Hey friends, it’s been a minute.
I hope you’re all doing ok - I hope you’re navigating this challenging time with self-compassion and kindness. Things are draining, and I feel like as fall unfolds into winter, we’re all feeling a bit like a threadbare sweater. When I feel completely exhausted I take whatever time I can to do something I love - maybe that’s creating art, maybe it’s listening to some rain sounds in the dark, or sitting by the river watching the water flow, visiting the forest, or just having a quiet, slow breakfast next to my open window while all the birds hop around the garden. I do a lot of things at a much slower pace these days, and maybe there’s some grace in the process of just rolling with it, staying warm, finding things I never felt I had time or headspace for.
I’ve had a hard time knowing how to place this into words, and almost three months in I felt it was time to talk just a bit about what’s been happening for me this last while. In August, my dad became very sick and was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer. During this time my parents had been preparing to move into a new home, and so as we navigated the enormity - the impossibility - of all this news, packing, painting, organizing, selling the house, all continued. We couldn’t have done any of it without a community that came around us to help. It all blurs, between this surreal loss, this significant change, all in the middle of a pandemic. I know that so many of you know what it is to feel your heart break and keep going anyways - I felt as though my heart broke a thousand times from August to September, and yet here I still am.
In mid-September, my dad passed away in hospice. Hospice during Covid was a very strange experience. All the common areas were closed with the furniture stacked, and we had to wear gowns, masks, and goggles to go visit with him. Visitors were limited to 1-2 a day, until the end, when we could all be with him. The staff were absolutely wonderful, and their empathy & compassion working during an incredibly challenging and exhausting time was so helpful. My dad spent his last days working on his memoirs, visiting with friends when he could, and had a wonderful Saturday the week he died - where he felt like his old self, had eggs benedict for breakfast, and managed to get a number of pages in his memoirs completed.
My dad lived a beautiful, empathetic & rich life. Looking back through all the photos - and there are so many - I feel grateful to have such a record of his humour, kindness, and spirit.
Since he’s died, my mom has moved into her beautiful apartment with their cat Jasper. I sit by the river sometimes and remember him, wearing his bright blue hoodie. We held his funeral just over a month ago - and my dad planned a part of it. He would have been so honoured by it - and thankful, as my family and I are, for everyone who worked so hard to plan it & make it accessible to everyone who wanted to attend, even at a distance. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to look at the memoirs, but they’ll be there when I’m ready to edit & arrange them for him like he wished me to. My family and I talk on FaceTime as often as we can - I haven’t hugged my mom since cases started going up, but I’m really hopeful that we can all be together at Christmas in our little bubble.
At Halloween, Audra and I went up to Tullstarr for the weekend. It was so so so needed. I made a little memory altar to my dad, with shells filled with red chilli flakes & lavender, soul cakes and a little cup of coffee, with one of his pens & his jacket. As I sat outside, a hawk - which was a significant animal for my dad - swooped down, flapped his wings, and soared into the field. I know my dad is OK, I really do - I just also know I will spend the rest of my life missing him.
His dear friend, Brander Raven, an amazing artist, created a hawk drawing that we placed on his urn. Since then I’ve seen so many hawks, more hawks than I think I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure if it’s that I notice them more, or that I’m seeing them as tiny, significant messages - a reminder that there is more to the universe than we experience with our own eyes, that those we lose are never truly lost, and that even when we’re feeling at our deepest, darkest, most alone - we never truly are.
As fall gives way to winter, I’m still taking photos, I’m still creating. I’m translating, somehow, all of this heaviness in my chest into something I can look at, and work with, and create with. Some days this works well, other days it doesn’t, but there’s grace in the midst of all of it because even when your heart breaks, slowly, in time, there is a love, creativity, and care seeping in to every shattered space.
I hope that all of you are doing ok, I hope you’re feeling loved, and safe, and giving yourselves space to just unfold in this complex season.
Upper L - R: 1. Our last walk by the river. 2. A beautiful floral arrangement by my friend Britt at Blossom Floral Design. 3. My dad and I at our special family spot. 4. Self Portrait in my parent’s new apartment. 5. “Temporarily Closed Please do not Use” Hospice during Covid.
My dad in his new apartment.
L-R: My dad’s funeral with Brander Raven’s hawk drawing on his urn. 2. Paper hearts outside the hospital window. 3. Hospice closed common rooms. 4. My dad, watching us. 5. My dad’s funeral table, including his Paul Harris Fellowship pin from Rotary and his rainbow stole. 6. Britt at Blossom Floral Design created such a beautiful floral display for my dad. 7. A little altar memorial for my Dad on Samhain. 8. My dad’s bedside table at hospice, looking like a self portrait of him - his pens, ketchup packets, spoon for coffee, phone, glasses, pens for notes. I took this in the morning on the day he died.
We’ll miss him forever.