2006? That stupid song! LL mistake ... no rap music about hotels, ever again!

Ok, I didn’t actually think that I was the naive sort, but, I feel like an idiot now, and like I wish I could tell him off.

I can’t tell you his name (Marvin), or his internet handle (SUMMERWIND5), or on which of the websites you can find him and tell him off for me (LavaLife). (I have his work number if you’d like it.)

Marvin is a fairly unattractive man who’s been heartily pursuing me on the internet dating scene. Awful picture, but highly intelligent, or so it would seem. He is some sort of political/government official, or diplomat, who has lived all over the world, and who has wanted very much to take me out for Indian cuisine, and regale me with his sparkling stories of his travels, languages, and vastly (superior) knowledge on ethnic cuisine, among other things.

I agreed to meet him in the hotel he was staying at during one of the worst winter storms we’d ever had; The Royal York, Library Bar, very nice hotel, and we sat and had a glass of wine. (I have found that I really have to ask men, NOT to bring me gifts, because it is too weird if you don’t like them. I make that very very clear before meeting anyone. Why won’t they listen?... except of course for the Digital Tape Measure, which is from someone who apparently knows me well) I am now wondering why I feel compelled to honor my commitments. I could have skipped this one.

So, he’s a tall version of a children’s talk show host, complete with sweater over shirt, very very conservative, very very diplomatic and geeky. Looks so very straight laced, and talks like the laces are too tight. He doesn’t sparkle. He lets me know that he is giving a lecture the following day, at the conference he is in this hotel for.

I try to remain open to him physically, uncrossing my legs, making myself comfortable on the couch in the bar, look at the CD that he brought for me, and try to oooh and aaah over it, ..... (I hate that part). I have an extensive jazz collection already, and it is one of many, and not a good one at that. (GUYS? FYI: I don't keep "gifts" from people I don't like, no matter how much I might like the item, so DON'T BUY ME ANYTHING UNLESS YOU KNOW ME, and KNOW that I already like you! Then I might let you buy me something small to start.)

I find that our conversation surrounds his work and the places that he’s been. He is not very engaging, he talks about what he does, not who he is. His fabulous life around the world, and tennis every day, and I’m falling asleep, and working at staying in the conversation, let alone awake, so I just give up and let him do all the talking. I’m yawning just thinking about it.

We finish our wine, and he starts saying he’d like to show me some of the tours to India that he’s taken on the Web. He walks me to the elevator, and I ask him where we are going. He laughs a slight and uncomfortable laugh, at that (noticing my discomfort), and says it’s the executive lounge, where there is a computer. How manly.

We sit side-by-side, staring at a screen, while pictures of hotels and trains in India file by......blah blah blah, nothing could have been more boring actually. I keep trying to find words to say, and I eventually find that I’ve been repeating myself. I’m looking at the screen. “Oh, that looks amazing! So, you’ve actually taken this trip before? How many times?” God. The trips are all around the 3-4 thousand dollar range for 10 days. He knows I’m a musician, why is he showing me this?

We leave. Back to the lobby. He starts pointing out the architecture, and how much he thought that I’d enjoy it. (Is he nuts? I’ve sung in this lobby.) I tell him I’ve sung in this lobby. He continues, as if he hasn’t heard me. He walks me over to the Imperial Room, saying again how he thought I should see this. (I’ve seen a bunch of shows there!) I tell him I’ve seen a bunch of shows there; (that as a member of Phantom, we got show tickets every week, if it wasn’t sold out). He ignores this. Again. Ok, something’s very strange with this man. He then tells me about an Ella Fitzgerald cd that he has “up in his room” that he thinks I’d like to hear. (I have an extensive jazz collection, which I’ve mentioned several times.) This man is now in both the "crazy", AND the "stupid" section. I decline, “No” I say, making some (true) excuse about having been raised very religiously. (I kept a straight face, really I did. I can’t believe I pulled that excuse out at my age, but by that point I would have claimed to be Amish to get out of there. My mother would be proud. I should have just said the truth: “My mother wouldn’t like it”, the excuse that I learned to use as a girl.)

