I took someone who I thought might just appreciate the theme of this film. Someone who often feels like a bad mom.
Okay, well I wouldn’t want to put words in her mouth of course, but I can tell that she feels like she can’t quite get it down, the act of being a mother. So many mothers feel that way and I can see why.
It’s hard to see Mila Kunis as a mom, what with the role she played as Jackie on That ‘70s Show. That is where I first saw her. She was a young teenager then and her character was selfish and vain, but I liked her and her starring role in this film is what first made me want to go and see it.
It was difficult for me, in a way, to believe her as a mother in her thirties. But then, it’s still strange to see my own sister and brother as parents too.
So, this film had its moments where the acting felt somewhat over-the-top and awkward.
I say this first, but I came away loving the film as a whole.
I can see how many might disregard the movie right off the bat. The title itself is controversial. If a parent already feels sensitive about the hardest job in the world, one which they chose for themselves or not, images of this movie might already be built up in their minds, even before giving it a chance.
Mila’s character Amy tries to have it all (marriage, children, career) and within the first half hour of the film everything falls apart for her.
Soon she is all on her own, still trying to do it all. She doesn’t fit in with the PTA moms, who look perfect and look down on anyone who doesn’t quite fit the mold.
Soon, Amy wants to give up, but not in a way that ever suggests a lack of real love for her two children. I’m sure every parent sometimes dreams of taking a break from it all. Nobody can be a good parent without taking care of the parent themselves on a regular basis.
She finds her own friendships with a few other mothers who definitely aren’t perfect. She tries to figure out how to get back into the dating game.
with one of the dads from her kid’s school, a widower who all the moms fawn over.
I felt the pressure Amy and her fellow moms were feeling. I better felt the pressure the mom sitting next to me in the theater must feel every single day. Of course, nobody ever truly knows that feeling until they themselves becomes responsible for the life of a child. That every decision you make directly affects their life. How every day there is some element of judgment from other parents and from society at large. I felt the heaviness of that responsibility, which is a solid weight on top of any parent, but which translates into the strongest feelings of love and devotion.
This movie was full of sweet moments and horrifying ones, involving hot coffee and spaghetti in the car.
It included a few montages, which can be difficult to describe for a sighted person explaining the film to someone with a visual impairment like myself.
This time however, it was done with brilliance: “Meh…huh…hmm…wha…umm.”
That was the best explanation anyone’s ever given me of a super speedy montage of people’s reactions to Amy’s odd conversation starters in a bar.
And so I do recommend “Bad Moms” to parents and non parents alike. It reaches the heart of family life, divorce, moving on and dating.
The film was criticized for the lack of attention given to the father parts, but I understood why the focus was placed on the mothers in this case. Still, stereotypes of what the roles are for fathers in raising their own children aside, families can be complicated and this film only gives one perspective overall, that of one mother, a group of mothers, the perfection that is expected, even more from the inside, from each mother herself.
All feminist rants aside also, I did feel like this time more focus was placed on Amy’s daughter and her need to be perfect like her mother. Amy’s son was a character I would have liked to see more of. He was helpless, mirroring his father, at the start of the film. But by the end, he was well on his way to becoming a chef when he grew up. His was a sweet role that was somewhat put on the back burner, as some said all the male parts were. I guess this time the females are featured, but with so much devotion to males in movies for so long, I thoroughly enjoyed this viewpoint.
Will Amy give up and truly become a bad mother? Or will she find a way to get it together for her kids and for herself and her own sanity?
Go check it out and see for yourself. (Some strong language throughout.)
A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
–Eleanor Roosevelt
I watched a Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelt clan: Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor.
I had heard of them all, especially Franklin and Eleanor, but I enjoyed learning about the history. My mother mentioned she didn’t know what to do with me becoming all political all of a sudden, but I assured her that was never going to happen.
I simply wanted to learn about the people themselves, what times were like back then, and how we got here. All the political stuff wasn’t my main focus. I payed more attention to the polio that Franklin was stricken with. I wanted to know how disability was handled in those days and how he made it all the way to the White House.
Then there was his wife and all the social activism she took part in and the work she did for women’s rights. I was planning a post on feminism for mid week, so I was particularly interested.
This was a big song in the early thirties and when FDR ran for president, after the crash of the stock market in 1929 and the subsequent depression throughout the thirties and leading up to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
The Happy Days song was a theme song, a slogan used for Roosevelt’s campaign. At one point, during the documentary, there is one of the first actual film and media clips on record, at least one of the first to appear in the documentary anyway. Franklin’s little granddaughter is the one to deliver that line, which was cute even all these years later, but although her grandfather would bring his country out of some extremely terrible times, the slogan “Happy Days Are Here Again” wasn’t exactly the case and wouldn’t be for more than ten years.
World War II and the Cold War and so on. It all just got me thinking of when we’re ever really happy, as whole countries or as individual citizens, but that doesn’t mean that gratitude is not the place to start.
and then there was yet another shooting outside a Planned Parenthood. What a week.
Ten Things of Thankful:
For my country and my province.
Yeah, Canadians are known for their modesty, most of the time, but lately we have been in the news for many acts of good will and open minds and arms.
Most notably, since being top story in the news around the world, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge of 25,000 Syrian refugees accepted into Canada.
The deadline is now at February, but at least we’re doing something and taking action to offer our doors wide open for anyone who wants to start fresh.
November 25th was International Day For the Elimination of Violence Against Women. I am very interested in feminism and write about it as much as I can here. It’s important to me and often somehow it gets twisted into something it is not. I want to change that.
The interview I did, is one man’s point-of-view on what feminism means and what it means to be one, to him personally.
I love a good concert and I chose the lawn “seats”, so I really hope for no rain that day in June.
I consider myself lucky every time I see another of my favourite bands live. It is the best feeling in the world, when the music I love surges through me, the performers so close.
For an invitation from a lovely group of fellow writers and bloggers.
I have been gradually building these blogging relationships with this particular group of bloggers from
Well, they hold a big Google Hangout vidchat, as they call it, and they asked if I wanted to join them.
I liked having a place and people to talk about writing with and I told them about my travel blog. Maybe they will be kind enough to offer some feedback at some point.
I am new to Google Hangouts, but they were patient with me, even when I hung up accidentally.
Oops.
🙂
It is nice for me, after so many months of reading and commenting and interacting, to get to put voices to the names. It will take me a few weeks to get a handle on exactly whose voice is whose, but I will get there soon enough. It’s just harder because I can’t keep track of who may have joined or left the chat because I can’t see the separate little windows on the screen.
For a very special 60th birthday celebration.
All the family came together on the final Saturday afternoon of November, to celebrate the best husband, father, and grandfather (PA) we could possibly have.
For some very special 60th birthday cupcakes.
Who doesn’t love cupcakes? How could anyone not be thankful for cupcakes?
🙂
I have a cousin who makes cakes and she does all sorts of designs and flavours.
I can’t see them, but I can feel the fondant.
For my brothers.
I am just lucky to have them, all three of them. Whether it’s when one carries my bag out to the car for me and gives me a ride home, to all the times he and the other two make me laugh, to the amazing father’s two of them are to my niece and nephews.
My older brother and I had a nice conversation, which isn’t always so easy in the group with everyone there. He was telling me about how his job is going. He is a photographer and Studio Manager.
He has been there for ten years and he is well known in his department for his talents, his hard work, and his integrity. I was happy to listen to him tell me about what his duties include and what an important and reliable part of the team he actually is at that place.
For goodbye hugs.
I am always a little sad when my niece and nephew are leaving. I love our byes at the door. It’s only one month until they will come back, next time for a few days, just after Christmas. It’s like we have Christmas twice in our family. Who wouldn’t love that?
My nephew holds onto me with his little gloved fingers and I say bye again.
For small businesses, locally run, such as my cousin’s hair salon.
I did an interview with her last March and November 28th was Small Business Saturday.
I think it is important to balance out the giant corporations and brans with the people who work so hard to offer quality options, products and services, in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.
For two of the most generous parents anyone could ask for.
That is all. They are just great to everyone they meet, especially their children.
I’m thinking this Christmas might not be so bad after all. I wasn’t quite myself last year around this time, but despite everything, it may turn out alright – happy days once more.
The only time i ever heard that old slogan, until I realized where it originated was when Brandon and Kelly got back together on Beverly Hills 90210.
Yeah, well for those of us who were huge fans of the young adult nighttime drama back in the nineties, it was a big moment. I remember how happy thirteen-year-old me was when my two favourite 90210 lovers were finally reunited, after two years of will-they/won’t-they.
🙂
What can I say? It got me through dialysis and that lousy year. Life gets more complicated as you grow older and it’s harder to find the sort of pure happiness you used to feel as a kid. This exercise in being thankful helps.
“I am angry every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it though it may take me another forty years to do it.”
I have been published on this witty, satirical, thought-provoking website, full of writers who want to get the conversation going and who do that very well.
and I went on to expressing my feelings, which meant criticizing the authors involved in the writing.
They were only being humorous, provocative; yet, due to the news of a two-year-old girl and her father being murdered in Alberta (which could be the inspiration for a more on time response I could write for this week’s prompt), this heartbroken Canadian wasn’t able to see any humour whatsoever.
It made me think about writing and its possible consequences because I was able to have a productive discussion with these writers, after-the-fact, and I wanted them to know why I may have sounded at all harsh. That is not how I usually am. Just a bad day.
Something seems odd about this day. What could it be?
Oh yeah, I am pulling into my driveway. Yes, me.
For years it was me, in the passenger seat, the passenger. Shotgun was where I was designated to be.
Now I am driving. All those self driving cars in the works, for so long, well they are out and they are becoming the norm. Sure, it could lead to some sort of science fiction nightmare, cars becoming intelligent and driving their riders into trees and over bridges, but I overlook this fear because things are perfect now, right here, as I don’t have to have sight to operate a motor vehicle.
I enter my house and notice a suitcase sitting out, ready for packing to commence. We are soon off on another trip.
We met at TBEX, a travel expo I finally made it to a few years back. It was in Honolulu, my dream spot. I’d always wanted to visit there and this travel writing/blogging conference was the perfect chance. Two birds with one stone as they say.
I didn’t expect to meet him, but, I must admit, I hoped it would happen, sooner or later. I am comfortable with some independent travel now, after a lot of practice, but it’s still nice to have someone there to experience the world with.
He is a photographer and knows about technology and websites.
I may be able to drive a car, but I haven’t wished hard enough for perfect sight, at least I guess not. Huh.
If I had that, I wouldn’t be The Insightful Wanderer, as the whole position of my travel blog would be altered. I am insightful, just as I am, but I will never stop wandering. It does not have to be a bad, lost, aimless way to go through life.
I struggled to learn about my blog and website, for a few years, but am glad I can leave that responsibility to him.
I am still The Insightful Wanderer and Her Headache. I am KerryKay.com too. Bought that domain ages ago, as my writing needed my real name to be known and featured more prominently.
Branding is a strange thing, but I have embraced it and now am known as three brands in one.
I haven’t given up on my writing, memoir and literary mostly, because fiction is a beautiful thing, but not where my natural talents are.
I walk past one of the many bookshelves in my house, and there are some of my books there, a few are fiction. I had modest success with that, beginning with the anthology I was accepted into, my first real big break really.
I have written three books and am currently working on a fourth, two memoir and two fiction: Piece of Cake, Connecting the Dots, Till Death, and Out Beyond the Hedgerows.
The first two are memoirs about my life, struggles, with disability, being a visually impaired woman in a mostly sighted world.
The third is a fictional story about how death and loss affect three different generations of one family.
And the fourth is an historical novel, based on family who lived through World War II.
I did not start to write a string of genre books, ones that get put on Amazon and Smash Words and of which I would have needed to keep on putting out to gain any momentum in the book world. I found my own path to success.
I have books everywhere, which brings me peace and solace when I’ve had a bad day.
It’s so nice to have found a partner who loves travel and we are a team. He takes care of the site and its visual elements, while I write. Writing has its place, but the world is and always will be a visual one.
I think a world of all blind humans is worse than the one where the cars take over, but I can’t say. Science fiction writing is not my area of expertise.
I have checked off many of the items on my bucket list, which brings me great pleasure, but it’s nice to know I will soon have a husband who is committed, not only to me, but to helping me achieve the rest. Life is precious and it goes by like that! We are making the most of every day.
I have broken the record for longest living kidney transplant recipient and the medications have made it possible that this won’t change anytime soon. When I reached my twenty year mark (June 5, 2017) I had a huge party to celebrate and everybody I know came.
In this fantasy, we have not cured cancer yet, but we are actually getting close this time, no fooling.
We’re still trying to decide what kind of a wedding to have and where to have it. Being the travellers we are, a destination wedding is most appealing, but I don’t want to put that pressure on the people I hope will attend.
I want to have it at the hotel in Niagara Falls, the one from my childhood and its precious memories, moving to the closest hotel to the falls for the wedding night. I will finally feel that vibration of the roaring falls through the window of our room.
Maybe we’ll get married on a beach or on top of the CN Tower in Toronto. I loved it up there, the first time I tried it, and a wedding on that ledge sounds strangely perfect to me. After all, isn’t marriage a little like standing on a ledge?
It’s scary but exhilarating. It’s freeing, once you find love and let yourself feel worthy of having and holding onto it.
I can admit, finally after years, that wanting marriage, a wedding, this does not make me weak. I am not some Disney fairy princess, waiting to be rescued. I want a partnership and that commitment is and always has been important to me. I’ve been shown what that can be like, through the examples of my wonderful parents and their parents before them. It’s in my bones, just like writing and travel.
I can make a living from my writing now. I was afraid that was holding me back from finding a guy who could understand, accept me for me, and not let money and pride and the pressures of that get in the way. I am not rich, but I am rich in all that I really will ever need.
I have seen my words in print, in a book, on my shelf and in a bookstore.
I have an advice column which helps people. I can write and offer my advice, which can be a tricky thing to give others, but I know I’ve had more experience with the hard stuff than most. Plus, this side work allows me freedom to travel. I can answer people’s questions from anywhere I might happen to be.
Blog. Writing. Travel writing is my first love because the world is everything. It’s all around us. We are it.
I had to build up my writing portfolio. I had to practice my craft, art as pure as anything.
Now, I can admit that making a reasonable living off of that is no crime. People are paid for all kinds of things, some that might seem less deserving, but that’s how the world works. It’s all about money, for so many, but it doesn’t have to be.
We discuss having children, after we decide on a wedding spot, but the jury is still out on that. I can accept that, even as I know the rules of this writing challenge aren’t at all limiting, because sometimes life means accepting some realities and hard truths.
It’s still open for discussion. Age doesn’t have to matter because I want to freeze this day, in time, so my parents are here and the children currently in my life stay the sweet age they are.
We will deal with the future tomorrow, but let this day and the moment linger.
Anyway, we are off, to make our flight. I will finally get my chance to swim with jellyfish, in their lake home, on the island of Palau in the south pacific.
***
Why do we feel so guilty, why do I, just for speaking up and admitting what it is we want for ourselves?
Why do I feel so selfish and awful to be so open with the things I dream about having, the life I would ideally wish for myself?
Do you ever feel that way?
If you could have an ideal day in your own life, what might that include?
I know I am worth it, I am worth everything, and I want to say so. I know what some people say, about the universe and just by saying it, you are actually letting into your life the things you believe you deserve. This is what I am doing here, today, because I am tired of holding myself back.
Yes, believe it or not, this blog has been me holding myself back, up until this point.
🙂
I have been blogging for a year and a half now and I continue to be myself, to let my self shine through here. That is what is at the essence of Her Headache.
I am finally going to be one of the first to get my #SoCS post out there this week.
A few weeks ago, I could not think of something to write – not one thing, with that week’s prompt not inspiring enough ideas for me.
Then, last week, the prompt gave me too many possible choices and I chose to do none of them.
