A Palapa in the Sun
My mom is anxiously waiting for my return – in part so that I can say goodbye, but also so she doesn’t have to do it alone. As I settle into my nine-hour drive home, I think about the last time I made such a heartbreaking journey.
“His heart stopped. They pushed me out of the room and I don’t know what’s going on.” I can vividly remember my mom struggling to get the words out over the phone as she broke down sobbing. Just one year ago, my dad had become suddenly ill while at home in Mexico. This morning I received a similar call from her. Our family dog, Chicklet, is sick. After two blood transfusions to extend his life, he has to be put down. My mom is anxiously waiting for my return – in part so that I can say goodbye, but also so she doesn’t have to do it alone. As I settle into my nine-hour drive home, I think about the last time I made such a heartbreaking journey.
* * *
The first flight I could get to Mexico wasn’t until the next morning. I packed a bag and didn’t sleep that night. On the plane, I put my headphones on to block out the cheerful noise of the families headed on vacation while I nervously stared out the window. The doctors had managed to stabilize Dad, but still, no one knew what was wrong.
After my plane touched down, I waited at the airport to meet my sister. While we were in the air, Dad had been transferred to another hospital further inland that had an intensive care unit. My sister and I wanted to get on our way, but friends implored us to spend the night. It was already dark, and we would be driving through a territory where fighting between officials and gangs had recently intensified. The local situation was so bad the ambulance had refused to transfer Dad until it was daylight. We slept restlessly. Neighbors were caring for Chicklet, and without him – without Mom and Dad – we were uncomfortable in the emptiness of their house.
Chicklet came into our lives by accident. Abandoned under a bridge to be eaten by crocodiles as a puppy, Chicklet managed to survive his first year by visiting construction sites and eating scraps from the workers. And this was how he showed up in our lives; when mom and dad were building their house in Mexico he just walked through the door one day and never left. As much as we referred to him as a rescue, we knew he didn’t see it that way. He tolerated our love but made it clear that he wasn’t going to follow any rules.
Whenever Chicklet was confident that no one was home – and he was frequently wrong – we would find him lounging on the couch, exactly where he knew he wasn’t allowed. When we travelled we would often have to pay for more expensive hotel rooms just to find ones that allowed dogs. One such room had special dog bowls, treats, and beds - not the king size people bed that Chicklet hopped right up on. When we hollered at him, he didn’t even flinch. He just looked at us as if to say 'nice call on the room guys. Thanks.' Inevitably someone would have to struggle to move his suddenly heavy body over enough to be able to crawl in to sleep.
Stubborn and brave, Dad would often say, “He’s just such a cool dog,” even though we all knew it already. Anyone who met Chicklet asked to adopt him, strangers on the street, friends, and even his vet. He captured hearts within minutes of meeting him. His irresistible heavy lidded brown eyes – bedroom eyes my aunt called them – and nonchalant attitude made everyone fall in love. Coming home from Mexico one year, I ran into a co-worker at the airport. He bent down to pet Chicklet and immediately asked to take him home. That’s how special Chicklet was. He and Dad quickly became best friends. From their challenging childhoods to being independent and stubborn adults, they shared a personality. They did what they wanted, always spoke their minds, and charmed the hell out of you by not giving a damn. And while no one, as best as I can remember, ever offered to adopt Dad, he was frequently fed by the neighbors anytime Mom was out of town.
Chicklet liked to wander and if you tried to call him back or chase after him, he would coolly evade your efforts while pretending not to hear you. Once he wandered off on a day trip and got left behind. When we realized it, Dad was quick to retrieve him. While Chicklet had always been a talker, making noises that varied from barks and whining to howls and yelps, he unleashed what we can only assume was a long stream of obscenities on Dad related to the indignity of his being abandoned that didn’t stop until they reached home. Neither of them let each other out of their sight much after that.
After a near-sleepless night in Mexico, my sister and I drove into the mountains. It was a hot, four-hour drive, made longer by the Federales’ checkpoints we were waved into. The new hospital was stark and clean. We entered through the billing department – the only way to access the patient rooms – and found Mom sitting in a hallway on the fourth floor.
Dad was in an induced coma and the doctors didn’t know if he would survive. We called our brother who flew in the next day. We spent the following ten days working with the doctors to make Dad well enough to fly back to Canada. When he was brought out of his coma he barely recovered consciousness, only briefly opening his eyes. He cried when we cried, but he couldn’t communicate. Our hearts were breaking. He was finally cleared for transport, but any relief we felt was short lived. The night that he was rolled into the emergency room at home he opened his eyes for the last time. Two days later the doctors finally gave us answers. A scan showed a massive blood clot that was slowly obscuring his brain. Dad would never wake up. We would never hear his voice again. After a few days when everyone had said their goodbyes, we took him off life support.
The medical team advised us that he would likely pass within a few hours, or perhaps a day. We stayed by his side, taking shifts so that he would never be alone. Hours passed, then days. We barely left the hospital. He slowly starved. He developed tremors. We didn’t know, and the doctors couldn’t tell us if he could hear us, if he was in pain, or if he was scared. We held his hand and talked to him, even if all it did was comfort us. We were all in limbo. We had no hope, but we couldn’t begin grieving yet. Always a skinny guy, Dad had often bragged about how he had weighed the same since high school, but now the digital scale on his bed showed a steady decline. His organs were slowly shutting down. His eyes stopped closing. We huddled together, as if for warmth, our shared pain isolating us from the world that was carrying on around us. We waited.
It was a dreary February morning when Dad finally left us. We held his hands and told him it was okay to go. His tremors became more pronounced, he gasped, his body became rigid, and then nothing. We gathered our things and for the first time in nearly a month we stepped back into the outside world, unsure of where we belonged.
* * *
It has been a year and we still haven’t adjusted to our lives without Dad. We don’t know where we belong, except to each other. I am exhausted as I finally pull off the highway to find Mom and Chicklet. We feed him steak for breakfast and take him to his favorite park to sit on the damp grass. I’m sure he is annoyed by all the attention, but he lacks the energy to shrug it off. Finally, the time comes, and we drive to the vet. I sit in the back of the car petting him, running my hand over his protruding ribs. I tell him how much we are going to miss him. I am holding back tears as I carry his little body inside. As a family, we’ve had over a dozen dogs and have stood here, in this same situation, many times before. But I always feel uncertain. I ask the vet for confirmation that this is the right – the only – decision. She shows me his x-rays and explains about the tumor and the complications. The dark mass growing inside him looks not unlike the one that slowly took Dad from us. It is pressing on his stomach and preventing him from eating. If we do nothing – he too will starve to death. This is the closest I will come to being sure we were making the right decision. “I think that pets, unlike people, are lucky that we have an option to end their pain and suffering so peacefully,” she says. We stroke his head and tell him that he is going to see Dad while the vet gives him the injection. And in an instant, he is gone.
Mom and I sit in the car outside the vet’s office for a long time, each one offering to drive, but neither of us able to. I think about the year before when we had finally returned to Mexico, after Dad died. Chicklet had barked, yelped, and howled when he saw us. He’d made panicked sounds that brought tears to my eyes. He’d jumped into my arms, scolding me for leaving him for so long, and then scrambled desperately to leap into Mom’s lap before she could get out of the car. But after greeting us, he kept searching. He started running circles around us, sniffing, and whimpering, looking for Dad. Later that day I was sitting on the floor when Chicklet walked over and curled up in my lap. All I could think was, 'what will we do when we lose him too? This little furry connection to Dad, the last dog we will all have together.' Today we found out. Today we said goodbye to another member of our family. The only comfort Mom and I finally find is knowing that he is no longer searching for Dad. Somewhere they have found each other again. We picture them, sitting on a beach under a palapa in the sun waiting for the fish to arrive. And with that we finally drive away.
Take It Easy
Instead of heading Dad’s advice – as you tend not to do with parents – I got a tattoo of swallow about eight years ago, as a tribute to him, on my left bicep. After he passed I got a second swallow on the same arm. Finally, the other day, while I was sitting on the couch doing nothing in particular, it occurred to me what I would write in a banner if I had one. And so, I made another appointment.
Dad dropped out of high school and joined the navy when he was 17. Having no experience with boats he quickly learned he was prone to seasickness and lost two weeks of his life barfing while trying to complete his duties. This was a lesson that he would relearn decades later when he took a job as a deckhand out of Bamfield and was forced to hitchhike home from Prince Rupert.
The only action he saw while in service was the experimental bombing of a couple islands and getting mugged at knifepoint while in port in Jamaica. As he told it, Dad’s navy career was mostly about drinking in port with the guys from the ship and trying to meet women. . . which is how he ended with so many tattoos.
My favourite story I used to have him tell was about the morning he awoke to find he had a new banner across his chest. It was held up by swallows on either side and in the middle, it twisted where it was clearly meant to hold the names of two star-crossed lovers. Since Dad didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, it just had his name on one side – Syd.
Dad was embarrassed by his tattoos to some extent and never wanted us, kids, to make the same mistake he had. But I loved that his tattoos represented a life before us. They were just one reminder of the other experiences that had built to who he was as a father. And while he was flawed like the rest of us, I loved him and could have listened to the stories of his youth all day long.
Instead of heading his advice – as you tend not to do with parents – I got a tattoo of swallow about eight years ago, as a tribute to him, on my left bicep. After he passed I got a second swallow on the same arm. Finally, the other day, while I was sitting on the couch doing nothing in particular, it occurred to me what I would write in a banner if I had one. And so, I made another appointment.
Dad loved the Eagles, we listened to them on vinyl growing up and would sing their songs while out fishing. They had come to play in Vancouver many times and I always wanted to take him, but I was always too busy. Life would frequently get in the way and I would always think ‘next time.’ Finally, I made it happen. Dad and I went to see the Eagles. They put on a fantastic show, telling the story of their history, the inspiration behind their albums and songs, and of course, playing all their hits. It also turned out to be the second to last time I saw him alive – and one of my most cherished memories.
When he passed, Take It Easy, seemed like the perfect anthem for his life. A message about not getting hung up on the breakdowns in life told through an upbeat, vibrant harmony with witty lyrics. We sang it at both his memorial in Bamfield; over a hundred people gathered on about thirty boats at the mouth of the harbour, and again in Mexico; around a guitar on the beach. The words are even etched into the lid of the handmade wooden box that still holds some of his ashes.
One of the first times that I visited Bamfield alone after Dad passed, I went into the old garage and grabbed a handful of his CD’s to listen to on the way home. The CD on top was 60’s Jukebox Hits and I threw it in, expecting to hear Rock Around the Clock – but Take It Easy played. He was always giving me shit for putting his CDs back in the wrong cases (sorry Dad). It goes without saying that whenever I hear that song, I think of him. It has become a powerful way for his memory to stay alive within our family and community. I occasionally get texts from friends telling me ‘your dad’s song is playing.’ My cousins even stopped on the corner in Winslow Arizona for a photo op. Just writing about these memories makes me smile.
I got the words ‘Take It Easy’ tattooed on my banner for Dad, but also as a reminder to myself to make more time for what’s truly important. It is easy to get hung up on the small things in life and miss the bigger picture. These stresses contribute to depression and other health issues. Buy the concert tickets, take a break from work, take a walk outside, stop thinking that being busy is what’s important in life. These are lessons I’m learning – and that’s part of the reason these words are important to me.
On my drive home from Vancouver, Take It Easy came on the stereo. I smiled. Dad once told me that he liked that I put so much thought into my tattoos and that they had meaning. He had always felt like his were carelessly acquired. But I still love Dad’s tattoo stories the best – seriously, who gets drunk and wakes up with a chest tattoo? Syd Baker did.
