Category Archives: Family

Poking the fear with no name

The PolyBlog
July 22 2022

I’ve blogged before about what I call my “internal detection system”. I feel like I know myself pretty well, having ripped apart my psyche at age 29 and stripped it down to the studs before slowly rebuilding it and putting it back together. I did it on my own in the sense that I bounced ideas off friends rather than using a professional-trained therapist, and while it should have come with a warning, “Don’t try this at home. Closed course. Unprofessional driver.”, the real outcome was that my internal system responds to being poked by me.

Take for example something really inane like, umm, going to a store and being upset by something that happened with another customer going through the line. Most of life is pretty obvious why something bothers you, but maybe sometimes it isn’t. In those circumstances, when I’m reviewing my day mentally, I might go, “Hmm…why did that bother me? Was it because of X?” And then my internal system responds. If the radar lights up, yep, that’s what it was and why.

A lot of people have this, but for me, it is finely tuned to my own vagaries. I don’t want to know that it bothered me that a person was rude to someone else, that’s more of a level 1 response, I want to know if at level 2, was I bothered because I felt it was undeserved (even if none of my business) and the person was just being unreasonable. Or perhaps a level 3 type response where I had thought the second person deserved SOME sort of response, and yet I thought it was too rude, but then I sort of felt culpable because I thought they deserved something. Or maybe I am reacting at level 4 because it reminds of how I interacted with someone in the past, etc. While I am more than capable of turning myself into a squirrel, I can work through the various deeper responses in about 10 seconds flat. I’m not agonizing over trivial matters, I’m just reviewing why something bothered me to see if maybe my body or mind is trying to tell me something else. Occasionally, I joke with myself that is more of an “emotional resonance scan” (borrowing from MRI and CAT scan terminology).

But, as I said, it works pretty well. About 95% of the time, I can exactly pinpoint what it is about something that is resonating. It’s not perfect, and I can miss stuff if I’m emotionally blocked for some reason (like with grief) or overly-emotionally invested in an outcome. But the rest of the time? Poke 1 — is it X? No. Poke 2, is it Y? No. Okay, Poke 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 is it ABCDEFGHI….?

A partial resonance response

This was a big week in Casa PolyWogg. As you will know from reading my blog, Andrea has been in chemo since March, going for back-to-back doses every 4 weeks for six cycles. This week was the last week, cycle 6. A big deal just for that alone.

But she had two other appointments on top of that, I had to go into the office one day, I was meeting a coworker for coffee while I was there, and oh yeah, I’m working on a huge report for work that needed to be finalized this week. A few other things on the list, but those were the main ones.

Yet as I started the week, I felt something odd. Fear and dread. Misplaced fear and dread, obviously.

So I poked myself…am I fearful of something with the chemo? No, not really. A small resonance, not strong, so likely partly related to it. Yet what would I be stressed about with her chemo? She’s already done 10 doses, she had adverse reactions for doses 1a, 2a and 3a, but that drug isn’t part of her regimen anymore, so no worries there. The remaining drug is one she handles fine, so definitely not a cause for worry. My body said, “Yep, totally agree, it’s not that.”

Okay, so I moved on. Is it work? My body said, “Sure, there’s a lot going on, need to finalize, it’s a fair amount of work, important stuff, but that’s just background noise. You’ve got this.” Okay, so not the work stuff.

Maybe going INTO work? Nope. I wasn’t looking FORWARD to it because I had to clean up a box of messy files to get them sent to storage, none of which were mine but I inherited them from someone else when I took the job, blah blah blah. Annoying but not anything to fear. And I was meeting a colleague and former mentor for coffee, first time in 2+ years, not stressful either. I was looking forward to it. I was’t working a full day, no batch of meetings, nothing to figure out for office space, etc. So not that either.

Something with Jacob? Nope. Nada. No resonance other than ensuring he’s doing SOMETHING each day instead of sitting on his butt playing video games. This week was a writing camp, last week was gearing up for mini-golf with a friend, etc. General parenting stuff, nothing that looks like fear.

I did a rough scan of other stuff on my mind, standard stressors around managing money, planning, my own health, but it was all noise. Nothing that should be producing a sense of fear.