And here’s the capper: He was actually surprised that I declined! "Oh?!" is what he said. God, what an ass (he is). He still doesn’t sparkle.

I tell him that I’d like to find a washroom, he shows me where it is, and says he will wait right here for me. The bathroom IS very beautiful and sparkly. I exit the washroom, and he is in the next room over, glued to his blackberry, looking for someone else I presume. (When I get home, I find that he is again on the internet site. How sad is that?)

I kept up the pretense of being both naive and gracious, but I was really feeling like calling him a complete jerkoff. He walks with me to the valet, tells me that he’s just using the website to look for friends, and then disappears in a flash. I guess he thought that there might just be enough time to get another girl over there before 11 p.m. God I’d like to put his lights out for wasting my time, and getting me down there on a pretense. Well, I guess it was better there, than in my hood.

It pissed me off, that on the coldest day of the year, I went down there, for a glass of wine, (yawn) and a cd. I could have stayed home for all of that and then some.

The strangest thing I think, is that I actually kept having thoughts during that day, of being careful that someone doesn’t “Ruffie” me when I go out in the evenings. It wasn’t pertaining to him exactly, but my warning bells were going off. He was hiding himself from me through his babble, and wit, and stories, (I gather), so that I might trust him enough to go to his room. He tried first by prepping me, at the computer lounge, and giving me a cd. I think that’s kind of sick. (Marvin you are sick.)

Please understand, that I won't mention any names.

I hope that the rest of the women out there have spidey senses as well (as my new date Peter calls them). Peter is very sparkly, very engaging, and didn’t bring me presents, (at least not until the 3rd date. I might have to keep him awhile.)

Best Sellers

January 19th, 2007 PeterPeter

OK, so when did my breasts make the 10 ten best sellers list?

I’ve been mauled for the last two weeks! by men wanting to see/fondle/play with/adore/photograph, and otherwise defile my boobies.

What makes men think that that is sexy? .... to me?

So far this past 2 weeks, was (in order of appearance):

PeterPeter: who has been apparently biding his time, carrying my bags, taking me to movies, and pub crawls (which I’d never done before)....

We went to the St. Lawrence Market on Saturday, because I had been thinking that perhaps the lack of touch, the lack of emotional content and connect could or might be, solved by a mere “day together” and perhaps cook a meal together, (like I used to do with Eon, which always felt so intimate). He agreed to do so.

We’d had a lovely day. We go to the Market, have a lovely time, where he regales me on the disgusting nature of “broccoli”, how he cannot imagine “anyone, ever, wanting” to eat it! He should have kept quiet. Then, on impulse (of mine), we go to a movie at the Rainbow......end up having to put more money in the meter, and leaving my recent home made mustard extravaganza purchase in the car. The movie was fun, (kids movie).....and on to home,.....

In the past he has refused to let me pay for anything, saying always “it’s only money”. I started feeling uncomfortable about that, because, well, it just seemed like something was amiss, and like he couldn’t really afford it. where I order in dinner (to thank him, and finally try to put myself and us on a more even keel.) Dinner was what he wanted, a Swiss Chalet kind of guy. (NO SUSHI!)

We watch a movie.

He decides that tonight is the night for “love”.

Shit.

I’m not feeling it.

I tell him so. This is something that I cannot finish, and I tell him so. I tell him so again, but louder.

He tries to drag me to bed. “Bring it on girl,” says he. I tell him so, again, and I kick him out, (nicely).

I realize that I do not, and will not, and can not have these kind of feelings for this man.

I am glad that he marches on, as long as it is out of my life. I do however wish that the friendship could have lasted, That the casual conversation, the casual nature of what went on between us, could have continued. I’m terribly out of practice, and I’m sure it shows. Men don’t usually want to be my friend. That is what’s terrible. That is what is their very terribly great, loss.

Danny the first

1975/6?

My romance with Danny began even before I knew it. I was 16? years old, and my mother had recently remarried, and we'd been uprooted to a new home, and forbidden to have any contact with our past friends, for fear that our father would be able to find us.

It actually started with my mother and Danny. She saw him, she fell for him, and she decided that he was going to be perfect for me. He was a real “catch”, probably the most “catchable” young man around. Now, I realize, that she must have thought pretty highly of me, to have picked this unreachable star for me, and that thought alone, sweetens the entire experience for me. (We had occasion to speak of it just yesterday actually, but I will have to explain further at the end of this story.)

Mom had already remarried, and my step-father had a lot of friends in the church's elite group at “Bethel”, since he’d been a missionary for them for years, before marrying my mother, a woman with three soon-to-be adult children.

Our families went to the same church and church organized functions for years, but Danny had been one of an elite group within the church, who were not supposed to marry, or (God forbid) date among the opposite sex at that time, until they left the “Bethel”. They were supposed to fulfill their tenure unencumbered, as it were, and live the “single” life. By single, they (the “elders”) meant, no fooling around, no dating, no nothing. Huge repercussions followed any deviation, no matter how slight.

My mother had, for some reason, decided that Danny was the one for me. I think the decision was based on the fact that he was not only terribly handsome and charming, but very very sought after. He was the “catch” of the century, and mom kept working at us meeting, which I, quite frankly, had no interest in. He was 7 years older than I, and that seemed old to me.

I was quite independent. I had a job. I had lived away from home. I was just finishing High School. Danny, on the other hand, was very straight laced 22. He had only ever lived in his parents home, or at the J.W.’s “Bethel”. From one protected environ to another. He was part of the “in” crowd in the religion, which I never was. I never was anywhere actually. Folks thought me to be a wild girl, but I was not. I was just not “in”. My brothers however, is another story entirely.

Danny was used to being sought after, and I think a little spoiled, and maybe that’s why I appealed to him. I wasn’t impressed with him. I didn’t care for him at all at first, because he seemed like such a goody-two-shoes, and, well, too full of himself, that he’d turned me off entirely. My oldest brother couldn’t stand him at all.

Timed marched on, and my mother kept the vigil. I eventually started to notice how much attention he got from everyone, and how he would indeed seek me out, to say hello to, even though he was breaking protocol, in a big way.

Eventually I learned to feel special when he’d look for me across a room, or when he’d take the time to say hello, while the entire world watched his every move for signs of affection, or whatever. His father Walter and I played in the church orchestra together. We both played violin, and I thought that his father was a wonderful kind of man, a bit like the father I never had. Danny’s mother on the other hand was nasty to me. Always, and subtle, but definitely drawing the proverbial “line in the sand” that I should not deign to cross, to get over to Danny’s side. Never one for being told “NO”, and it only made me want him more, but I knew she really hated my presence. She was only ever civil to me in public, never ever nice.

(In that same orchestra was another young man, named Russell, that I’d really liked, and felt very very safe with. He spoke with a lisp, just like the one I had when I was a little girl. He was a quality man, and I regret not having the chance to continue to get to know him. He was openly interested in me, but it wasn’t acceptable to my family, because of Danny, so, I knew not to pursue it. That is a deep regret of mine. Russell was a wonderful dancer, and very very masculine, very sexy to me, despite his lisp, and I really wanted to get to know him.)

I would dance with Walter at weddings, while Danny danced mostly with his mother. No kidding. She behaved like SHE was his girlfriend, not his mother. We all thought that this was strange, but nobody talked about it. Marie was terribly obsessive with Danny, the older of the two boys, but not of Mark, the younger son. Danny looked more like her, fine-featured and well bread, and Mark, more like her husband with stronger features, and a more country appeal. She would spend every moment with Danny, and watch his every move, and they actually seemed to be a couple. It was all very odd. Dancing with Walter however, was a joy, and often paved the way for Danny to dance with me, for several dances in sequence, because we were indeed, very very good together. He was a charm to dance with, and I loved it. He could have lead me off the dance floor and into the back seat of his car, and I would’ve gone. Absolutely.

I remember going swimming at friends place, and Danny was there preparing to water ski. It flipped me out. I was in a bathing suit, my sky blue speedo, without padding, and I remember thinking that my nipples where hard, and showing, and that was just great, how embarassing. Another reason to be thought of as a wild girl. I remember apologizing for my appearance, and one of the older women there said “nonsense, your beautiful, you should be proud”, and that made me feel better.

I guess the gist of this is, that I finally fell for him. Hook, line and sinker. All of me. I loved him. He would call me in the mornings to wake me up. “Hello beautiful!” was what I heard in the mornings. An impressionable teen, looking for self-worth, and I ate it up.

By the time our morning ritual had begun, my brother Michael had started dating a girl named Susan, (whom he later married and had two beautiful children with, but divorced years later). This was in the days before “call waiting”. Danny would call, and now, there would be a busy signal. Mike was already on the phone, and would never get off of it to let my call come thru. He was always like that. Control issues. Torture me to the end. We fell from grace with each other, and that is the way it has stayed until now, for many reasons.

Danny and I had a plan to meet at my family’s cottage in Haliburton one weekend, and we did so, but with the proviso that my parents (step-father and mother) were to arrive moments after us, which they did not. We panicked. I called home. My step-father laughed. Danny and I went for a boat ride to kill the hour or two we’d have to wait until they arrived. I remember him brushing the hair from my eyes. I remember his kiss.

He kissed me a lot. At my house, when no-one was looking. I thought I was gonna die of want for him. We went further and further, but french kissing and body to body holding was the culmination of it.........and I cannot tell a lie, I wanted him. Deeply wanted him. I would have seduced him and/or followed him anywhere, anytime, to have his love for me secured for a lifetime.

He pulled away after about 3 months of this. I never understood. I had fallen in love, fully, deeply and it certainly felt like forever. He never explained himself to me. The longing was unbearable.

Years go by. I couldn't help but compare every man I met to him. No one can measure up. I have such heartache that I cannot even begin to explain it. Years of crying. Years of aching and anger and disappointment. I just could not get it in to my stupid head that he did not want me.

I am an honest kind of girl, and this just did not add up in my little world.

I eventually meet my next door neighbor, who pursues me for months to go for coffee......that is another story, but I end up marrying him. Don’t ask, but suffice it to say he was a pale substitute for the original.

I am a married woman. I am at a wedding in Haliburton. Danny is there. We see each other. Time stops. (My husband is thankfully absent, probably smoking pot in the parking lot). Danny, sits with me for an entire evening, holding my hand. Still can’t believe the break of protocol. You have NO IDEA how strict it was back then.

I’ve never felt so happy and sad at the same time, in all my life. I knew then, that he still loved me, for the first time since it all began. Beyond all shadow of doubt. And, I knew that I loved him back, beyond all shadow of doubt, and that I was married, but he was not. Timing sucked.

Whenever we were in the same room, after all that’d happened, time still stopped. We both are very still. It feels like there is no air, and I cannot breath. I could cry just thinking of it.

By the time I was no longer married to my first husband, Danny had married the girl who had waited for many years for him. I cannot fault her. I don’t even know her, and I wouldn’t recognize her on the street. I hope that she has been happy.

I have often wondered, what life with him would have been like. I don’t know, except that I loved him, and still do in a way. I do know that my body probably would have given us children, which it has not done with others, and that I would have welcomed that with him.

I also know that yesterday, when my mother called on New Years Eve day December 2006, 30 years later, (.....she called to give me an update, which she does every time she has new information on Danny, even though I wish she wouldn't), I hadn’t expected anything at all.

