I’ve come to realize is that we all have a story.  And everyone’s story is interesting.  There are inspirational aspects that everyone could share with the world and it might make a difference to someone.  This is one of the great things about the way our culture is going, the opening of our private lives.  (Of course, there are some bad things, the sensationalism, the obsession with Snooki and Brangelina and crazy housewives and the like..)  

But truly walking in someone else’s shoes can be educational.  And every individual’s life story involves how they came to exist on this planet, their upbringing and early life, their struggles to reach adulthood, their failures and triumphs, and of course, the significant people in their life, the people who love them and support them.  In other words, it’s impossible to tell your life story and not tell a little bit of your parents’ story too.

In my case, by becoming an author, by choosing to share  my story with the world, I’ve signed up for some degree of this public life but my mother, who has no interest in this, did not.  And this, I believe, is the heart of the conflict.  Yet, she is also proud of me and supportive.  So we move on.

Lorraine has asked women who have been on the cover to share their feedback about this experience.  I’ve asked for more time.  The first week, quite honestly, was very stressful.  The second week, I deliberately put the magazine out of sight and out of mind. 

Now, I’m almost ready to come out of hiding.

This Eulogy for Grandma Jean was written by her youngest daughter Susan and delivered at her memorial event in April.  Susan shares some of Jean’s final reflections and insights on death and the afterlife…

Thank you all for being here today, to help celebrate Mom’s life.  Mom was a great one to collect and quote poetry.   Recently I was going through her wallet and came across this very dog-eared newspaper clipping – had likely been in her wallet for years.  It’s entitled “Nobody is Perfect”, and I’ll read you what it says: 

“Each one of us is a mixture of good qualities and some perhaps not so good qualities.  In considering our fellow man we should remember his good qualities and realize that his faults only prove that he is, after all, a human being.  We should refrain from making harsh judgment of a person just because he happens to be a dirty, rotten, no good son of a bitch!”

It’s so like Mom to have saved this quote – shows her impish sense of humour.  I don’t know if anyone has ever done a formal study, but I believe that all Newfoundlanders are born with a humour gene – Mom certainly loved to see the funny side of things, loved to laugh. 

...with her four daughters and first husband, Wib

In the last couple of years Mom’s memory was beginning to fail.  She would get frustrated by this at times, and ask me why it was she couldn’t remember anything – I’d explain that she was having little strokes and that they affected her short term memory.   One day she said to me, “You know it isn’t all bad, not being able to remember – I’ve even forgotten who I didn’t used to like!”   I would tell her that from time to time, as she had forgotten she said it, and she got a kick out of it every time.

I spent a good deal of time with Mom in these last 3 months, and it was such a gift.  Not always easy, but as time went on, very rewarding.  Mom died the way she lived her life – curious about what was happening, but asking for nothing; being as independent as she could be; and appreciating whatever it was that people gave her.   She lived, and died with dignity and strength. 

Mom believed very much in not looking back – only forward.  Yet, over these last few years whenever I tried to engage her in discussions about what might be next for her, she did not want to go there either.  She would just say, “Oh well dear, everybody’s got to kick the bucket some day.” – and I knew that was the end of that topic. 

The highlight of Mom’s life in these last few years was her monthly trips to the casino with Aub.  Although she did ‘donate’ far more money than not, she also won from time to time.  The last time she won a pot we decided not to put the money in the bank – that way every time she looked into her wallet (which she did quite often) and saw all that money, she was delighted anew!   So in December, when Aub asked her if she wanted to go gambling, and she declined, we knew she really wasn’t feeling well.   She was admitted to hospital a few weeks later.

Most of you have your own memories of Mom, involving perhaps her grit, her sense of humour, her independence,

...with her first two grandchildren

generosity, love of family … today I’d like to share with you some highlights of conversations I had with Mom in these last few months, which demonstrate the grace and dignity Mom displayed making the transition from believing she would recover and go home, to accepting her death. 