Digging deeper

As I said, I got a partial resonance on Andrea’s treatment this week. Which, again, made no sense. It’s all good news, isn’t it?

She’s done six treatments. Her side symptoms for her legs and breathing are resolved. She would get her PICC line out this week. And her Pleurex as well (the side drain to get fluids from around her lungs out). All of it looks good, right? No resonance. Full agreement, there’s no reason to be fearful.

I stepped back and said, “Okay maybe it’s logistics?”. Was I worried about getting her to the four appointments this week? No, they were scheduled well enough in advance, I was pushing the envelope adding in some other errands on the margins, but nothing big. Not a scheduling fear, or worry that I would screw something up.

I wondered perhaps if I feared it wouldn’t happen? She had dinner with a friend last week, and two days later the person reported exposure to COVID. Andrea wasn’t sick, no symptoms, but when she notified the hospital of the situation, they collectively all went, “Hmm…let’s get back to you on if you can do it this week!”. A friend who went through breast cancer had commented about the stress of it feeling like the finish line kept being moved, but that wasn’t it for me, no resonance.

I poked the fear again. Maybe it’s not fear? Maybe it’s just stress? Nope, doesn’t feel like stress. Stress is a general tension, this was more acute. Like “run away, don’t poke here.”. What the heck? Maybe general anxiety? Small blip. What the HELL? A blip for general anxiety but not for everything else? How does THAT work?

When a blip gets louder

Okay, some sort of anxiety and related to her treatment. Huh? That made NO sense at all.

Okay, let’s unpack it piece by piece.

Big chemo on Wednesday, dose 6a. Anything with that? Nope, all good.

Final chemo on Thursday, dose 6b. Anything with that? Small blip.

PICC line removal? Small blip.

Pleurex removal? Small blip.

What else was she doing this week…oh, right, she had her final appointment with the doctor just before the last chemo to review her blood work and stats. Big blip.

Wait, what? A blip for cancer treatment, blips for final treatments, blips for things being removed, and a big blip for her bloodwork?

How could that be? All of those elements are positive. She was getting her final dose, the side symptoms have resolved, the tubes were being removed as not needed any longer, and her stats showed that by pure numbers, she’s officially in remission range. While the type of cancer isn’t curable, she’s ready to be declared officially in remission. Big giant blip.

Ohhhhhhhhh.

I know what it must be, seems obvious right, I’m afraid it’s not all done and I’m waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop, right? After all, tons of people experience that, it’s normal. Zero blip. I don’t disbelieve any of the tests. I don’t disagree that it is all good news. I don’t believe there’s another shoe to hit the floor.

Soooo, I’m just afraid…of the good news? Giant fucking blip, bang the gong, that’s it, stupid, took you long enough (my resonance scanner has a cruel, snarky side).

The fear that cannot be named

I realized what it was, poked myself, full resonance, yep, that’s it. I’d read about it. I’d heard of it. I’d never really experienced it before.

Researchers themselves have trouble naming it, partly as when they do see it, it’s part of a giant spectrum of situations, and most don’t know if it’s the same thing or something unique. Take child abuse victims who go through the foster care system, the proverbial “stereotype” of the outcome that you see in books, and TV or movies. The person comes out the other side numb sometimes, even with potentially anti-social behaviour. They then meet someone, the person appears to love them, but they have trouble believing in it. They can’t trust that what they see is real and not a giant prank from the universe, and so they run the other way. They have trouble letting themselves be happy.

Trauma specialists see it too. Soldiers coping with PTSD, unable to see a day when things will be better. Similarly for severe depression, the sense that things will continue as they are, that things are beyond your control. That fate will kick your ass regardless of what you do. That the gods laugh while man plans. Meds can help alter the way negative assumptions control your views of outcomes, but the struggle is real.

Those are obvious extremes, of course, and my role in accompanying Andrea on her journey is not so acute. Yet I knew what was bothering me.

It was all good news and I didn’t trust any of it. I don’t mean, I thought it was wrong, I believe it is true. Objectively. But subjectively, I couldn’t let myself trust it. I wouldn’t let myself trust it. Because if I was wrong, my psyche wasn’t likely to survive.

I feared hoping too much, too soon.