Mom called me to tell me that Danny has been diagnosed with cancer, and has been requested by the church, to be returned to Germany to begin treatment.

The kind of cancer, I do not know, but I hope to God that it doesn’t kill him or hurt him. I don’t want him to be hurt, not even now. I can’t help but wonder if the bitterness that seemed to claim his own mother, (who never had a kind word for me during her lifetime), had claimed him as well. I sincerely hope that the sins of the mother are NOT visited upon the “not so deserving” son, Danny. He didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything wrong.

I am dearly hoping and praying that his dis-ease has nothing to do with any unresolved business (that I know he most probably has, with me). I wish to God that I could undo it. I would still do anything to undo it, if it needed to be undone by me. Forgiveness is easy when you love someone.

I am thinking that we should meet. Times does not heal all, I don’t care what everyone says. Some things need the personal touch, something that is missing today.

I’ve put out feelers, to find out his condition, and an address, and I’m hoping for a good prognosis, and am still ready to find him, fly to him, or whatever is necessary for a healing conversation to begin, because I do believe, that it’s never too late for that.

*He passed away that fall, in a country far away, doing the missionary work that made him happy. He, however didn't seem happy in his marriage, or life, in any other way. I sent him a letter of encouragement, but have no idea if he got it or not, but I like to think he did (that is, if his wife didn't tear it up).

Daniel and surgery in Montreal

Ok, so here is the first of my stories that comes to mind.

I had to have knee surgery, and I was in Montreal at the time. Daniel had a tremendous amount of influence there, and arranged for me to meet a surgeon (hat had done his vascular surgery), the next day, a Doctor by the name of Turcotte, who was wonderful to me.

I went to see him, had the ex-rays the next day, and an MRI the following day, and that resulted in surgery the day following that. All in a rush, all in record time, and all because of Daniel, my famous movie star boyfriend. Where ever we went in or outside Montreal, he was a celebrity, and was recognized and acknowledged. The barrage of attention was a constant in our lives. It was both a blessing and a curse at times. He enjoyed it, and mostly, I did as well.

I went in for surgery, and, never having had any kind of surgery before in my lifetime, no scars, this seemed major for me. Mom was nowhere to be seen. I am wheeled in. I have all the protocols, and the half epidural, yuck.......like really yucky, icky, sick making.

I have the surgery, and during it, the surgeon wakes me up to ask me if I’d like to see the tumor they removed from my knee. Can you believe it? Shit, like I really want to see a bloody tumor, but since I was already on drugs, I said sure, and it was o.k., really. Weird moment, that I’d almost managed to forget during the entire experience. It didn’t actually look like much, except a mass of yellowish stuff that was a little bloody. How weird is that? No weirder than seeing my nails without polish. That was one of the protocols.

So, I wake up in a room with other survivors in it. Daniel is there. I feel like shit. I’m out of it, and I have to pee like a Viking. I lay there until my bladder feels likes it’s almost bursting when I ask Daniel to take me home. A nurse arrives to tell me that they will not release me until I can pee on my own, and that’s how they know that I’m o.k. and that everything is working well enough to let me go home. Nuts. Get me to the bathroom!

I sit and sit and sit on the toilet waiting for my lower extremities to respond to nature’s call. Damn. Nothing going on. I cannot feel a damn thing. Actually I cannot feel period. What a strange experience. I am sitting and sitting and sitting, and nothing is happening, but of course the strange and new sounds of a hospital are filtering into this little bathroom that is tiled, top to bottom. As I sit, I try to identify the sounds as they occur. Ah,.....I can hear people talking outside in the hall, and a person being wheeled in, and there are the pipes, and water is going thru them. Wow, that’s loud. Geez. Who is taking a piss? Sounds close. Oh God! It’s ME! I have to look down to make sure it’s what I think it is, because it just doesn’t feel like anything is happening. I actually have to put my hand in the meager stream of pee just to convince myself that I am indeed peeing. I look. Yup. It’s going on. Yahoo! That means that I can GO HOME!!!!!

“Daniel take me home!”. He helps me to get dressed. God it’s so awkward, because I have NO CONTROL over the lower half of me. I struggle into my tights. I struggle into my skirt, shoes. Top, and bra, no problem. I finally look around the room at the people that I will never get to meet and talk to, or get to know, or wish well. There at the wall, with windows on either side of him, reading, is a typical Frenchman, hook nose and all, waiting on his wife, and intently reading a journal of some kind. He has a great face. He is the kind of man you’d like to meet, just to know his life, and maybe even his wife, recovering in the bed near him. The kind of man to write a great novel and win the Pulitzer.

It is at this moment, as I’ve taken in this man, and breathed his essence, as a true Frenchman that I feel I can admire, that I hear it. The sound of someone passing gas, in the loudest, longest, most concerted effort. It was perhaps the longest sound of that nature that I’d ever heard, and I was completely shocked. I looked up. The Frenchman looked up, and with eyebrow raised, supercilious, looked briefly forward, but not around. I was just as shocked as he. Who could possibly do such a thing? God how embarrassing in such tight quarters where we can all hear! That’s when I realized that it was still coming from me. Oh dear God in heaven, how can this happen! If I’d timed it, it would have been about a minute. Dear God, I was “aghast” (forgive the pun). Then I started laughing hysterically. I literally could not stop. Daniel was not amused. He kept shushing me, so that he wouldn’t be recognized, but I could not stop. I laughed so hard, that as I looked down, I realized that now my bladder was also working with the exertion, and I was now peeing on the floor at the same time as I was passing more gas. Mortified, I laughed even harder. And harder. And harder. Peeing, harder and harder. The spots on the floor were growing. I knew I had to get out of there and fast. Better stop laughing. I tried, I really tried, and then I felt like crying.

He swept me out of there in the wheelchair, as fast as we could go. I have NEVER been so embarrassed in my entire life. When we got to the car, I was in tears. I looked into his Volvo, at his lovely sheepskin seat covers, and I was having one of those “I am not worthy” kind of moments, and only managed to say “have you got a towel or a blanket, because I don’t know what’s going to happen in there, I don't want to ruin your seat covers”.....and he said one of the most loving things that I’d ever heard from that man: “it’s o.k., they are very absorbent”.

If I’d thought that I’d been in love with him before that moment, I was wrong, that was the capper.

He didn’t fuss over me over the next week, like I’d expected him to do after surgery, but he did take care of me. He didn’t want me on painkillers, so, I did not fill the prescription, and I recovered without drugs. I took Proflavanol and nothing else after the surgery drugs had worn off. He didn’t cater to me. He didn’t behave like he was proud of me for getting thru it. He just read in the other room near the fireplace, in his usual chair. He shuffled around in those noisy slippers of his, with the leather bottoms, and he kind of slid with them most of the time, and didn’t lift his feet enough, so, shuffle it was. I was at the other end of the apartment, in the big king sized bed, alone, and recovering. Three days later, on crutches, I stayed for 4 hours at a book fair in Montreal, and put my tough exterior on, and got thru it. There is where I met his old friend, a woman, who regaled me in just how gorgeous he was as a younger man, and when he walked into a room, how everyone just stopped and stared. It was all in all, a lovely day, and a lovely time in my life, even tho’ I was glad to leave it, each and every time that I left Daniel in Montreal, I was glad to leave.

I would call my mom, and tell her how I was feeling, trying to be tough, but she knew. She always knew.

You see, he became mean and irritated after about 3 days. I do know that he loved me, but he was still a man with problems, a recovering alcoholic being one of them, and they didn’t just disappear when I came to town. But, I loved him. I loved him as well as I could, until I no longer could. There's more, and lots of fun, but that will wait for another day.