Mom was raised in the Anglican Church in her youth, but had not been a church goer for most of her adult life.  In the past few years she had begun to seriously question religion, and even the presence of God.  We have had many conversations in which she asked “It says in the Bible that Jesus is the son of God; but it never says where God came from.  Now answer me that.”  So I’d tell her my theories about a Higher Power, discuss infinity, offer thoughts from theologians far more intelligent than me … but she always seemed unconvinced.   After she was admitted to hospital in January, she brought up this issue again, and for a change I said the first thing that came into my head – that I didn’t think we could understand God with our heads, only with our hearts.  I said, it’s like love Mom – you can’t see love, you can’t touch it or paint it – but you know it’s real – you can feel what a powerful force love is.  She seemed astonished at this thought and said, “Oh, I see now.  So God is Love.  Yes, I see that now.”   Mom’s memory was such that she would not have consciously remembered that conversation 5 minutes after it was over; but it is interesting that she never asked me that question again.  

For about the first month and a half that she was in hospital every day I went in she would ask me why she was there, and when she would be going home.  I would tell her that she had almost died at admission, and then once again and she would be astonished, then say – “Well, everybody’s got to kick the bucket some day.”

In early February she began quoting a poem I’d never heard before – it’s a hymn and it’s written on the back of your program.  It’s called “The Lost Chord”.  Mom remembered the lines:

Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease.

My fingers wandered idly over the noisy keys.

I knew not what I was playing, or what I was thinking then,

But my fingers struck one chord; it was the sound of the Great Amen.

She said to me that what the people were talking about in that poem was death.  But she made it very clear that SHE wasn’t dying – it’s just what that poem was about.  I said that I understood.   Over the next weeks, after Patti had found the hymn on the internet and I printed it out, I would read it to her in its entirety, which she seemed to enjoy.  

One day in early March she asked me, “When I’m finished here, where will I go?”  I said, “You mean here, like on earth?”  And she said yes.  I said, “You’ll go to heaven Mom.”  She said, “Heaven, like up in the sky?  Do you really think so?  Do you believe there’s a heaven?”  I said that I certainly did think so, but then her face darkened and she said, “What about Hell? – maybe that’s where I’ll go.”  And I said, “Oh no Mom, Hell is here on earth.”  Despite her frailty her eyes widened, she drew herself up and with pointed finger she said, “You are absolutely right about that!”  So we talked about heaven, and who all would be there waiting to see her.  Finally she said, “Hmm, I guess nobody really knows.  I mean, you have to die to find out.”  I confirmed that that was true, and then with a twinkle in her eye she asked me – “If I get there, do you want me to send you a sign?”  I said I definitely did.  I’m still waiting.

Jean at 92

A few days later she asked me what will happen when there is only one person left on earth.  I explained to her that it was very unlikely due to our population growth.  She wanted to know what would happen when we ran out of room here on earth, and I said “Well they’re doing space exploration all the time – I suppose when Earth gets full, lots of people will go to other planets to live.  She seemed fascinated by this and said she was really glad she’d asked me this.   But she continued to ask that question over and over, finally asking this – “But if there WERE only one person left on earth, it’s unlikely that it would be somebody in my age bracket, isn’t it?”   I said, that simply wouldn’t happen, that someone as old as she was would not be left as the last person on Earth.  She never asked me that question again. 

She had stopped by this point asking why she was in hospital, or when she would be going home.  She seemed very content, and enjoyed visiting with whoever came to see her.  One day when my sons went in to visit her she immediately called for a nurse.  When the nurse came in she said, “There you are.  Two young bachelors – take your pick.”  

The day before she died I spent quite a bit of time with her, reading to her, listening to music, talking of this and that.  She was drifting in and out of sleep but awoke once and said, “I heard it Susan – The Great Amen” – I asked her what it sounded like and she said it was absolutely beautiful.  I said that the next time she heard it she’d be in Heaven, and she said, “I’m ready to go – how do I get there?”  I said she just needed to let go.  Just let go.  Then she asked if I was coming too.  I said, “Uh, I don’t think so … not for a few decades.”  She just said, “Oh, okay.” 

The next morning when I went in she was weaker yet, but still talkative.  I fed her lunch and she drifted off to sleep, then woke suddenly and said, “They were wrong.  It isn’t the end.  It’s a beginning.”  With tears in my eyes I asked her if she meant Heaven, and she said, “Yes, I think so.”  We talked again about who all would be waiting to see her and she said that would be lovely, just lovely.  Then she sent me off home for lunch, saying she was going to rest.  I kissed her forehead and told her that all her daughters loved her.   I got the call about 40 minutes later that Mom had died peacefully in her sleep.

