LOOKING FOR JENNIFER AND FINDING VAELA

This Sunday, I felt the need to be close to the absence of my sister. I don't feel her absence at my home, because she wasn't ever here long enough to make a memory for me. In the fifteen years I lived in my small town of Calmar, she lived an hour away and only made it to my place two times in those fifteen years and that was over a decade ago. So my life goes on here without feeling her absence in this space. (Please note... because my mother lived twelve miles from her farm... I spent my time with her in those places. But it still hurts that she wasn't at my place more).

I wanted to find Jennifer's energy, so I stopped in at her church. (before and after the service.... I don't do church services anymore... but I go occasionaly to connect with the people). It was a strange feeling being in that place and not seeing her there... (It's been almost fifteen months).

I hung around for the potluck after and visited with my friend Susi. It was then that a five year old girl by the name of Vaela came to our table and came right up to me. I'd never met Vaela before. Right away I was amazed. She was interested in me. She was amazed at my freckles. I think that was the first connection we shared. I told her she was beautiful... and her freckles were part of that beauty.

In the fifteen minutes that she spent at the table visiting with us, I didn't see her parents. Others told me that Vaela is like that with everyone. She was not afraid of this stranger in her midst. She just stayed. She wanted to know if I played games on my Iphone. So I showed her one game that I played. It was strange. I'd never had that kind of connection with anyone that young, that interested, that removed from my life before.

I had gone to that church that day to be with my sister's energy. That is how I described it. So in those fifteen minutes, I wondered if Jennifer was in that moment with us. Maybe she would have regretted not making the effort in her own time to connect with me and be interested in me. But in that space where she spent so much of her time... there was this little girl. I left that day feeling like I had connected with something that filled my heart up. Maybe it was my sister, or maybe it was just a little girl who hadn't been exposed to fear yet. But it was a beautiful thing!

Yesterday, I wanted to process what had happened on Sunday, so I wrote this poem.  

Vaela Who are you Who am I to you Why has fear not embraced you yet How can you feel so free What in you embraces me, a stranger Are you different than the rest Even a dog has to sniff me first But you You were free At five, you are free You even asked me a question You were interested in me You were amazed at me You spent time with me You didn’t run off and play I am old to you Where were your parents Did they trust you to be free I never met them It was only you We were in your church But even in church people aren’t free I can’t explain you I have never experienced anyone like you I made a friend and it wasn’t because of me Will I ever see you again Will you always be so free I feel for the day that you will embrace fear Like the rest of us It’s bound to happen It happens to everyone eventually We lose trust We get cautious We ask no questions We don’t want to know But until that day Glow in your freedom Remember the day The day you embraced a stranger who needed love

“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller

LETTERS TO MY MISSING CLASSMATES

Dear Darwin: 

In fifty six years, you are the only person who ever asked me "Do you believe in God?"  I only wish I could have answered that question from my own heart instead of a response that came from being raised to have "yes" as the only answer.  We were children.  We weren't philosopher's.  I don't know why you asked me that, but I remember when you did.  I just wish I could have had a conversation with you about it.  

The years passed and people assumed an answer, so no one ever asked.  I don't want to assume people didn't care about the answer, but it was just something either assumed, or just not questioned.  It's why I value you so much.  

I was on the phone with Melanie, a fellow classmate,  this week, and we talked about you.  I told her how one question made you a significant memory in my life.  She reminded me that you died young due to a lightning strike.  I don't remember that.  The last time you show up in my collection of class pictures was Grade three.  I don't have a copy of the Grade 4 class picture because I was absent that day.  By the time Grade 5 came along, you weren't there.  

I'm sorry that the universe took you out too soon.  What "might have been" is a question often asked but never answered.  I hope you felt loved in your time on earth.  I would hope that your parents found a way to some healing after your death.  I hope your family still carries on your memory.  

Thank you Darwin.  

Ruby

P.S.  This is a blog post I wrote in my Authentic Lent blog last year.  You were on my mind then too.  "No one ever asked me... other than Darwin." 

Dear Shannon:  

Hello.  I just found out yesterday that you died two years ago from cancer.  I was on the phone with Melanie getting updates yesterday and when I asked about you, I could hear the heart ache in her voice.  She misses you and your loss was hard on her.  I liked how she described you.  "She was a tender soul." 

It's been forty-two years since my family moved from Flatrock to Alberta.  I remember seeing you once at the bus stop in Fort St. John in those years.  It must have been the weekend that my family had U-hauls out at the farm and were loading up some more stuff to haul to the farm in Alberta.  I was living in Calgary at the time.  I flew up to FSJ to connect with Dad, Mom and Jennifer to help load the U-hauls, and then I took the bus from FSJ back home.  