Who's your daddy?

This isn’t a nice story. It sucks actually.

I remember cleaning the house, at the ripe old age of 15. I had cleaned the living room carpet by brushing it with the dog’s wire brush, because the Hoover vacuum cleaner never sucked properly. I guess it actually did “suck!” Finally finished, and hot and sweaty from all the scrubbing and brushing, I feel justified that I’ve earned a rest. I go out in my brown bikini to lay on our large patio overlooking the street below, adjoined by, and invisible to our several neighbors in our townhouse complex. I feel safe because there are several homes on either side of us, but nobody home during the day.

It was afternoon. No-one was home but me.

I lay and enjoyed the sun, trying to get more of a tan by readjusting my bathing suit and undoing the top to avoid those nasty tan lines. Eventually I get too hot, and decide I’ve had enough and go back into the house to clean up some more, and maybe play some guitar.

The curtains are drawn. I enter the darkened living room.

My father sits on the sofa facing me. It is unusually dark, but I can see that he is in his underwear, with curtains drawn, in the middle of a work day.

He should be at work. I am shocked and in a state of disbelief.

He quietly says: “Come and sit on my lap”.

My stomach drops to the floor. Ice fills me.

He is trying to seduce me.

Oh Jesus! This cannot be happening. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

An eternity passes in a moment. No-one breathes, or at least I cannot. My heart finally beats in slow heavy thuds and I’m having trouble breathing, just remembering it.

I honestly do not know where it came from, but in my own voice I hear myself say, with bravado: “Don’t be ridiculous!” and then I run up the stairs to my room. I am shaking all over. I am sweating a cold sweat. I wait. I pray. I pray harder. I listen harder than anything I’ve ever tried to hear in my life. Praying that I do not hear feet on steps.

I try every bargain I can think of with the Almighty.

I realize that my greatest fear, is that if he enters my room, I will be too scared to move or put up a fuss. I start to pray to be able to move and put up a fuss. Time keeps ticking by. Oh God.

The stairs do not creak, and he does not enter my room. I don’t know how long I sat there. It went from light outside to dusk, that, I remember.

I have never felt so scared and sick at the same time, in my entire life. I thank God that I found a voice that day. No idea where it came from. I heard myself speak, and knew that I was being spoken thru, truly. Angels, or whatever you'd like to call it, showed up when I needed them the most.

From that day on, I never went home alone. I'd ask when my brothers were going to be home, and that's when I'd show up. I avoided being home alone, like the plague. Sad for me back then. What a way to spent one's teen years.

I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to tell my older brothers, but I realized that that was impossible. In view of the emotional climate in our home at the time, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that my brothers would have gladly, killed him. I knew the anger that they had stored away, for years and years, was looking for an outlet, and I knew that I would not want anything to happen to them, ever. For all the awful things they had done to me, they were still my champions, and they always would be, in one way or another.

So I let it go, buried, until years later. When I told them, there was sadness, and regret, but we all survived, and survived pretty well. I did tell my mother as well, but unfortunately, she kept forgetting. I actually had to tell her several times before she could hear me at all.

The ankle bone's connected to the ....

When I was very young, part way thru grade one or two, we moved up to our cottage in Haliburton, with the idea that my parents would be able to save money that way. My father wanted my brothers to "toughen up" a bit, and all would be well, as my father worked in the city, and would come up weekends, and we would lived up there (my mother and 2 brothers and me). A little strange I’ll admit, but that’s what had been decided.

Part of the way into the school year, I started having problems with one of my ankles. I used to sprain them quite often up there with the terrain, and having become a tomboy, but this particular one would not heal.