I’m going to close by reading you a note I got from one of the nurses who cared for Mom on 1^st floor.  Llori used to work in the community with the VON Friendly Visiting program, and now works in hospital.   She wrote:

“I just wanted to send you a little note to say how much I really enjoyed all of my interactions with your mom Jean.  Everything from her being filmed for TV with those in-home exercises, to all of the fun she was in her hospital bed.  She was such a pleasure to care for – so bright, lively, funny and very witty.  She was one in a million and my life is richer for having had those experiences with her.  I miss her.  The hospital hasn’t been the same without her but she’s in a better place and I smile when I think of her.”  

I’m honoured that Lori took the time to write this note, and filled with admiration for my mom, who even in her dying days made such an impression on the people caring for her. 

After Grandma died, when my aunt was sorting through her belongings, she found a well-worn paperback novel on the bed stand.  Inside the jacket cover, in Grandma’s distinctive handwriting, was inscribed: “My favourite book of all times”, signed: “Jean Thompson”.

For a family of curious women, this old book with Grandma’s declaration has intrigued us.  I don’t remember Grandma mentioning this book yet it obviously had great meaning for her.  Since discovering it a couple of months ago, we’ve passed this old book around the family, each of us wanting to read the actual copy that Grandma had obviously paged through many times herself. 

The book is called “A Woman of Independent Means” by American novelist and playwright Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey.  Released in 1978 and her first novel, it was an unexpected bestseller and later became a play and TV miniseries.  The story is told exclusively via letters written by the main character Bess Steed Garner throughout her lifetime – primarily in the first half of the 20^th century at a time when the art of letter-writing was a regular and meaningful conduit between people. 

Bess is a memorable character – strong, sometimes overly domineering and opinionated but always loving and optimistic even after facing great tragedies.   One actually has the sense of having walked in her shoes by the end.  A prominent woman who loves travel and adores family, her need to control extends well into her twilight years demonstrated when she buys crypts for the entire family and writes her own obituary for the Dallas Morning News years before her death.  Outliving two husbands and one son, she revels in the new life of her family as she bonds with her grandchildren and marvels at the arrival of great-grandchildren, commenting: “It is such a miracle to see another generation coming to consciousness.” (p.273) 

Having read this book now myself, I concur that it is a great novel and well worth picking up if you haven’t read it.  However, a woman of 92 who had read countless books in her lifetime has credited this as her “favourite book of all times”.  This is a large statement and I wonder what it was that spoke so deeply to my grandmother.

The era of the story, the fascinating female character, and the lens to her experiences through a lifetime of personal letters must have all appealed to Grandma.  The main character, Bess, was born almost 30 years before Grandma so I also wonder if she was intrigued not only by commonalities with her own life experiences but also by a view into the life of a previous generation of women, possibly connecting her with her own mother or grandmother. 

Grandma actually underlined in dark blue ink, three completely different and unrelated passages within the book which provide some more clues:

p.84: “But do not count on others to convince you your life matters.  All of us are finally alone with only a single opinion to sustain us – our own.”

- Like Bess Steed Garner, my grandmother Jean Earle Perry Thompson was never shy about expressing her opinion and many of her descendants share that trait.  Although, this passage is really more about being self-sufficient ‘emotionally’ and self-confident… advice I will take to heart.

p.170: “It is my opinion that every couple contemplating marriage should be required to sign a contract before being issued a license.”

- Similarly to Bess, Grandma’s second husband was not the father of her children which might give one a different view of a marriage contract, even for this earlier generation…  also, perhaps Grandma related to the idea of a first marriage being for love and a second, more practical in nature..

p.176: “I would like to believe that the soul sets out on a journey of its own long before the body ceases to breathe so that by the time those left behind begin to mourn, our traveler has already embarked in another country.”

- no doubt, Grandma was introspective about death and what would come afterwards although she never shared those thoughts with me.  Whenever I would ask her how she was, her most common response was: “Oh, I’m fine dear, let’s talk about you…”

Another interesting angle to me is that Mrs. Hailey has credited her maternal grandmother as the inspiration for “A Woman of Independent Means”.…and now, here I am inquiring about my maternal grandmother’s passion for this novel…

As a writer myself, I don’t think there could be a greater compliment that anyone could give a writer than the one my grandmother inscribed in her paperback - so I must find a way to deliver this one to Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey.