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The Gift of Saying Goodbye

It is in the throes of grief today that I am grateful: for the presence of a dear friend, and for finding the words.

We’ve received the phone call, or live in fear of it. Someone beloved has died. Sometimes sudden, often expected, but always a shock. Instantly the fabric of a life we once knew is torn, a piece gone, a light winked out. We are each born into this world with an expiry date. Thankfully, we seldom know the date or time. It’s an vague concept, a ‘someday’ thing, a deadline dodged each day we awaken with heart pumping and breath moving. But that deadline always comes and when we feel it, the time has passed for someone we love, and we are left behind to deal with it.

Deal with it how? There is no replacing the unique energy of a divine creation, especially when their life and yours are intertwined by love, circumastance, shared paths, family trees, or just plain choice. You know them, or at least I pray you do: those people who simply being in tbheir presence makes life brighter, richer, clearer. Being with them, near them, or somewhere on their stage of life is a pleasure. To find one is a treasure. To lose one, unspeakable.

Unspeakable. No words. No flow. Grief jams agains the ribs and spine, hammers the skull with nowhere to go. It darkens, drains, overwhelms until the very breath nearly ceases. There is no moving forward, and no going back. Being stuck here is as close to hell as I have every felt. And I’ve been getting way too much practice lately. The body cares not why there is grief, only that there is: loss, change, death, shift, it all evokes similar physical responses. A year ago, I bid goodbye to my dad. Today, I will say farewell to a dear friend, someone my age and believed perfectly healthy, until instantly and without warning, her life on Earth ceased to be. There are other changes, too, that have had me stuck in a constant state of loss. This past weekend, after “the call” had ended, I was left charred, defeated, breathless, powerless. Our world, her family, my family for God’s sake thrived in her presence. Nothing I can say or do will heal the loss felt by her husband, her daughter, and the many people of all ages whom she loved and loved her in return.

But what I say can help share her memory, record her legacy, pay tribute to a life well lived.

So, I write. A Facebook post. A blog. A messsage in a card. I kept it simple:
How we met: she was my son’s first sitter
What happened: he was eight months old. He loved her at first sight. Years later she would care for all three of my chidlren, and become a supporter of my emerging career as an author. When finally convinced to join Facebook, one of her first interactions was to like my fan page. Her ability to share the love among all she met and knew had no bounds.
A Favourite memory: My ‘baby’ eight years later giving her away at her wedding
How I felt at her loss (this was the hardest part): my heart is breaking, but I feel gratitude as well
A statement of hope: her legacy will live on in the many children she cared for, their families, and the world she made a bnetter place by loving our children with all her heart.

With each word, pain and pressure ease. Tears flow, but so does energy, awareness, light, all things needed for healing.
As a writer, the words were there for me. I just had to sit with my pain until they sifted through.
I am heartbroken and exhausted, but grateful.

A life in words pales to a life lived.
But in days of darkness, those words may be the glimmer we need to breathe in, breathe out, and look ahead.

Thanks for being here.

– Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is author of the Finding Maria series and partner in Marechal Media Inc.
See more of Jennifer’s work at www.FindingMaria.com.

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Am I a writer without a cat?

Is just one crazy idea my mind created as I deal with the one unavoidable thing that life brings: death.

Linc was 17 in our years, 85 in his. He joined our family when it was new and growing: I was pregnant with my second child when we picked up this cream puff of a Himalayan, at a year old he was nearly the size of our toddler son. Linc was reviled by our older alpha cat, ignored by our sweet female kitty, and alternately chased, cuddled, squeezed, dressed up and adored as our child count grew to two, then three. But he took it all in stride, as if he knew that his reality then would not stay static for long. His patience won out – flash ahead a few years and the squealing racing toddlers are now subdued teens, one of whom still cuddled and made of him, but no more tutus or capes for impromput home movies of ballerina cat or Super Linc. As the elder cats aged, he gradually muscled in, inching closer to us during TV time, hanging out in my office during Cat #1’s nap time, until the day came when he was last cat standing and king of the castle. If I was writing he was in my office, on whatever chair of the week was his, atop books or folders, he didn’t seem to care. Occasionally I would find a file folder or paper tugged from inside it with teeth marks in the corner indicating his annoyance, with the paper that tickled his belly or with me, I was never quite sure. If he was really peeved he would tip over my garbage cans, in the office, in the bathroom, and if highly offended, the metal can in my bedroom at 3 a.m. At that moment he looked better to me as a fur coat than a companion, but he would run, I would scoop up the used tissues, and by daylight, we were good again. On days when I didn’t get out of bed, or returned to it to nurse a headachae or some other ailment, he would sacrifice his chair of the week for a spot on my bed, the only time he’d sleep there. He’d start at the foot, curled in a ball, but by the time I was ready to rise he was next to me, still curled up, but closer. On cold winter days, as I reclined in front of a classic Bogart or Newman movie for inspiration, he’d curl up on my legs for his afternoon snooze. I know it was to keep his feet warm, but I didn’t care. It still felt like love.