My ankle started to swell more and more, and it eventually moved up my leg, to include, first the knee, and then all the way up to the thigh. My right leg was eventually twice it’s size, and it was getting terribly painful, and I was often in high fever. I was now no longer in school, and was trying to do home schooling, but found it abysmal. I could NOT concentrate for any length of time, and slept a lot. I remember not being able to tell the time, because I’d missed that class as well as many others, and didn’t learn how, until at least grade 4. (The joke in our family was when anyone asked me what time it is, my stock reply was: “the big hand is on the (....) and the little hand is on the (....).” (NO digital then!)

I was taken to various practitioners, among which a dentist (who decided that my tooth needed pulling, and did so, ouch!), a chiropractor who adjusted my spine, crack crack.....and eventually a country doctor who gave the first correct diagnosis. I had contracted osteomylitis, a bone disease that in my case had advanced to a stage where they were seriously considering removing my leg. Geez.

(I knew things had progressed pretty far, because the Barbie Doll that I’d been begging for, and that my mother had refused me on the grounds that it was “too adult, she has breasts and everything”, had now appeared in the hands of family friends, who’d taken pity on me, I guess because they knew I was dying. Gifts kept appearing. I got a lot of dolls for my collection. Sheesh, I did actually pick up on it all, and knew what it meant. Too many hushed discussions in my presence, too many times I’d hear a quiet version of my name spoken, and too many sad smiles.)

I remember laying on the examining bed, as my parents talked about me with the doctor, as if I wasn’t there listening. They were talking about amputation, and my possible demise as well. My parents were understandably upset and went off to another room to talk. When I was alone with the doctor, I remember thinking why isn’t anyone talking to me? I remember thinking that I now had a chance to talk to the doctor myself, which I did. “Am I going to die?” I asked him. I’ll never forget his answer. He didn’t skip a beat, no hesitation, and said “I don’t know”. I remember thinking “wow”. I remember appreciating his candor. Thank God someone had taken me into account. I was glad to know.

Seven years old is pretty young to discover that you are mortal. Most people have a lot more time to discover that. In fact, I understand that most people only learn it upon the death of one or both of their own parents. I learned it young. I knew what it all meant. Kids are not stupid, they just lack "life" experience (excuse the pun).

I prayed often, in my head, and bargained with God a lot over the next few months, until the medication had kicked in, and it was clear that I would not only live, but that I would get t to keep my leg as well. Then, like most kids, I forgot what I’d promised, which was: to be the best J.W. I could be, if I could live. I did try for a long while, but I’m only human after all, and my own standards for myself were, and always have been, just a little too high.

A FAMILY PORTRAIT 1972

FAMILY PORTRAIT: This particular story may go down as one of the less pleasant memories I have to tell you, but it brought me to tears* this morning (and now again as I write), when my brother recalled it to me. I'd completely forgotten it. I do know that I developed a serious talent for ignoring the seriousness of incidents that others would certainly recoil from. I guess it was a matter of survival.

1972 or so:

I was about 14 or 15, and my 2 older brothers and my father were seated at the dinner table, having dinner. I'm not sure what brought this on, but my brother Mike recalls that something in the kitchen hadn't been done the way my father had wanted it done, and right then and there he'd said to me "You will do it or I will beat you within an inch of your life!"

There was silence.

My brother Michael looks up and said "No you won't ..." as he turned to my oldest brother Pat and continued "...will he Pat?" Pat looks up "No".

Mike recalls my father looking up stunned for a second, then he smiled. Nothing more was said.

*footnote: the tears were for all of us, but mostly my brothers, who had to grow up to become honest men, without the benefit of a decent "father figure", but for that screwball that seeded us. I guess that if it's true, that the finest metals must endure the hotest of heats to become pure, then we must be platinum kids. I love my brothers. Does it show?

NOTE: I finally realized something just recently. My father NEVER laid a hand on me in anger, but during the time above, had already been trying to seduce me (yes, it's what you think, "grooming me", had been going on for awhile before that incident, that I've already written about) , and I think that his threat had MUCH more to do with my not telling anyone about THAT incident, than anything to do with cleaning up the kitchen on that day. [sigh] a complicated little life.