I told Melanie that I don't remember saying goodbye to many people before we left in 1982, but I hope I called you and said good-bye.  You were the one person who I called my "best friend" for eight years.  I don't know what that meant for you, but every girl longs for a best friend, and I didn't have many close friends that I felt I could label them with that moniker.  You have to understand, I was an insecure child with poor self-esteem.  If I did have friends, I didn't believe that they were there for me.  Maybe it was your "tender soul" that drew me to want you for a best friend.  

My Mom remembers you, because of one night.  I had invited you to our farm for an overnight, and it didn't end well.  You got homesick and Mom and Dad had to drive you back home to Clayhurst.  I can't remember how I felt that night.  Maybe I had hoped I was enough for a night to make you feel welcome and loved.  Maybe I wasn't enough that night, and maybe I wasn't enough for the rest of the years.  Maybe you were more of a dream for me than the "best friend" I wanted or could have been for you.  

We didn't keep in contact after I left.  I left Flatrock in shame because of one word on my report card...  "Failed".  I tell people that I took Grade eight twice because I liked it so much, but truth be told, it was a shameful experience for me.   Maybe it felt better for me at that time to leave you all behind.  It took years to understand that maybe there was more too it than just my lack of interest in school.  My older sister Jennifer had a lot to do with the story. I can't fault her or my parents now, but how things went down in our family explains a lot of the story.  My smarter, more athletic and musical sister shone so bright that I didn't know where I fit in.  But her presence kept pushing me along in a system that wasn't tailored for my needs.  When she was sent to boarding school in Saskatchewan, I was alone.  I didn't have my motivation to push me along.  Grade Seven was hard and Grade Eight was harder.  

It's hard to know now how I would have fared if I had someone who believed in me, but the school system wasn't set up for that.  We were marched into a classroom and asked to assimilate to the program.  Our Grade One teacher, Mrs Dickson, had a job to do, and it wasn't to babysit our emotions.  I came along after my super sister, and all she could see was what I could be if I was just "more like my sister".  She didn't have training in birth order and didn't understand that the second one isn't the first one.  

Looking back, I can understand, maybe explain, but more important, forgive those people that maybe didn't know better.  Maybe that is all I get to do know is forgive.  Forgive my parents, forgive my sister, forgive my first grade teacher, forgive the program, forgive, forgive, forgive... and move along life's highway.  Now I get to learn, enjoy life, reconnect with people and enjoy them all over again.  How precious is that.  I just had hoped I could have one more moment with you to let you know how special you were to me back then.  Even if you couldn't stay the night.  

One last wish for you, my friend... 

May the stars where you came from embrace your energy once again.  May your family and friends remember you with fondness.  May you continue to live on in their memories.  May our time together on this planet be a blessing to me and may I feel like I am a better person for having you in my life, if only for a short time during childhood.  

Rest Easy, dear friend.  

Ruby 

"A piece of my heart is now a star in the sky". Author Unknown

GRIEVING FOR JOE

 Why am I sad?  He wasn't family. He wasn't a friend.  I never met him in person.  He never knew me... but I heard him sing and now I grieve.  

Joe Bonsall of the Oakridge Boys passed away from ALS on July 9, 2024 at the age of 76.  

I was first introduced to a love of the Oakridge Boys music because of an album that was in my parents LP collection.  "Fancy Free" came out in 1981.  It was the year before we left B.C.  I don't know when my parents acquired the album, but there is a hand written price of $2.00 on it, so I am guessing that Dad picked it up at a thrift store.  Mom doesn't remember the details about the acquisition.  

I downloaded the album into my iTunes this week and the songs are still in my head.  I can sing along to every one of them.  I must have worn that album out back in the day.  I had a crush on Richard Sterban, but who didn't.  He was that good looking bass singer for the Oaks.  

In the last few years, the Oaks music came back to me and I enjoyed watching them on Youtube.  What amazed me this time was the energy that Joe Bonsall brought to the performances.  His vibrancy and passion is attractive... and more so than my girlhood crush on the bass singer.  Joe was the life of that group.  

I think my sadness comes more from the hole in the group, than the loss of the man.  I went through a similar loss feeling when I found out that Carlos from Il Divo died during Covid.  I wasn't too attached to Carlos as a person, but the hole he left in his foursome was massive.  

 I will end this post by sharing some of my Oakridge Boyz favourite music videos.  

Gonna take alot of river 

Elvira (with Home Free) 

The Shade 

Bobby Sue

Dream On

Love Song

And my favourite Oaks Album of all time is the one that I listened to over and over again as a teenager.  The words to the songs still rest in my memory

Fancy Free Album Play list

And a remembering of the Oaks wouldn't be complete without some gospel, for that was their roots and the music they are most connected to.  Some how, even now... I think their vocals shine the best when they are singing gospel music.  