The last few months, though, has felt more like pain. He stopped coming upstairs, began making puddles on the floor, started bumping into walls. He still ate, drank, and came in with us during TV time, but it was clear his body was shutting down, cell by cell, in front of our very eyes. The question became, not if he leaves us this summer but when, and how. Do we step back, keep him comfortable and let nature take its course? Or do we step in, ease his suffering and allow us all to move on? It’s an ageless question of how best to show your love for another. It also became a question of ownership, that the grief I was already feeling was not for the pending loss of a cherished pet but the unrelentless passage of time. He could no more be that determined, playful, howling-in-my-room-for-breakfast cat than my children could go back to being toddlers. The 16 years he was with us was lived and loved, but can be no more. There are new times ahead. Times that his age will not allow him to be a part of in our world. And then, the decision became about me. No longer could I watch this beautiful animal stand confused in the kitchen, not knowing where he was or what he wanted. No more could I stand the sight and smell of him lying in his own urine because he no longer had presence of mind or body to care for himself. The night before our appointment at the vet, I sat on the kitchen floor next to him, patted his head, scratched his chin, but there was no nuzzling of his nose against my hand, no acknowledgement that he knew who I was. He was purring, though, always purring. Even as the needle went in, he purred. Seconds after the purring stopped, his heart stopped, and he was gone.

As long and dreaded as the drive to the vet was, the longer and more dreaded was the going home to a house completely empty: the family gone for the day, the last of our pets now passed. The quiet is a great place to cry, but also an invitation to think, way too much. I stare at his water bowl, the food dish half full, the crumbs around the plate since he increasingly dropped more than he ate. I won’t miss the mess , I tell myself, as I clean out the bowls and open the fridge. Damn. That’s a brand-new can of food we just opened, and only a sliver gone. What a waste. I open the cupboard, pull out the bags of treats that at nighttime would drive him into a frenzy. 10 p.m., like clockwork, he would begin pacing in front of the TV room, waiting for his snacks, until the past week, when he sat motionless in his new chosen spot on our basement stairs. I should have known at that moment there was no more for him here. It took several more days, and opening a new bag of snacks (which he didn’t eat anyway) to finally make ths step. Should have done it before you opened these, my mind tells me, bemoaning the waste, which in grand total was less than $5. Way too much time to think.

I dump the litter pans, scrub the floors, pull tufts of fur from the furniture. Writers and cats go together like, well, writers and wine, writers and solitude, writers and eccentricities … I know, none of this makes sense. Many writers have dogs and drink beer, too, but my mind was determined to use this grief as an excuse to shut down. You can’t write without a cat, I heard clearly. Get another cat and you’ll have to go through this agony again. Ergo, no more cats. No more writing. I stare at the floor I’m trying to scrub. It’s marginally improved, but far from seeing your face in it or eating dinner off it. I sure as hell can’t become a cleaner. If I’m not a writer, what do I do?

I finished scrubbing. I sat outside and enjoyed the summer breeze. I listened to the excited recounting of my family’s day trip. We had supper, watched a movie, went to bed. This morning, I sorted through pictures of my departed fuzzy boy. I stared at the computer. And then I began to write. As I typed, more words came and with it, tears flowing to the point where I could barely see. But I kept writing, through the tears, fuelled by the grief. Because I am a writer. Linc may not be supervising me from his chair now, but he’s still watching, without the mess, the mobility issues, the half-eaten mice on my mat or the hairballs in my hallway. Just him: his patience, his loyalty, his never-stop-purring attitude. I just may kick my garbage can over every now and then, though, just for old time’s sake.