Well, with this week’s prompt I am back and ready to share a little stream of consciousness with you.
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS SATURDAY
***
On my sixteenth birthday, my oma gave me a big bar of my favourite chocolate and something in a little triangular box.
“This belonged to my parents,” she told me, as I lifted the lid, revealing an old ring inside.
She always wore them, several rings on her fingers.
“This one,” she informed me, as I touched the band on her finger, “Opa bought for me. I give you this one when I die,” she would say to me, as matter-of-factly as she often could be, but I chose not to think of a time when my beloved Czech grandmother may not be there, rings and all.
I kept the little triangular box with me, not letting it out of it’s home like I did with my other rings.
I often wonder about where my ring has been, what life it lived, long before I took possession of it.
I would sometimes think it is a part of my life, but really I am, for a little while, a part of its’.
I don’t know much about my great-grandparents. I don’t know where the ring has been or what it may have seen during it’s early years.
How had it survived – traveled all those years and miles, from Europe to Canada and from them, to their daughter, to me?
I can not read the engraving on the ring, but I believe (if memory serves me) it is dated 1919 and will soon be 100 years old.
I haven’t been able to wear it often, as it was a little bit too big for my small fingers. I still don’t like to wear it, for fear that it could slip off and be lost forever to me.
I have lost precious things and precious people in my life, never got a chance to meet my great-grandparents, but I won’t lose this symbol of their love.
Okay, so although I do not know their story like I wish I did, I like to imagine things about them and their love for one another.
I keep the ring, securely in its box, hidden under my underwear in a drawer, away from the inquisitive hands of my nephew. He likes to play in my room, looking at my jewelry, specifically putting my many rings on his fingers. This one ring he can not, he must not find, as he is too young now, not able to understand the history and the memory wrapped up in that little ring.
“Tweasure,” my nephew cries, whenever he spots anything even resembling a treasure box. He thinks my mom has one at her place, but in it, to his disappointment, he finds only boring slips of paper and other things.
He has found an old tin chest I have to remember my oma by.
He likes to open it up, like a “door,” he says.
I always remember that same chest sitting on my oma’s dresser, in what once was the bedroom my dad’s two older brothers shared, where I slept any night I stayed with her.
It had a metal rose with a magnet on the bottom stuck on the lid and was often locked with a tiny lock. I was dying of curiosity, but the only treasure inside it was a bunch of pennies and other coins. It was still my favourite thing in that entire room.
Treasures are relative things, subjective to each and every one of us.
I will treasure the ring I received on turning sixteen and I will hold onto the memories and the history before my time, if those who are gone I can no longer have with me.
Those people and their stories and lives will, forever, be engraved on my heart.
1919-2019 – Time will go on, but nothing will ever change that.
Okay, so this post isn’t about cigars. I figured I should say that, right off the bat. There is no mention of a cigar anywhere, from here on out. I just liked the phrase.
🙂
Every damn time, it felt like, I got so close and then the floor just dropped out from underfoot.
I could see where I wanted to go, where I wanted to end up, but somehow I missed the mark, every time.
I had gone to school for years, fighting so many obstacles, and it had been both rewarding and hard work.
I almost got held back while my friends were off to high school, but I had managed to avoid that at least.
But now, I was almost at the end, but not quite. I guess “almost” is a relative term, because I actually only had half the credits I needed to graduate, but in the grand scheme of things it felt close enough to my mind.
Right around this time a song came out that I would equate with this feeling of frustration, that I couldn’t quite do it. I had been almost at the end of the road, but I had to face the fact that I would be left behind.
I’d lost everything. It felt like I had nothing to show for all that hard work. How was I supposed to get over this disappointment I felt?
The anger in the song mirrored the anger I felt at myself, for almost making it to the milestone, one so many parents celebrate for their children, but I had fallen short.
I was almost certain I was letting everyone down: my parents, the teachers that had helped me along the way, and myself of course.
Almost wasn’t good enough. I hadn’t been good enough.
***
Next would come two relationships. Two years. Two-and-a-half. Same disappointment. That’s life sometimes, I suppose.
I could blame it on my bad health and illness, bad luck, or maybe it was me.
Yeah yeah. I know. Most bloggers, including me, say that they don’t care about that.
They care a little. I care a little.
For years nobody was reading anything I wrote. Now some are, at least some of that 1000 are.
Then April 10th was International Siblings Day and I did not write a tribute or message about my siblings on the day, but I have been thinking about siblings, thinking a lot.
I spent the day yesterday with my siblings, my father with some of his, and my niece and nephew…well, I watched them play for hours.
The fact that siblings grow up, move away, and grow apart is hard for me to accept sometimes.
I watched my siblings, my father and uncles, and my niece and nephews. I thought about how deserving of that relationship my other nephew is.
I thought about how siblings can be far far apart physically, but still remain close, or living nearby and as far apart emotionally as possible.
Or distance can keep them apart and things are just never the same.
My father’s half-brother is visiting from Germany.
The “half” part matters little. The connection is not half anything.
I watch them and I think again about siblings.
Circumstances keep siblings apart and it takes effort to come back together again.
I had forgotten what he was like, since I saw him five years ago.
Things started to come back to me, about how generous he was in hosting us, when visiting Germany in the late 90s.
He is outgoing and friendly and fun.
The language barrier gets in the way some, but he speaks enough English to get by.
It is too bad he is the one who speaks English. Languages have never been my thing, but it makes you want to conquer that obstacle.
The brothers are off to visit their sister.
Life is unpredictable.
It’s hard for me to grasp the fact that they all had a whole lifetime before I ever existed. I can’t fathom that and it makes me wistful.
From Germany to southwestern Ontario, to near to Canada’s capital, Ottawa.
Time and space can separate those connected by blood, but those gaps must be bridged. Time doesn’t slow down for anyone.
On visiting my aunt last month I felt this most acutely. She is my connection to her mother, my oma, and meeting her, ten years into my own life and fifty or so into hers was a blessing in my life.
As time flies by, opportunities slip past, past me and past them. We all know that.
I didn’t want to leave her that March day and now the siblings pose, arms around each other, holding on tight to whatever time they have left.
But they never know when that time together might run out, for any of them.
I wish I could slow this process down, for them and for myself too. I wish I could freeze it in still.
No language barrier can get in the way of love and family.
I watch the newest generation and it seems like they have all the time in the world, all the time to learn and grow and be siblings.
I think of my 1000 blog followers and what importance that holds, the milestones that mean the most. I think of the importance siblings have in my life.
It helps me to keep life in perspective and to remember what’s truly important to me.
I would be nowhere and nothing without my siblings. I love to see all the siblings around me. I want us all to make time for each other, to appreciate one another, and to never forget that we started out together, we know each other like no one else does or ever will.
Yet sibling relationships are all different. Some take time to grow.
It’s a unique and special connection that a sister or a brother has or is to the others.
All the realities of growing up and drifting apart don’t matter, they won’t matter in the end, when the end comes.
He brings my niece and nephews gifts from Germany, my uncle does. He toasts me, our beer bottles clinking and I’m glad he’s here.
I am lucky to have him and the others in my life, in my family, forever and no matter where we all live, where we all go, might end up at.
Hope everyone can have a day like I had, parents and siblings, aunt and uncles, niece and nephews. Gather family around and don’t let them go.
Not everyone can say they’ve had a day like I’ve just had, but make the effort. You won’t regret that you did.
Special thank you to every one of my blog followers. You read my words and I thank you for that.
Thank you to my siblings, for all the support you’ve shown for this blog and for me.
The little boy loved to play in the dirt and the tiny stones and gravel of the ball diamonds that filled his family’s summers.
While his parents sat up above him, on the bleachers watching their son or daughter’s baseball games, their youngest child would amuse himself as best he could.
He and his older sister did not play, both unable to really see well enough for such team sports, but she did not enjoy her little brother’s activities either. She did not enjoy playing in the dirt and getting it caught all underneath her fingernails.
She sat up next to her parents, just waiting for someone to suggest a trip to the snack bar, or booth as it was lovingly known as in her family.
It wasn’t all fun and games.
The same rocks that were sharp and hard under the children’s feet, before their other set of grandparents paved the top part of their driveway, those are just the type of rocks he was told to collect. It was always a torturous trip from one side of the stony driveway to the other.
Such as life. This is life sometimes: rocky.
Their grandparents before them knew this well.
***
The man had worked hard in his life, way before his grandchildren came along.
He had to dig ditches during the war, or so I believe I heard was the story. His life is something I often think about, unable to imagine what that would have looked like for him, as such a young Polish man: Polish, French, Polish, a war in Germany and across Europe, and to Canada he eventually came.
His days of hard work did not end there.
Working in the mines in Quebec. I shutter at this thought, being highly claustrophobic myself. What did he have to do? How did he toil just to make some money to support himself and his new wife, in a new country so unfamiliar to the both of them?
He was a brick layer and he moved to Ontario to make a better life for the children they would have. My father was one of those children.
HE would build the little house, for his growing family, on Dover Street, close to the park.
This little house and the one I thought of today, on the anniversary of his death.
We have his houses to remember him by, whether it’s the big one, we still drive by sometimes or the miniature he built, from skill and with love.
For months my little brother brought him bags and bags of stones for the project they were working on together. They were buddies and my opa had a special thing in mind for his grandson.
He took those skills, now scaled down in size, due to all those years of drudgery and a bad back as a result. He would build a little house from the stones the little boy collected and he would build it, special, just for that boy.
Stones, a wooden frame, cardboard shingles for the roof. The little stone house was simple and beautiful. The accompanying garage, along with a chimney, and long-ago-lost plastic Santa on top.
The little house and garage are still with us, down in my parent’s basement. They serve as a memory of love, the simple and sweet love my father’s father had for my brother, and me too.
It is a kind and gentle love that will never be tarnished by age, time, or circumstance. We were young when we lost him, when he was taken from us. This freezes that love, a representation of innocence in childhood. I feel it every time I run my hands over the stones that he sculpted into a work of art.
He made my brother something he could touch with his hands, unable to see, and keep even after he was soon gone.
It will forever be, to me, the house that love built.
***
Last year, only weeks into my blogging journey, I wrote a post,
With this the train had left the station. Compassion has been spreading rapidly through the blogosphere ever since.
It is a movement which hopes to spread compassion, kindness, support, caring for others, and non-judgment and there is nobody I think embodies all these things more than my very own sister.
She is an extremely kind and caring daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, and aunt. Not to mention one of the most caring human beings around.
Okay, so I may be a tad biased here, but just read on and you’ll see what I mean.
All this is why I’m pleased she took some time to write about her thoughts on these important qualities and I am thrilled to shine this week’s spotlight on her and her thoughts now.