Andrea believes me a pessimist, and in comparison, I am. But in this case, I fear that what I’m looking for is a sign. Lots of people complete chemo, doesn’t mean they’re done. Lots of people have good stats, doesn’t mean they’re done. Same for the elimination of symptoms.

A release

For me, naming fears is my first step to releasing them. Once I know WHAT I’m feeling, and why, I’m not afraid of it. I can lean in, I can compartmentalize, I can stare it in the face and say, “Hello fear. What are you up to today?”. Emotional fears, at least. I may choose NOT to do that at times as I might feel it will be more destructive than creative, but I don’t have to hide. Once named, I’m good to go. Rumpelstiltskin, perhaps, applied to emotions.

And with the naming, I could unclench my jaw a bit. I knew what it was, and it therefore has less control over me.

Then, for Andrea’s last treatment, I joined her at the hospital. I was there for dose 1A, but for the rest, I wasn’t allowed in. To some extent, I know that made it seem less real to me — I dropped her off but I didn’t sit with her while she did it. The rules for visits have changed and I was allowed back in.

For the last treatment, the Medical Day Care Unit has a small internal ritual. In this case, it’s a small gong that you bang with a small hammer for your last treatment, the staff and some patients clap, you celebrate, and you head for the exit! Start the car!

The gong made Andrea release a bit, but then we were out the door quick, and as soon as we were out in the waiting room and alone, we both released completely. A long sobbing hug to celebrate that she has done it. She has kicked cancer’s ass, we think, and she’s done. At least for now.

Sure, the realist is still there. 3-5 years average remission rate, maybe 10. Still highly treatable but not curable. No impact on life expectancy. We had ice cream to celebrate, we’ll do cake on the weekend, a nice dinner next week, maybe other celebrations with friends and family in the weeks to come.

Yet I want the doctor to examine her in 3w (as he will), check her stats, check her xrays, check her bone marrow, and say, “Yep, it all worked as it was supposed to, no signs of anything.”

Until then, my stress is down, but the fear of hoping too much remains. It’s not rational, I know that. Everything says, “Hurrah”. But my heart won’t let my head and my head won’t let my heart get too far ahead of each other. I don’t know which one is lagging behind, doesn’t really matter probably.

I just know for me it is a fear of hope. And that is the second scariest fear I’ve ever seen.

The first of course is the fear of losing Andrea or Jacob. But this one runs a pretty close second in its perniciousness. But if Andrea can kick cancer’s ass, maybe I can kick my own.

First time playing Ticket to Ride: Rails and Sails

The PolyBlog
December 30 2021

Jacob, Andrea and I really enjoy board games, or well, any interactive games really. Dice, cards, board. We have quite a few. Each Christmas, I usually add a few more.

This year, one of our additions was Ticket to Ride: Rails and Sails. If you haven’t played a Ticket to Ride game before, it’s relatively simple. You have a board with a whole bunch of train routes laid out. For example, the classic edition has North America with tracks running from the East Coast to the West Coast, with lots of stops in between. Going from New York to Los Angeles, you’ll probably pass through about six other cities. Each “segment” is made up of 1-6 train car lengths, and a colour…so if you want to go from New York City to the next segment, that might be two black train cars long. If you pick up two black train cards, you can play them and claim the route — putting two of your train cars on the spaces. The goal is that there are a bunch of “ticket” cards that tell you to go from Vancouver to Miami, or El Paso to Knoxville, and if you complete the route, you get the points on the card. You take turns collecting cards and building routes, while trying not to get blocked by someone who takes one of your needed segments. It’s fun, but can be a bit repetitive. Some people add some house rules, but we tend to play standard when it is just the three of us, with a small tweak to the rules to make it less frustrating.

The rails and sails game, by contrast, uses the entire world as a map, or at least an old version of the world with old world or local names. But when you reach a port city, you stop building train networks and start building ship networks. So if you want to go from Marseilles to New York, you have to go through Edinborough, as that’s where the ship lanes go. And then take a train down to Marseilles.

It was a LONG game today. It wasn’t a lot more complicated, but it did change the dynamics and strategy for playing. But there are also a LOT of pieces to build networks with (both rails and sails), so it takes a long time to trigger the end of the game. We might use some house rules to shorten that time in the future, but it made for a much more lively game and was generally less frustrating but also less competitive too. There were few blockages, with really only 1 minor about mid-game and 1 major one near the end. In both cases, Jacob took a route that I was about to take, causing me to have to re-route considerably. There were a few quirks that didn’t quite work right, but that was also because we missed a rule that allows you to use wild cards as ships, not just trains.

Definitely a winner, with the only real complaint being the length. The rest is just noise. I’ll take the win — for buying the game. The winner for the ACTUAL game was Jacob by a considerable margin.

Home again, home again

The PolyBlog
December 29 2021

When I was young, that was a phrase my mother used to say regularly. We’d get home from a trip to the cottage or Belleville or simple errands, and her or my dad would say “home again, home again”. Sounds simple enough, yet it has been weighing on my mind over the last few years.

Where is my home?

Jacob finds it funny that when we go to Peterborough, Andrea and I often refer to it as going home for the weekend. Even going to the cottage sometimes gets shortened in similar phrasing. But of course, the cottage clearly isn’t our home, and I’m not going to my “ancestral home” physically, although Andrea’s parents live in the same house she was in for high school. So it’s certainly familiar to her. But is it “home”?

When I moved out from my parents’ house and went to Victoria, home was still their house. Perhaps less so, sure, as it applies to everyone who moves out and knows they will never return permanently, but it was still “home” more or less. Residence certainly wasn’t, nor the basement apartment I rented in Victoria. I lived in Vanier, Sandy Hill, Carlingwood x 3, and Arlington Woods. None of them ever felt like “home”.

When my dad passed away, my parents’ house stopped feeling like home, although it was not completely related. More like a gradual transition over many years that phased out after he passed. Andrea and I rented a place on Parkdale for a couple of years, but I don’t know that it ever felt like home. It was just where we lived.

Even Roundhay, the first house we bought, didn’t entirely feel like home. We brought Jacob home there, he spent his first year roaming there. He played in the cupboards, explored, scooted, laughed and cried. When I look back, I feel something about that house, a bit of nostalgia, but it didn’t feel like home. We moved to Centrepointe, and we’ve been here a fair while now. Most of Jacob’s life, in fact. Yet I haven’t often felt like it was home so much as the house we lived in.

It’s a hard idea to share and convey. After all, I feel anywhere I am with Andrea and Jacob is home. They’re my home, not a building, right? And that holds with the best wisdom of psychology, that separating from your parents, leaving the nest, is not about leaving their house but about moving away from their span of control. Leaving them, not leaving the home.

Yet that is not entirely true. There is a physical component somewhere in there. And as I drove back to Ottawa today, I felt it. Maybe it’s a side effect of COVID, that I’m spending so much time here now, that the sense of “other” identity one might have from a workplace or anywhere else is generally gone. I work, live and sleep here. I have my personalized office. It’s where Jacob and Andrea are, most of the time.

I went home for the holidays and then I came home afterwards. Home again, home again.

Vaccine reactions

The PolyBlog
May 18 2021

If you clicked here thinking I was talking about physical reactions, you’re only partially right. Mostly I’m more interested in the emotional reactions.

In our household of 3, we all have slightly different medical issues that raise our individual and collective profiles to higher-than-average risks. I already posted about my experience Joining the herd, and my emotional reaction when my wife hugged me afterwards, a “lighter” overall reaction than I was expecting from myself. I thought I’d be shaking when I left the office, or emotional in the car, or dancing a jig. Instead, it was rather ho-hum.

We were waiting for Andrea’s number to come up in the pharmacy lottery at various locations and then one popped up for a mass vaccination option on a weekend at a school. She registered, it all went through, and she had her appointment. I felt almost as much relief that SHE had an appointment as when I got mine. YES! She went in the a.m., lined up in a field more or less (they had set appointment times, it wasn’t a long line or anything), got her jab and came home.

Physically, I dealt with headaches and fatigue. She also got the Astra-Zeneca dose and had sweats and chills. She said she woke up in the middle of the night freezing, colder than she’s ever been in her life. Anecdotally, people are saying/estimating that your degree of reaction to the vaccine is likely the same degree you would have to the actual disease, but of course there’s almost no evidence either way. It’s a popular thought, with no way to test it, but it’s somewhat comforting almost as well as disturbing. “Oh, it’s good that I got it because if that was my reaction to the VACCINE, imagine my reaction to the disease!”.

At any rate, that put us at 2/6 shots for the house. I felt almost more relief I would say at her having hers than me having mine. That’s not some sort of altruistic thing, it’s just a mark of where my stress lies.

The big news

We have been interested in the news around the approval of various vaccines for kids, and the cut-offs. First it was good for people 18 and over. Then some news showed up where studies had tested down to age 16. Then 12. Now they’re doing some trials all the way down to infants. And as I said in my last post, we estimated he might be able to get his first shot in the fall.

But Ontario has been making some progress, having passed the 50% “first shot” threshold recently. In a conversation with a social worker we chat with at CHEO about J’s anxiety issues around a pending surgery and other topics, we mentioned that he is confirmed for return to in-person school in September and that we were really hoping for him to get vaccinated with at least one dose before then. I figured maybe 2 doses by Xmas, but there wasn’t much information out there, honestly. Not local anyway.

The social worker told us that CHEO was now doing vaccinations for some of their clients, and were reaching out to those in various conditions. This was fantastic news, of course, although it would likely mean nothing for Jacob, we thought. He’s not a super-high-risk overall, although he has some respiratory issues, and interactions with other conditions would be unpredictable/unknown. Mostly, it’s a mental health issue, if I was characterizing it definitively, at least currently. We’re in lockdown, we have been doing the “right” things for 14m. We don’t take risks. The recent lockdown makes almost no difference to our life, the only thing that changed was more curbside pickup than previously.

We talked about it, mentioned our excitement to hear the news, etc. and two hours later, CHEO called us to offer us a spot. We have no idea if this was linked to the conversation, or was more because of possible surgery coming up, or just we were next on their list in some category. We didn’t care, we said yes immediately.

They also said we could bring up to two caregivers over 16 with us (i.e. the parents or someone else if we already had our shots). We tried to see if we could squeeze his cousin in (she’s only 14 though), but alas, no. Unfortunately, by the time they got back to us with the answer, it was too late to randomly grab any friends or family in need of a shot to go with us (the names had to be provided in advance). So it was just Jacob.

He went in with Andrea, got his jab, all good, and over the two days that followed, he had a slightly sore arm with no other reaction to the Pfizer shot.

When no reaction is the reaction

Yet again, I’m not talking about the physical. Jacob got his first shot; this has been my single largest source of stress for 14m, worrying about him, wanting and waiting for him to get vaccinated so I could breathe out. And when it happened? I shared it on FB, but, well, I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t jump for joy. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel some weight being lifted from my shoulder. I tried to. I actually tried to “lean in” so to speak to the experience, to force myself to feel it, and there was something there, I’m certainly happy FOR him and WITH him. But no giant “hurrah”.

Yet we have reached the mid-point. Three out of six shots, and a strong likelihood our household will be fully vaccinated BEFORE the end of the summer. This is HUGE.

The biggest news in our household since the pandemic started. And that’s not just me thinking it. Everyone that I’ve told about Jacob’s news has reacted the same way. “Holy cow, that’s amazing!”. Because it is ground-breaking. Parents? Sure. Us? Sure? But our kids getting vaccinated? That’s huge!

Yet I feel almost let down by my own reaction. How am I NOT reacting more strongly? Am I just numb? Is it the languishing thing still? I can talk about it, I sense some “relief” resonating inside somewhere. But 20 minutes afterwards, it was like “What’s next?”.

I still feel like there should be some sort of milestone marker that happens. A “V1” stamped on your forehead with indelible ink that only fades when you get V2. A giant pinata you get to smash on your way out, shaped like the Corona virus molecule. A lollipop for getting a needle. SOMETHING that says “Your life is different now.”

Ay, there’s the rub

As I wrote that last paragraph, I had a small epiphany with myself. This is often why I write my blog. Because as I write, I uncover what I’m thinking but having trouble defining, an act of articulation where a phrase pops out of my mouth where I go, “HEY! Look at THAT! THAT’S IT!”.

My life didn’t change. Andrea’s life didn’t change. Jacob’s life didn’t change. We got jabbed, and we still live in a pandemic world in lockdown. Just as the new lockdown barely changed our lives, having our first jab has made zero difference either. We’re still getting up in the morning in a Groundhog Day world of computerized plug-in until lunch, meeting together for sustenance, plugging in again until dinner, sharing sustenance again, doing something together after supper (currently binging Supergirl), and then bedtime at some point for each of us. The next day, we wake up, and Sonny and Cher are singing “I Got You Babe” on the radio.

Getting jabbed is a precondition for the world opening up again, for our world to change, but it has a much longer incubation period than walking out of the office and hoping to break a pinata. And I’m not sure that I will or can feel that “hurrah” until we can do something normalish. Last summer, after the first wave, we were excited to go out for dinner and eat on a patio in Norland, Ontario near the family cottage. I’m not sure what this year or the end of the pandemic looks like to me.

I think we all need an End-of-Pandemic Bucket list. A top ten list of things I want to do when things are open again. Really open, not temporarily open.

What would be on your bucket list? How are you going to mark the occasion? How will you “feel” the world is open again?

Clarity of hindsight vs. in the moment

The PolyBlog
February 3 2021

I have been having a strange recurring thought over the last few weeks. It isn’t a new thought, it’s more an occasional thought that has come up with previous experiences that become clearer in hindsight than they were in the actual moment.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about not seeing something in a moment, and then realizing days later. I mean events that you have experienced, went through with planning and awareness, carefully considered things, thought about them before and afterwards, and then later, something twigs your memory and you think, “Huh. That’s weird.”

I have an experience with a friend from back in the day that didn’t go the way I had hoped. In fact, it ended the friendship. And I felt maybe if I had said x or y, maybe it would have changed things. Maybe I could have handled it differently. Taking responsibility for the outcome. Yet years later, I was reflecting on it after something twigged my memory, and it was suddenly so clear that I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it before. It didn’t matter what I said or didn’t say, the outcome was already determined by them before I ever started the conversation. It was a stage play, I was just the only one thinking it was improv. Yet both before and afterwards, I had never thought about that as a likely or even possible interpretation. But when I thought of it, it was so obvious as to leave me thunderstruck. I reflect on my life daily. Yet such a basic realization had escaped me. Huh.

And sure, I know that there’s a body of literature out there that suggests these moments of clarity, or perhaps “new clarity” or realization, happen because the emotional content of the event has dissipated. Unblocking you from processing it more rationally. I get it, I can see it, I can even think in some instances that is likely what was happening. In part because when I thought back on it, I followed the same pathway into the event that got me there in the first place. But for the new realization, my memory was twigged in a different way, and I went back to the memory along a different path from normal. And thus literally gave myself a whole new perspective in coming upon the memory.

As a metaphor, it works. But it also works in reality for another memory I have had. We used to shop at a Towers store in Peterborough, which eventually became a Zellers and a Walmart. There is a grocery store attached which was a Dominion, and then I think a Food City, and either Food Basics or Price Choppers now, can’t remember. Anyway, when I was a kid, it was one of the two big box stores (the other being Kmart) where we would go to get Christmas presents, maybe some clothes (if it wasn’t Sears), etc. And yet I was thinking of the store one time and I could NOT picture what it looked like inside. I could picture the outside more or less, but I could not at all remember what the inside looked like. Until I remembered they had a different set of smaller doors on the other side of the store with a very small parking area, only one row. My mother ALWAYS parked over there. As soon as I remembered that, I could remember coming in that door, and voila, my memory was unlocked and I could remember where EVERYTHING in the store had been.

The metaphor for a similar revelation mostly works. If I go in one door, I follow the path as far as I can. Go in another door, a whole different path.

What event is playing with my brain?

In short, my wedding day. And more pointedly, the role of my mother in the wedding day. Going into the wedding day, I had several plans for how to avoid any drama with my family. I wasn’t worried about Andrea’s family, but mine has always been dysfunctional at the best of times. Add in formal settings, people being uncomfortable, everyone together, alcohol? Not a great combo.