Thanks for being here.

Jennifer Hatt is a publisher and author of the Finding Maria series.
www.FindingMaria.com

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Five things my father’s life teaches me about writing

I am my father’s daughter, a fact that both enriches and terrifies me. This will, however, make me a better writer. Here’s how.

First, though, a bit about my dad. He wasn’t a writer, he was an electrician by trade, both of us in the business of connecting: his medium was electricity, mine was words. We also didn’t realize then, but it is apparent now, that we shared something else: battles with ourselves,  defining our lives from the time we both could remember. For him, it was being born a gentle, loving soul into a sandpaper world, a determined spirit in a body plagued by childhood illness and chronic pain, a  life lived, as a result, in the protection of intellect while the spirit starved. On rare days his spirit won, and in those moments anyone in his presence, ever so brief, was made to feel part of something special, warm, aware, trusting in the great potential and unseen of the universe, until intellect would slam shut the door and begin the lockdown anew. His battle ended, I pray, with his passing on Dec. 13, 2015.
Reflecting on his life and death, however, has kicked my battle into high gear. I possess that same intellect, that same ability to talk myself out of things or even shut myself down rather than risk anything: stage fright as a child so severe that I quit the music I loved altogether at 16, and that by 30 was creeping into my writing as well. Shyness, self-doubt, fear of one’s own voice are all butterfly kisses of death to any form of success as a writer.
Life is choice.
So, should I ignore my spirit’s desire to connect through writing and save myself a lifetime of combat? Or, do I take a breath and dive into the memories, risking pain and drowning to find treasures of knowledge my time with my father has created?
I choose memories. There are thousands upon thousands, so for this first attempt I didn’t dive too deeply, and found these five. They came from our epic father-daughter battles, and from the quiet of just sitting together, saying nothing, knowing everything. Some things he taught me about what to do. Some are things I wished could have taught him.
Here they are, five things my father’s life teaches me about writing.

1. Be fastidious.
This was an endless source of amusement when I was younger, and annoyance in my later years. He would check, recheck, and check again, every little step along the way: burners on the stove, door locks, keys in hand, wallet in pocket … turning his computer on required the plugging in of two power bars and his monitor, plus the flipping of two switches. therer would be no power getting in or out of there without his say-so. Yet, it was this same attention to detail that saved me on grad night from driving to the wilds of cottage country without a drop of oil in the car, or from overpaying the government three years in a row on my taxes.
In the context of writing, attention to detail can lead to a better quality of product, more efficient service, and benefits to both author and reader: good relationship, more sales, solid reputation … all great stuff.

2. Trust YOU.
This is something I wish my father could have learned, but he was raised in an era when trust was to be placed only in the ‘professionals’: scientists and doctors, for example. As he aged and his health issues multiplied, he placed more and more expectation on the medical system, but didn’t realize that in doing so, he was giving away more and more of himself. YOU do not need a degree, certificate, or acceptance letter to tell you who YOU are or what YOU are worth. In the writing world, where there is no clear-cut credential or formula to success, being true to YOU is the first and foremost unique quality YOU bring to the field. Once clear about YOU, then you as writer, publisher, or marketer can get out there and share your authentic story.

3. Know your numbers
Okay, chalk another one up to dear old Dad. He spent hours, and I mean hours, at his desk, examining every bill and bank statement, checking his investments and account balances, writing budgets, and managing schedules. If a penny was amiss, he was on the phone or, in recent months, on the computer to identify and remedy the discrepancy. He spent more time in a month on his finances than I did in a year, and since I am a small business owner, that was not overzealousness on his part, but slackness on mine. His being on top of his finances brought he and my mom the simple yet comfortable retirement they wanted,  a mere pipe dream for most people their age.
Know Your Numbers is the mantra of every marketing course I have taken, even those course supporting a business model based on personal goals rather than cold hard profits. Numbers are needed for good business decisions. Good decisions lead to success, yes, for writers, too.