***
Compassion is a complicated thing. It should be more simple, but it is often more than just caring about the people that deserve it. The hard part is caring for those who do not deserve it, it is those people who somehow need it more.
The problem with that is that it is the other people, who we believe to be innocent, who usually are – that would then suffer. There are also many situations where lines – between those who are considered innocent our not, whether to consider someone a victim or not, or if they are worthy of compassion – are blurred.
Those who do the most horrendous things are usually the most scarred, the ones with the most tragic past.
The hardest line to walk is not excusing their current behaviour; the fact that their father beat them everyday of their childhood – that they had to witness the same atrocities to their mother or siblings, should this give them a pass for their current actions? Does this excuse what they have become?
Of course not. There comes a point in time when any victims they are creating are now more important than the tragic up bringing that turned them into the reprehensible person they have become. Personal accountability has to be taken into consideration, there is a certain point where it trumps even the most tragic upbringing, but even then there is all always room for compassion, though that is often easier said than done.
Does that mean we should not also feel compassion for what inspired this person’s spiral into what they have become?
Herein lies the problem. How do we try to understand the bad part, without excusing it?! There is, unfortunately, no simple solution but it does require to sometimes just take a step back and try and look at the situation from all sides – especially when it seems like the hardest thing to do.
Recent events; terrorist actions, racial injustices, victim shaming in sexual assaults – all things that could use a little, or even a lot, more compassion.
Does free speech excuse being callous with someone’s beliefs? Regulations on free speech, whether legally enforced or from social pressure, are in no way the answer but just because you can do something does not mean you should!
There is, again, no excuse for any reaction that involves a blatant disregard for human life, and it is never easy to balance being able to express ones personal beliefs that are often something we as humans feel very passionate about. No one wins when public discussion and free speech is suppressed – but there is also always room for a little more compassion.
On September 11th, 2001, nineteen men were responsible for the death of thousands. Thousands of people who were living, breathing human beings, with feelings and families. How many children grew up with out a parent – how many parents had to bury their children? Others buried their wives, or husbands – uncles, aunts, cousins, friends.
Now just imagine what went wrong in those nineteen men’s lives for them to feel these actions were justified? It’s not an excuse for what they did, only something to take into consideration. Did one or two of these men – or all of them, experience loss on their own scale? I am not suggesting we excuse their actions, only that we strive to understand them.
To look beyond and consider these feelings, this terrible event brought up, in an attack so close to home, it is hard to look past our own pain and see the pain in others.
That this feeling of vulnerability, that not feeling safe and secure in our every day life, it is the reality in those attackers lives, as well as so many others in their communities. Also that they do not all turn out to be extremists. It’s not always easy to understand for us but like in all parts of the world we are often byproducts in our upbringing and what we are subjected to in our everyday lives. Now imagine this it’s your everyday life but on a much more extreme level.
There is little one can do to make war less horrific than the hard truth of it but a little compassion can go a long way. You may argue that the, us against them, mentality is what gives a soldier their ability to do what it is they need to do, but compassion might just be what is needed.
Most of the people they are fighting are also just people with families, fighting for their country. You may feel they are fighting for a country with unconscionable practices, but we also must remember looking in on another country’s policies (as with an individual’s beliefs) is not as simple as it sounds. Morality is sometimes much less black and white than we would like to think.
Just as, despite what side you may fall on with the out come in the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, a little more compassion for what is a never ending struggle to feel safe as a minority in North America.
I can not say what the police force, nor the individual officer’s, feelings were behind the shooting but Michael Brown’s subsequent innocence or guilt does not remove what it represents to a community that feels unheard and unimportant.
Michael Brown’s guilt or innocence in any crime in the moments before, is not really what makes the situation so hard to just move on from. The feeling that it may not always matter if he was coming from volunteering at a soup kitchen or from robbing a convenience store, that his death is representative of what it means, to not, be a white man in America.
There are many examples that being guilty of something, is not always requirement for a death sentence – this is not the first or the last time. Compassion is required to understand that, it requires taking yourself out of your own shoes and imagine how different some peoples realities really are.
Victims of sexual assault also feel a similar marginalization – with the burden of the victim to prove their innocence, in favor of not violating the rights of the perpetrator. In that regard, people usually just site innocent until proven guilty for standing up for the accused, but with sexual assault, unlike most other crimes, assuming the accused is innocent often requires implying the victim is guilty until proven otherwise.
This doesn’t happen in murder cases or most other crimes, it just means they’ve got the wrong person. With sexual assaults, the assailant is most often known to the victim.
The innocent until proven guilty defense also does not apply outside a court of law, and definitely does not remove your ability to show compassion towards someone who is a victim of such a personal and horrendous crime.
Ensuring there are never false accusations may not be possible but there is a much larger number of women who remain silent, due to the reality of what the victim exposing themselves will do to their everyday lives.
It is when we fail the victims on such a large scale that we need to look at how we deal with such a sensitive subject. Compassion when dealing with a woman (or a man) who has been sexually assaulted should be an easy choice but like many things in life – any hostile or judgmental reaction, often tells more of the other person than the victim themselves.
Understanding a person’s motivation can go a long way with dealing with your own suffering. This applies to personal pain, on an individual level, as well as on a larger scale with the pain of a whole community, or a nation. Compassion can also be applied in all areas of our lives.
Instead of throwing away a relationships – regardless of the degree of the betrayal, maybe try and understand what caused them to be so careless with your feelings. Forgiveness is not always an option but understanding it can give way to some compassion for both parties. It can also be just as beneficial to you as it is to whoever hurt you. By your ability to show that understanding, in a situation that is not necessarily your fault (though most things in a relationship do require some fault on both ends) – this compassion will help to strengthen your other relationships, in both the present and the future.
We also see it as a divide between generations. We could all better ourselves if we could try and have a little more compassion for the things we see as insignificant in the lives of others. The idea of a teenager being in love can seem foreign to those who have long been passed this stage in their life, making it easy to pass it off as puppy love. Although it may not be the same, as the love of a couple who has enough experience in love and life, the loss of either relationship is painful to the respective person, both just as valid, even if they are not what some see as equal.
Everyone’s pain is valid, and this is where compassion is ultimately needed. You do not need to excuse behavior to show compassion. We could all benefit from putting ourselves into others shoes. Does this solve all the problems of our world, maybe not. Does it erase the many wrongdoings, of course not – but the only way to change the world is through these small steps.
There will always be bigger events that are credited with shaping our humanity but it is just as important to make these small gestures to continue to push all of us to create a world where we have the best chance to get along, to give all its inhabitants the dignities we ourselves deserve. And it extends to all inhabitants of this earth, from our fellow humans, to the many animals we share it with, as well as the environment and natural resources surrounding us.
Compassion is the answer.
***
I agree. That is why I am participating in #1000Speak and why I wanted to share this topic of compassion, from wise women like my sister.
First week of February: my birthday month and the month I transformed my writing into something more.
Around here, we are receiving a lot of snow right now, last night especially, and this reminded me of those days when a snow day off of school was a big deal.
Ah, the good old days.
🙂
It’s also Groundhog Day today and I think they are at odds with one another and I am too. Can’t seem to agree on how much more snow is to come.
It’s not like I don’t have a sense of humour, but I don’t really pay much attention to the idea, joke or not, of a rodent telling us when winter will officially end.
I suppose they may know something I don’t, being out there in that environment on a daily basis, but I ride out the cold and the snow because I live in Canada and I’ve accepted it. I even like it.
Last week I took a break from my usual Memoir Monday posts. My last one, from two weeks ago now was:
Q: Have you experienced discrimination because of disabilities?
A: A lot of times, as I have discussed in previous posts, the discrimination I feel isn’t something outright. It is more of a subtle undercurrent to be felt.
It isn’t appropriate to be directly discriminatory and such behaviours would be generally frowned upon by the rest of society.
However, I have come up against some instances and some people, for whatever reason, that stood out to me, to this day.
First, there were some of the battles and the people my parents went up against to get me into school as a child. This, they met with an expected amount of resistance, but I was too young and unable to witness this, or at least I remember none of it.
Second, there was the time my grandmother took my brother and me out for lunch in our town.
I had a guide dog then. We walked all the way through a restaurant full of customers, sitting at their tables, just to be told that the dog couldn’t be there.
This was a Chinese buffet restaurant. Perhaps there were cultural differences and misunderstandings. I understand. I can be sympathetic.
However, it felt like a humiliation at the time, being told, very quietly I must add, that we could stay but the dog had to go outside.
I did not fight this and neither did my grandmother. She wasn’t really much of a fighter. We ended up all leaving, rather than simply putting my service animal out in the car.
Third, well there was the time a ride operator at an amusement park didn’t want to let my brother and I go on his ride. It wasn’t even one that went up-side-down. I think we got on, but it was another awkward situation.
Fourth, like the Chinese restaurant, there was one more occasion where a pizza parlour did not want my guide dog in and wanted us to tie her up outside.
This time we went home and contacted the head office of the establishment and demanded an apology.
I know not everyone will understand the purpose and the distinction between pet and service animal. There are cultural differences, like the many doctors of Asian or Middle Eastern descent who have walked into my exam room, only to notice the dog there and to be noticeably uncomfortable. This is something I’ve encountered, but they still examined me. I promised my dog wouldn’t attack them and they did their jobs and checked me over and that was that.
🙂
Fifth, there was the recent incident where I wanted to try walking around the outside of the CN Tower in Toronto, only to read on their website that people with visual impairments were on the list of those they did not permit.
This time I wasn’t about to let go and I kept on them, going through the young female operator, her manager, and finally the Operations Manager to plead my case.
I let them know that I could handle it and that I wasn’t about to let it go. I stayed firm and I got through to them. It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life.
And finally, I am working on writing a blog post about the recent experiences we’ve had with descriptive audio services at a local movie theatre. I don’t like to make a scene or a stink and cry “Discrimination” without cause and before I look properly into a situation.
I am learning, as I get older, that I have to stand up for myself and make noise if I want to be heard. If I feel discriminated against, in any way big or small, I need to say something instead of just staying my usual timid, quiet, shy self.
I know most people are good and kind and don’t mean to be discriminatory, but it happens and I want to be prepared and confident enough in myself, for any occasions when it may happen yet again.
These are only a few of the examples I can relay, that I have experienced, as someone born with a visual disability.
Today’s Memoir Monday is not only about my memories and about redefining disability, but it’s known as Blue Monday, I am still spreading my message for #1000Speak, and in the US it is known as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
so how are all these things connected?
So how can I speak about all of these? Well, I’m sure going to try.
🙂
Last week I answered a question for RDAC about the biggest challenge I face with my disability,
This week is asking about my family, but from my perspective on things and I feel the answer lies connected with my post from last week.
***
Q: What do you think are the biggest challenges that your family members face in regard to disability?
A: I think the biggest challenge, for my loved ones, is not the disability, but the rest of the world…
(Stop me if I’m way off here guys.)
:)))
I am lucky to have them and I know it. I was not neglected or mistreated. I was not loathed or resented or given up on.
So so far from all of those things.
My family love me for me, exactly who I am. It’s the rest of it that worries them.
Martin Luther King Day is mostly celebrated in the country of his birth and of which he lived. Although it is celebrated in the US mostly, I did learn that Toronto is one of the other places where today is a celebrated and a recognized special occasion.
I choose to use “I Have A Dream” to illustrate my point and to answer today’s question.
Martin Luther King spoke, in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech about segregation and about his dream of a desegregated population.
I know it can not be compared, not really, but I can’t help feeling a deep connection with this day, with this speech, and with the man who gave it.
I am white and I do not know what it’s like to be treated differently because of the colour of my skin, but I do know what it’s like to feel closed off from the rest of the world. I know how it feels to be segregated, in more ways than one, from the world around me.
I listen to King’s powerful words and I feel a tingly sensation to my core. I have dreams too.
So do my loved ones.
From the first moment it hit my parents that I was going to face some difficult times growing up, due to the fact that I could not see like everyone else, they had a dream.
They had a dream that my brother and I would be able to grow up and become adults, in a world where differences weren’t emphasized for their separateness and frowned upon, but instead celebrated and highlighted for the uniqueness introduced to the world.
They had a dream that I would find friends, get an education, and find my place in the world. That I would find employment, acceptance, and love and happiness, all the same things any parent would want for their child.
***
“That all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
***
King was speaking about race, but not only that:
“from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city,” and “black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics,” were all mentioned here.
Disability was not. I believe we are embarking on the days of fighting for the rights of those with disabilities, in a way, like society was at with race fifty years ago.
I know these struggles are ongoing when it comes to race, but they extend to anyone with a disability. society is slow to adjust to the differences it sees and feels unable to cope with. This is the challenge my parents especially must handle.
They never stop worrying about us, not even as we’ve grown into adults. They will never stop.
What do they worry about when, one day, they won’t be around to watch out for us any longer?
What do my two sighted siblings worry about? Do they fear, not selfishly but realistically, once they must take on any perceived or real extra responsibility, with selfless concern for us?
When that day comes, where in life will I be and how much farther will the rest of society have come in regards to acceptance and inclusion?
It is a mostly silent and behind-the-scenes disregard. It is not openly hostile, like it has historically been for those of other races. There has been educational segregation. This has slowly lessened as time has gone on.
It’s hard not to feel feelings of bitterness and anger sometimes. I know my family have felt it for me, feelings of indignation for how the world sometimes looks down at me for daring to have a disability which makes a lot of people ucomfortable. The challenge, for me and them, has been to not let those feelings control how we’ve looked at the rest of the world.
King spoke of “their destiny being tied up with our destiny.”
Maybe one day soon the world will realize that we are all one, connected through being human, regardless of our differences, be them skin colour, religion, or our abilities.
King goes on to speak about dignity. The challenge, in my case, is to find this right to dignity that we all are entitled to. The challenge is to find it and I owe my family for all they’ve done to help me get my share.
I was lucky to be born here in Canada. My family have never truly had to discover what it felt like to be fearful for my physical safety.
I do not mean to say that the experiences MLK spoke of are all that similar to those of someone, like myself, born with a disability. However, there are just some similarities that I can not ignore.
It all boils down to dreams in the end, the dreams we all have for a more tolerant and loving society.
***
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”
***
This is possibly the most famous line from King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
My parents too had four children. Their biggest dream would also and always have been that the four of us (two born with disabilities and two not) would grow up in a world of less judgement of those differences that stand out, and more recognition of the way we treat others and conduct ourselves, as kind and decent human beings.
This is the challenge, to learn how to deal with an imperfect and fallible world, all while remaining happy and safe within that world.
***
King said: “the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,” and this is a challenge that my family all must tackle. They must know how to trust that our path in life, literally and figuratively, will be a safe enough one for my brother and myself to walk along, whether with them or by our selves.
They had to discover, from the first time I fell or hurt myself on an object in my path that I did not see, that I would be okay and that they could not protect me from everything, all the time.
***
A huge part of King’s words were about discrimination, the word and the act of discriminating against someone because of the colour of their skin.
discrimination comes in many forms and I have felt discriminated against, of course, in my own way. I was spared violence and outright hatred, but I felt looked down on still. I felt lesser than and like something to be ashamed of and hidden away.
My family must look in on this sort of thing, often from the sidelines, and feel the helplessness of how far we have yet to come.
We may be fifty or so years ahead of King and his words, but the challenges to the dream we all have are still there.
***
So much of this speech stays with me and gives me hope whenever I hear these words, spoken so eloquently.
Over the next month I will be writing all my blog posts with #1000Speak on my mind.
I will get through the cold winter days to come, speaking my own message of hope, with the words of Martin Luther King running through my mind, and the energy I feel from 1000 Voices Speak For Compassion because it all comes out to the same thing.
I have my own dream for the world and my compassion and the compassion of others is at the centre of all of it.
Her Headache 
