End of the Year of Giving

For ten years I've had the same hair cut and worn the same blue Canadian Cancer Society wristband on my right wrist.

Constant reminders.

I got a bag of the wristbands, and I think I'm on my fourth or fifth one. The hair cut is partially motivated by my desire to remember, and mostly motivated by laziness - I prefer to shower before bed, so I like a hair cut that requires zero daily styling.

Habits I started on the tenth anniversary of my mom's death. I'm nearing the point in my life where she's been gone longer than she was there.

Over the past year, one of my colleagues who I work with very infrequently has brought her knitting to meetings. I don't think there was a day in my life that mom didn't knit. She brought it to watch me play sports. Later, she'd take that work out, because the tension would've been all off. Seeing someone else as committed to knitting is joyful grief. The grief is compounded by the fact that I think I outgrew every sweater my mom ever knit me - I still have a handful of toques.

On the twentieth anniversary of her death, I've spent the day in her favourite place in the world - Bayfield. Twenty years ago, less a few weeks, we all treked to the family cottage in Bayfield. Mom sat in a rocking chair by the fire looking out the window for most of the weekend. There was a serenity to her pain.

Mom on her tricycle, me in the back basket. How I survived to adulthood, no one will ever know.

I often wonder what she'd think of Bayfield now. Grandma sold the original family cottage years ago. It's been renovated many times since, but the old fieldstone fireplace is there with a new gas insert. My fondest memories of that cottage were eating from the bottomless supply of vanilla caramels. I bought some at the grocery story today.

We sold the newer family cottage a few years ago. Since then we built a new cottage / retirement house next door, and my sister built her home beside that. Until recently I'd never spent more than a day or two in Bayfield between Thanksgiving and Easter / May 24th. I wonder if mom would appreciate the other half of Bayfield as much as I do - the wind is roaring and the waves are crashing, but we're cozy inside by the fireplace.

What I know she'd love is the grandkids.

The walk to the dead end - a cherished family tradition.

But that's where I miss her the most. I know I wasn't an easy child to parent. I had a lot of energy, and drive, but not always a lot of focus. I had some deep-seated fears and anxieties that I couldn't articulate. I was picky about what I ate. Stubbornly so. I have no memory of whether I was a good sleeper. I have very few memories related to sleep before teenagehood, when I slept all the time.

My child is me. Well, with my partner's curly hair and facial features, and a lot more confidence / less fear (we have no clue where that comes from). She's got my body type, including boundless athleticism and energy. How my mom was able to deal with me without putting me in sports until I begged her is beyond me.

I wish I could ask her. I wish I could ask her all kinds of questions. I wish she was here, looking at Lake Huron with me, listening to the roar and crash of waves and wind. We'd both be lamenting the fact that we didn't buy Culbert's donuts this morning, or, if we had bought them, regret binge eating a dozen.

It's been a year of ups and downs for us. The downs have been some of the lowest I've experienced in the past twenty years. The ups, however, have been rewarding. I'm wrapping up multiple years of volunteer work to build something national - something bigger than the sum of its parts. I ran five races this year, including doing a decent job fundraising for the hospital. I've donated to a different charity every single week (I can confirm that the majority have emailed/called/mailed unsolicited crap, and at least one of them provided my contact information to other charities - I still don't regret it, but I'll be narrowing down the list of charities next year).

I ended my day trimming my hair - the same style it has been for ten years. I miss her. Always.