4. Build your community.
Another lesson I had little time to impart. My dad was brilliant, charming, and loved, but rarely shared this with the larger world. His comfort zone was doing things completely on his own. Writing may be solitary, but words freeze on the page without support of family and friends, beta readers, editors, mentors, investors, and word of mouth, blog and social media. It’s a dangerous world out there, but silence inside is deadly.

5. Believe
In what? Something.
Marriage is tough, but my parents did it with love for 49 years, because they believed it was their life, the best they could do for their family and each other. We kids and grandkids have to agree: our parents gave us what they could for a good life, and gave us the tools to get what they couldn’t – or shouldn’t – give us themselves. Throughout the hard work and pain that his life often included, my father always believed in the Golden Rule – Do Unto Others as your would have them Do Unto You. He encouraged his children to be independent, respectful and honest. He challenged institutions to be more humane. He clung to the belief that we as humans could create a better society, even though his intellect churned it into frustration. On a personal note, he always dreamed of visiting the Egyptian pyramids. Hope he’s there right now, soaking up all the wonder and energy they represent.
As writers, we believe we have something to say. As published authors we believe what we write is of interest to others. To be successful, we must believe in what we do, absorbing the fear and setbacks and criticism and rejection as energy to move forward rather than recoiling from it. We have to believe the hour spent polishing a sentence, the months spent doing a business plan, the week spent recharging on vacation will pay off.

It has taken me nearly a week to write this. In these hazy days after my father’s death I wanted to write, needed to write, but my intellect would have none of it. I have napped, snacked, paced, tidied, deleted emails, scrolled my timelines back to early fall, and cried. I am still doing all of the above. But one word after another, I have finished this. I am my father’s daughter, the light and the dark of him, and I will make the most of the new lives ahead for both of us.

Thanks for reading,

– Jennifer

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The healing power of a loving legacy

It feels like barbed wire across the heart to say goodbye to someone we love. What’s stronger than the pain? The memory of how this person made us feel.
Anyone connected to our Nova Scotia town or East Coast music needs no introduction to Fleur Mainville. But explain her to those who never had the privilege? That’s tough. Fiddler, singer, composer, recording artist, teacher, manager of our Farmer’s Market … her CV is pages long, without even touching on her role as wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, mentor, role model, community advocate, and divine spirit. She was all of these things and more, not just the sum of her parts but the energy that brought them all to bear. To meet her was to marvel at how she did so many things at once and still managed a kind word, a thoughtful gesture, or one more gig.
And now that her body has been taken by a rare and virulent cancer, we are left with the barbed wire, grinding into us the awareness of what will be no more – her voice that carried notes of crystal across a background of velvet scores, her ability to coax from four simple strings a tidal wave of delights – knee-slapping reels, fierce stories of battle, winsome laments, intricate sonatas. Her squeals of delight that preceded her all-consuming hugs, her fierce pride in community and passion for the stage, and her investment in the future by passing on her knowledge and her enthusiasm to anyone of any age open to the message.
As we wade, gasping, through the grief, we are reminded that what made Fleur such a brilliant part of our lives was not her body or her deeds: it was how she made us feel. She had a way of making each of us in her presence feel talented, beautiful, and optimistic, just as she was. We loved her; she loved us first. And now, as we mourn a life gone too soon, we are reminded that throughout our time with her it was much the same. Every gig, meeting, lunch date or evening with her ended with a hint of sadness that begged for one more hour, five more minutes, just a few more words. Now, with her spirit set free, we have all the time in the world with those feelings she evoked in us. We have the memories of our lessons with her, the conversations, the teasing grin, and the warmth she spread from the inside out.
As I write this my son is preparing for his fiddle lesson – not to take, but to give. His student is age 8, the same age he himself was when he first picked up the fiddle. For half his life Fleur stood over him, then beside him as he grew to her height and then some, imparting her wisdom on trills and rests, then strathspeys and concertos, and finally lesson plans and drills as she nudged him out of her safe harbour and toward his own stage. As he coaches his young student, I hear more than his voice. I hear Fleur’s legacy.
We could not stop the disease that took her in body, but there is no stopping the spirit that will outlast and continue to live us all. The pain will ease for us as it has vanished for her. As  the barbed wire tightens its grip, we can remember this and for me, for a moment, I smile with all my heart.