Remembering Joe Bonsall (Time has made a change in me, I love to tell the story) 

"I want to sing just a little love song

I want to sing to you for a little while

Back up and toe the line for you

I want to be your all in all" 

Lyrics of "Love Song" sung by Joe Bonsall of the Oakridge boys 

A SCRAPBOOK LETTER

 

"Some paint with acrylics, I like to paint with words." Ruby Neumann

My Mother's Day gift for my Mom this year was a scrapbook of my sister's single life.  It was far from all inclusive.  I am sure I left a lot of good stories.   But I wanted to capture what I saw as some of the more pivotal moments of her first two decades on this planet.  

This project started last year, but in reality, it was a dream I had long before he died.  I wanted to write her a book of the stories of our childhood that she seemed to have forgotten.  Her mind wasn't a storage house of the past.  When I asked her if she remembered certain events, she would often reply with a "No".  Somehow I still felt the need to remember those things that she had forgotten.  

I started this scrapbook as something for Mom to remember her daughter, but it became a letter to my sister.  So my Mom is the fly on the wall of that conversation I wish I could have had with Jennifer.   I poured my heart out in one month and was pretty proud of what I had written.  I think I got a lot of good stories out and Mom is already making her way through the book.  I complimented it with pictures because pictures often tell more of the story than words do.  I think it's the pictures that bring the mind back to the moment,  the words just fill in the details.   

I picked up another scrapbook at Dollarama because I felt like I wasn't finished with the story telling.  I have a few ideas, but I still want to talk to my sister.  Mom already reminded me of a story that didn't make it into the first volume.  Maybe there are more of those moments.  I also want to bring more of me and my story in to the next book.  What stories do I still have in me that my sister and my mother didn't have access too.  Maybe there is some more of my life that can help my mother.  I haven't started it yet.  I am just perusing ideas right now.  

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”  Winnie the Pooh

THE FIRST MOTHER'S DAY AFTER THE DEATH OF HER DAUGHTER

 

What does a woman go through on that first Mother's Day after the death of her daughter.  Not just any child.  This was the first born.  This was the daughter that made her a mother.  Her identity was changed in 1965 because of this one.  

My mother has been a trooper.  She has shed tears for both of her parents, her husband, her first grandson and now her daughter.  I can't begin to imagine the strength that takes because I still have my mother, my husband and I didn't have children to lose.  

All this weighed heavy on me ( her second and last daughter).  I wanted to give my mom a special Mother's Day.   So I planned a road trip, rented a van and my mom and I went for a drive to Saskatchewan.   Our first destination was in Shaunavon at my cousin's ranch... where my mom and I were affectionately greeted by a Saint Bernard by the name of Bella.  

We stayed overnight at the ranch and enjoyed quality time with our family.  We got a tour of the ranch that gave Mom an off-roading experience she won't soon forget.  

Our next stop was in Regina to visit an "old friend".  He had just turned 98.  My Mom has over sixty years of friendship with this man and he was one of the pastors that officiated at my parent's wedding.  So he was on the top of the list to see, as it was most likely the last visit Mom will get with him.  

After our visit, we made our way to Outlook.  My Mom and I are both alumni of a Lutheran boarding school (LCBI) in the outskirts of this small Saskatchewan town.  This year marks seventy years since my Mom graduated from high school.  Every Mother's Day coincides with graduation, so I thought that it would be a treat to take in some of the grad events.  Mom even got acknowledged on Sunday morning.  She was an LCBI celebrity that day!  I looked at the grad class and wondered who would return in 2094 to celebrate their seventieth anniversary from high school.  

Mom and I both were especially excited to see familiar faces that made Mother's Day extra special.  I got to hug a former school mate who was spending her first Mother's Day without her Mom.  It was a beautiful day. 

After having a quick bite to eat and finding some more former classmates, Mom and I made our way to Radisson to spend the rest of the day with good longtime friends.  Mom was greeted with yet another big dog... this time a Rottweiler.  Mom did well to make friends even through big dogs are not her forte.  

We went out for supper and then connected with other friends for the night.  It was a well rounded trip and we were both feeling a loss of energy so we were glad to be heading home.  

I like my road trips with my Mom.  She knits while I drive and we are both somewhat relaxed as long as the road and other drivers are nice to us.  We didn't face a lot of crazy traffic on this trip, and that is always a bonus.  I am thankful for our time together and Mom was so happy to have been with her friends and family.  It's really "all about the people" 

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell