Saturday, June 28, 2025
Two Years Past
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Friday, May 16, 2025
Our house is a very very very fine house
Since Rob's tragic fall, our house has become my house, and I no longer want to spend all my time here.
Still, it is a very fine house in a 13th century Bastide town in the south of France, surrounded by sunflower fields and vineyards.
Years ago, when Marlene agreed to hold workshops here, we called it the writing house and women from around the world came to write. When only we were at home, Rob. and I wrote. It's perfect for ruminating, for wandering around the countryside and for putting pen to paper. There are two offices with desks although I often find myself writing at the long kitchen table or on the outside table on the terrace.
My house has a resident cat, an arrogant miss called Fauci who we adopted during the pandemic. At first, we thought she was a he and by the time we found out her gender, Fauci liked her name. She only demands to be fed once a day and be stroked when she so desires.
My house has many stairs and to make the ascent more interesting, I painted favourite quotes from family and friends on some of the steps.
I am looking for a good person or a couple to fly to France and care for my house and cat. One month is fine but two or more months is better.
If this appeals to you, please contact me at byyoung@mac.com.
Thank you.
Monday, April 28, 2025
Death, be not proud
My sister Gael's beloved died April 24, 2025, nearly exactly to the day, two years ago, that Rob took his tragic fall. I am mourning the death of yet another good man.
Larry was a husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend.
He was also a teacher, a dreamer, an inventor, a storyteller and know-it-all.To put it simply, this world is left less interesting without him. And for those lucky to have loved him, his passing is incomprehensible.
---
Larry was born March 5, 1953, in Calgary, and grew up in small town Alberta. He spent his early days torturing his sisters, making friends with animals and figuring out the man he wanted to be. He left home to learn and adventure in forests and mountains. He eventually made his way to Ontario where he'd stay for over 30 years. Here, Larry found a community and with luck on his side, into his world came a wife, and her two young girls.
Larry's life was full. He spent these years becoming a champion for safety and supporting local
politics. He always made time to lend support to local causes and make the many people in his
life feel important. He nurtured his interest in games and stories and learned to cook and DIY.
He never stopped loving nature and travel and dreaming of his next adventure.
In time, he was gifted with two granddaughters and two grandsons and his role as grandpa may
have been his most cherished.
That Larry's story ends with an inexplicable illness, is not what anyone would have chosen. But
he left as he lived, surrounded by so much love.
For Grief | John O’Donohue
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.
There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.
Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.
It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.
Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.
I hope that Rob and Larry are enjoying margaritas together. I hope that they are in some magical place - the place that my grandson Seb described - having a good time.
Thursday, April 24, 2025
"My life is a dot lost among thousands of other dots".
From snow monkeys to two little boy monkeys, my Japan adventure has been full to the brim with noise, much movement, culinary delights, sacred temples, a spring festival in Kanazawa and so much more.
Yayoi once designed a suit for George Cluny, art embracing film. Cluny is almost lost in polka dots.
Saturday, April 12, 2025
The Flower of the Cherry Tree
The flower of the cherry tree has great power. Its prettiness is a mask. With its spirit, its exuberance, it is all ruthless appetite and lust for life, the urge to try or die trying.
But in the end it does die... In the end we all die... so we might as well let life improvise the music we play.
Here I am in a modern art museum in Kanazawa. Light, large spaces, and a room with light bulbs on the ceiling that flash on and off in time with one's heart. I liked this visual display. In another room, a white rabbit lay - apparently an illegal Korean immigrant is inside the costume.
I lay down and kept him company.
Today, we are in Hakuba, up in the mountains. The sun is shining. Seb and Brendan built a snowman. My family and friends have gone further up the mountain to cavort in the snow. I'm taking a breather, time to slow down and think.
I am reading A Single Rose again. The beauty of the writing appeals to me. I read the following couple of sentences and a light bulb came on in my brain:
The hardest thing, it turns out, is not trying to be happy without the person you loved... it's changing, no longer being who you were with that person.
Monday, February 10, 2025
The Book of Grief
I began a writing circle last week led by my most wonderful friend and mentor Marlene. (She encouraged me to attend as she know that I have been having a difficult time and yearn to write but am unable.) So I've attended one class and although I was nervous, I wrote! Before the 25 minutes allocated to writing, she read a poem The Book of the Body by Laura Weaver.
Here's the beginning:
The library of the body is a revelation.
Today I pull out the book of grief
and find one hundred chapters.
There is the chapter on letting go~
where brilliant leaves,
tumble down the branches
of the page, veins lined in gold.
I didn't read what I'd written even though I was paired with a kind woman who read hers and it would have been fine but, when I do this stream of consciousness writing, I don't know what I've written until I read it, so for now I'll keep quiet although I'll copy what I wrote here as only a few friends who I trust read my blog.
"The Book of Grief. Letting go. I cannot let go of my grief over Rob's death. I am afraid. I am filled with rage - angry that Rob died and angry that he left me a lot of shit to deal with. There's more. I question myself. Was I good enough, passionate enough? Could we have been happier ? And then I think that we were happy enough. What does "happy enough" mean? We weren't lovey-dovey. We lived our own lives together or sometimes at a distance. Often I loved him more when we were apart. I would call him on FaceTime and it was a comfort to hear his voice.
We were a couple. What does being a couple mean? We were not alone. We shared responsibilities.We shared children and grandchildren. We always celebrated Christmas together. We trusted each other. I never felt myself alone even when I was alone. I'm not sure I know how to describe this but now I feel smaller when I go out into the world, more uncertain, more afraid.
I call this period in my life, the post-Rob. How long do I have? Rob lived to nearly 77. Will I live to mine? No funeral, I told him. After Fanny died choking on a piece meat, I said that I will not attend another funeral. Long before her tragic death, she asked that if I outlive her, I must check that she is really dead before being lowered into the burning inferno.
I did not go to the Crematorium for Rob's burning. I couldn't bear seeing his coffin and the lowering. When Brendan picked up his ashes the next day, I embraced it thinking "is this what we are reduced to? This is it? The end.
I know he had a good life. He did what he pleased. He was happy alone or seemed to be. I live in chaos. Not Rob. He could sit for hours listening to music or reading or playing with his cat, or cooking exotic meals. He wrote a novel too. It's good but he never even self-published it.
And now, as I clear away his stuff, his clothes and shoes, I wonder what is important. I want to get rid of more and more stuff and have only the essentials in this house but this takes time, I pause and paint the stairs white. I ask friends for quotes and using a paint pen, I write them one by one on each step or I have friends write them so there is no uniformity. I read them as I ascend, hoping that they will tell me how to live my life.