So I planned ahead. I didn’t want any drama with my “best man” selection. I had a couple of early ideas, just to balance out Becky as Maid of Honour, but they didn’t work out, and I did NOT want any family drama. I don’t even know if there would have been any between brothers, as I have three main brothers and three more in-laws. I was close with my brother Bill when younger, then my brother Don in my teen years, and my brother Mike in my adult years. I spent a lot of time with my brother-in-law Ken when I was early teens, and Bob was a pretty comforting presence when my Dad died. And if I went with just “time” in recent years, that would be Dean who is a great guy all around. So I have six family members who could easily step up. Not to mention a nephew, Brian, who I was close to for a really long time, albeit not so much now that life has intervened and become more complicated. Chris would have done it too, so 8 right there. Before I even get to 3-4 friend choices. And I considered three before deciding it just wasn’t going to fit right. So I did it sans Best Man.

But then I got creative. I asked Mike and Bill to make a toast for my father to give them a role, and had Bill get me the drink for the toast plus scripted Mike so he wouldn’t get inappropriate. Don was tagged as an usher at the church, along with a close friend and a cousin. My sister Sharon covered off her family with a speech to welcome Andrea to the family in lieu of my mother, my sister Marie and her daughters helped out with decorations and Mom wrangling. A nephew and niece agreed to take some extra photos to supplement the official photographer’s collection.

Drama happened anyway, but for the most part, I kept it at bay and didn’t engage. Not my problem to worry about.

But early on, my biggest worry was not the drama but the impact on my mother. This would not be the first family event since my father had died, but it would be the most prominent one for him to miss. And she would be coming alone, so to speak. I also knew that she would want to pay for stuff that she couldn’t afford to pay for, and so early on, I made the decision that has messed with my head a bit in the last few weeks.

I let her completely off the hook.

I wanted zero pressure on her. So I made sure that she didn’t worry about organising or paying for a rehearsal dinner. She and my sisters did a shower, and she put a lot of work into that, which in retrospect, I wish I had paid more attention to her role in. My one sister tends to take over anything she’s involved in, cutting out others and ignoring their input, but I wish I had had a few moments alone with her afterwards to just sit and decompress and to thank her for it. She had a bad day that day, and she didn’t want me to pry, but she had invited a man to come that she had been sort of seeing. And he flaked on her. He called to apologize and she let him have it. He was attempting some BS about forgetting or whatever and she cut him off at the knees and told him she never wanted to hear from him again. She was alone, and she was feeling the letdown. But it wasn’t an area her and I could ever share, nor would she want me to try, and I let her off the hook on it. Now, with Jacob, I see how he reacts to things and even if he doesn’t want to talk about it, I want him to know that I see his pain, I know some of what he’s going through. Even if he chooses not to talk about it, I want him to know. With my mom, I knew, and I think she knew, but I’m not sure. But that’s not quite the right issue either, mostly just additional context to how far I could go and/or didn’t.

As the summer progressed, I was so focused on making sure she wasn’t feeling pressured, I don’t think I ever stopped to figure out areas where she might have been feeling pressured anyway. She came up for the cake tasting to help choose a cake, which I thought she might like. I consulted her on my ring choices. I talked to her about ties a bit.

But as I was processing the wedding photo galleries in recent weeks, a thought occurred to me. Andrea, like most brides, had her hair done that morning. Along with her sister Becky (as maid of honour) and her mom. What did my mom do? Now, remember, my mom was no spring chicken at this point, she was 81 years old. So we weren’t wanting to tire her out in an otherwise long day, but it never occurred to Andrea or I to see if she wanted to be part of that “outing”. I’m sure she would have said no, but it bothers me it never occurred to me.

Equally, my sister was insisting that my mother had to have a new dress, and my mom was not interested. So my sister went ahead and bought two dresses anyway so she could try them on. I thought it was overkill, my mom didn’t want a new dress and she was 81yo. Pretty sure she could make up her own mind about that.

But could she? Did she say no because she was feeling “out of it”? Of course, the mother of the groom would normally get a new dress. Particularly if she doesn’t have others hanging in her closet ready to go. She had one from a year or two before, but certainly for any other wedding in the family, she got a new dress. For mine, I was basically telling her she could wear whatever she wanted, to take the pressure off, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I let her off the hook too much. She looked great, I loved her dress (one of the ones my sister suggested).

