Six letters from the Centaur Theatre have made their way to our house. Each letter represents a donation by a person or group to the Centaur Foundation for the Performing Arts made in memory of Lynn Priest. I just wanted to say thank you and I know Lynn would say thank you as well for supporting her beloved Centaur.
Knowing that it is not logical to feel guilty about the sense of relief which has visited me less than a month after Lynn’s death. Lynn was sick for a long time and she was paralyzed for a long time and at the end when I took her to palliative care it was because I could no longer take care of her. The physical and emotional demands of care I could cope with the problem was the medical. Lynn could no longer drink, eat or take her medicine which really took the decision out of my hands. Still it nags at me, bothers me terribly that Lynn could not stay at home until she died that she had to be put in someone else’s care. I frequently wonder if she felt betrayed by that final move to palliative care. I don’t wonder if she believed that she was betrayed she was aware on an intellectual level that she need professional care but intellect and emotion are two different things.
There is guilt over the feeling of relief of being suddenly without the responsibility which was borne mostly by myself. It was never a burden and should not be thought of that way because a loved one is never a burden. I would be happily, joyously, administer the same care today if Lynn were still alive and at home. I would have traded places with her in a heartbeat if it had been possible. The frustration that Lynn must have felt over the last six months of her life is unimaginable. How she maintained her sense of humour and remained so gentle of temper is nothing short of a heroic. How then can I feel relief that I no longer am caring for her? Yet I do and it hurts. I think I am rambling.
Supper needs to get on the table now. There is always something to do. It is in those times between somethings to do that I think most about Lynn. Those are the times I most look forward to and which I sometimes fear.
It was a month ago today that Lynn died.
It was a day like any other with one exception. I visited Lynn’s niche today. I also went for a run, did the groceries and cooked supper. The main difference in the day was that my thoughts turned more frequently to Lynn than they do on a normal day. You would think that there would be more to it but there wasn’t.
To put it simply there is a considerable amount of unfocused anger lurking beneath the surface of my every waking moment. Work has been generally good but even little changes in routine or little questions which I normally receive with aplomb have me skating close to the border of saying and behaving in a rash manner. I keep a lid on it which is fortunate because being unemployed would not be a good option right now but venting is tempting. It may be part of the “grieving” process but I am not sure about that. The Kubla-Ross stages have pretty much been shown to be highly questionable by the more recent peer reviewed literature so maybe I am just really, and pointlessly, angry.
What is surprising is that the anger is a flash in the pan and then as quickly as it comes it subsides. It helps to know that because that fact alone helps me hold my tongue. Just knowing that in fifteen minutes I will have forgotten about or at the very least calmed down about something is a great motivator. Ah well – keep running – keep moving forward – keep on keeping on.
The kids posing for a photo outside the cinema. We went to see Martin Scorsese’s Hugo in 3D on Friday night. It was brilliant. Easily the best film of 2011 and there ought to be a raft load of Oscar nominations for this movie – best picture, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best makeup, best special effects, best sound (though Source Code should win that), best costumes, best cinematography, best director. There are not enough superlatives to recommend this movie even at the ridiculous price of $15.66 a head to see it, it was well worth the cost of entry.
As a diversion and something which we could do together my daughter and I headed up out to Mont Rigaud this morning to get in a little skiing. It was a pleasant day and only my second time ever on skis which made it both exciting and scarey. My daughter was a little concerned about getting back on skis as she hadn’t skied since the last time we went in March of last year. Part of the motivation for going today was to refresh her muscle memory as the school ski trip is coming up in a few weeks.
We had a good day on the hill making quite a few runs before the cold fingers and toes drove us inside. For my daughter at least the ski skills returned quickly. For myself there were a little slower in coming but I had a lot of fun despite the falls. All in all it was a good way to spend a Sunday.
The thing about things is that their importance is relative. My mother always says “One man’s garbage is another man’s gold.” Of course garbage is a harsh word in this particular circumstance. There are things that Lynn owned that will never be used again so I have been passing them along. In the case of some of her scrap book stuff I passed the things along as instructed by Lynn. It was the only stuff for which she left instructions.
Yesterday I passed along Lynn’s dragon boat paddle, paddle case and paddling life jacket to the West Island Dragon Boat Team so that they could in turn give it to someone new joining the team. Two people who I spoke to were surprised that I was giving the case along with the paddle but I wanted the recipient to know that it came from Lynn and that she had her own style. Maybe that will be lost on them but it is in itself a sad thing that there will be a new member of the team.
There are other things which should find a home. Lynn had a large collection of plays. She had a dream that one day the Centaur would have a small lending library of just plays or books related to the theatre. Photo books and coffee table books about movies and the Beatles abound. I am somewhat loathe to let these go to a used bookstore but the flip side to that is that at least they might find a welcome home by going that route. The alternative would be to go the garage sale route which we are thinking about for the spring. The advantage of the garage sale is that things would go to those who are looking for them but then there are also the cherry pickers who arrive early to pay the least amount possible for the best items and then leave. Everyone has to make a living I suppose.
The things of greatest value to us are all the photos that Lynn took over the years. The only thing that we could have wished for more is that she had been in more of the photos herself.
The Copy of the Act of Death arrived this week and I visited the notary with it. He has started the will search and then will execute the will. At that point you would think that the paperwork would have all been done but I discovered this week that there was paperwork outstanding. The federal government is a little more Byzantine than the provincial when it comes to notifications – no one talks to each other. Services Canada has to be notified separate from Revenue and Taxation both require proof of death. In Quebec once the information is in the system the spouse, if the couple are married, is automatically put into place as the person to deal with, with regards to the children. At the federal level I have to fill out two different forms. Bureaucracy, you have to laugh.
Yesterday was a bad day or maybe it wasn’t a bad day. In all honesty I haven’t really decided if it was a bad day or not because I spent the entire day thinking about Lynn. A big chunk of today has been spent thinking about Lynn too. It was inevitable that this would happen because one cannot be occupied and distracted interminably. Eventually reality catches up and reintroduces itself without so much as a “by your leave”. There are things which I remember well and unfortunately for me some of those things are when I was being a complete prick. I was pretty good at doing that some time. Actually we were both pretty good at digging in our heels when we had our minds made up but I was better at making rational arguements for why I was being unreasonable.
I am reminded of the Bucakroo Banzai classic line ” Remember, no matter where you go…there you are.” In other words the only person you cannot escape is yourself and likewise your past actions. So I remember the good and the bad and some days that will just have to be the way it is. Mostly it was good though.