I got one thing right, at least sort of, anyway. When we were at the theatre, waiting for the event to start, and I was running around making sure everyone had what they needed — ushers, musicians, the Minister, greeting some guests — my mother was sitting for awhile by herself at the back of the theatre. I feel bad about something that happened that I didn’t do right.

Because I was the one getting married, I let my 5 siblings handle mom wrangling for the morning to get her to the theatre. I would look after getting her from the theatre to the picture taking, and from pictures to the boat, and one of the siblings would take her back to the hotel afterwards. It was covered, I didn’t have to worry about it.

But apparently, there was confusion at the hotel that morning. My mom was nervous walking over to the theatre (about 3 blocks), and being late, so she got ready early. She was in the lobby when one of my siblings came down to come over, and so she latched on for the escort and made it over to the theatre early. Unfortunately, my one sister had been planning on bringing her over and she didn’t know my mom left. So they were looking for her at the hotel, she wasn’t there, they were all freaking out, finally found out Mom had gone ahead, and she was ticked. After wrangling her, buying her a dress, getting her here, etc., my sister was pissed my mom was so ungrateful that she didn’t even tell them she was leaving to come without them. Frustrating, sure. I get it. Nerves, drama, blah blah blah. But she chose to lay into my mother about 15m before the wedding, with my mom sitting there by herself, feeling a bit lost, and thinking mostly about my late dad. I saw it and I did nothing. Not my church, not my pew, not my problem. Other people were wrangling my mother today.

Yet, of all the things in my life that could be a possible regret, however much I don’t believe in them, I regret that moment. I should have thrown down, kicked my sister’s ass to the curb and let her know, “No, on my wedding day, nobody gets to talk to my mother that way.” I know, I know, it was not my job to regulate their relationship, and my mother never needed my protection. She survived the Great Depression, WWII, had six kids and two miscarriages, buried almost all of her nine siblings, took care of her family, worked, and buried her husband. She had seen some shit in her life. My sister’s rant probably never raised a blip on her shit meter. But it bothered me. Even though I know that if I had reacted, my mom would have felt it was her fault for not waiting originally.

Anyway, I’ve thought about all of this before, then and since, and except for the hair or dress, all of those things were already known. But I missed an opportunity right after that event. Or more accurately, I didn’t take as much time with her as I should have. We went over to the side of the theatre, out of prying eyes, to have a small “us” moment.

She brushed my jacket with a lint brush, helped check my hair etc.. It was nice, but it was only one of three short moments we really had all day. In retrospect, I kind of wished I had an extra 30m in there to just sit and chat about nothing before the ceremony started instead of having to rush around. Maybe even, gasp, play a game of cribbage or something. Just a quiet ritual for the two of us.

Later, during the formal pictures, we did have a small moment while other shots were being taken where I gently mentioned Dad not being there, but we didn’t talk, just sort of stood there watching the photos being taken, and she squeezed my hand. I think, in part, that I was hoping she would open up about what she was feeling, but that wasn’t really our kind of relationship to discuss that in that way, at least not then. Closer to her death, perhaps, as our relationship changed, but not then.

Finally, during the dance, we had a short dance to the wedding song for her and my dad. “My truly, truly fair”. I’m not much of a dancer, but I will remember that dance almost as much as the first dance with my wife.

What the hell am I even talking about?

I’m not sure I know. Some of it is regret, to the extent I can even ever feel it. Some of it is loss for my mom, with a sense of missed opportunity. But most of what triggered this is the reality that I was consciously aware of the issues with my mom long before the wedding, and I planned in a way that would minimize the pressure on her. I actively managed things for the year so that she wouldn’t feel stressed that she needed to do something. I wanted her to just enjoy it, not feel like she had to “deliver” on anything. But in doing so, we missed opportunities that looking back, maybe we wouldn’t have missed if we, well mainly I, didn’t try to make things easier for her throughout the lead-up. Maybe I was trying to protect her from me when I should have been letting her have more of a role so she wouldn’t have felt disengaged if she even did.

I just find it odd that in hindsight, certain choices we didn’t even consider at the time now seem clear from a weird memory twig, rather than when they were fresh, when we were consciously in the moment, and when it went according to our original but incomplete plan. Huh.