Tattoo by Trevor Shea at Three Point Tattoo.
Grandma Logan's Easter
For as long as my cousin's and I can remember, Easter has been the holiday we've anticipated the most. We are quite possibly the furthest thing from being a religious family - instead our holidays have always been based on tradition, all of which were created by our Grandma Logan.
For as long as my cousins and I can remember, Easter has been the holiday we've anticipated the most. We are quite possibly the furthest thing from being a religious family - instead our holidays have always been based on tradition, all of which were created by our Grandma Logan.
In the 1970's my grandparents purchased property at the head of Nitinat Lake on Vancouver Island; about an hour drive from Bamfield on the logging roads. This is where I have spent roughly twenty of my Easters. We had the usual traditions of painting eggs and hunting for candy. And as we grew up we would go through little rites of passage from being the chocolate hunter to the chocolate hider - from believing in to becoming to the Easter Bunny. And for most of those holiday visits to Grandma's cabin, I would happily binge on sugar before hitting the bumpy and windy road home - forgetting every time - as soon as the truck started my stomach would turn and I would be carsick. When it comes to chocolate, I'm not sure that I've even learned my lesson even now.
What made our Easters special, however, wasn't the candy or the Easter Bunny, or even being in nature - it was our Grandma Logan's tradition of stuffies. Every year since I can remember she would make stuffed animals for all her grandchildren (of all ages), her adopted grandchildren, and any friends we had brought along with us. Every year was a different theme and Grandma would gather us around to hear the story of how the animals came to be. One year it was a teddy bear picnic and another was whales displayed with a handpainted 'save the whales' protest sign. We took home polar bears, lizards, pigs, hippos, cats, and more. Grandma Logan lived a very humble life and so the material was usually purchased on sale or often donated to her - which is why one year we had blue and pink beavers. True to her usual creativity, she constructed a 'beaver dam' to display them and told us a story about how the beavers had been locked out of their house for the winter and were blue from hypothermia. We were instructed to take them home and warm them up with love!
When Grandma had a stroke a few years ago we thought that would be the end of our tradition, but it wasn't. Our Aunty Marion picked up where she left off. They even worked on the stuffies together on the last year that Grandma made them as her eyesight was starting to make sewing difficult. This year was our second Easter without Grandma Logan and it's impossible to get through this holiday without feeling the hole in our family, but with her passing our family has drawn even closer. When we lost the one person who pulled us together I thought that we would all scatter, but it turns out that none of us wanted to give up her traditions. I can't help but think wherever she is, she's satisfied with the mark she made on this earth and the fact that her love is continuing even in her absence.
Spreading the Love
I have been a minority amongst my friends for most of my adult life because I love Valentine’s Day. I don’t complain about it being a Hallmark holiday or dismiss it as being too materialistic (while trying to find storage for one more bike, one more sled, or one more sport-specific Gortex jacket), instead I wholeheartedly embrace a day devoted to love. I have to admit that I think when people join the trend of hating on it, they are just being lazy. And what’s up with that argument about not needing a special day to tell people that you love them? I call bullshit on that excuse too. I believe that you can embrace the essence of the day without spending a dime, but then again, I was educated about February 14th by a witch.
I have been a minority amongst my friends for most of my adult life because I love Valentine’s Day. I don’t complain about it being a Hallmark holiday or dismiss it as being too materialistic (while trying to find storage for one more bike, one more sled, or one more sport-specific Gortex jacket), instead I wholeheartedly embrace a day devoted to love. I have to admit that I think when people join the trend of hating on it, they are just being lazy. And what’s up with that argument about not needing a special day to tell people that you love them? I call bullshit on that excuse too. I believe that you can embrace the essence of the day without spending a dime, but then again, I was educated about February 14th by a witch.
Even though I didn’t have Hallmark, overstuffed apes holding giant hearts, or waxy chocolate in heart-shaped boxes as a kid, inside the little three-room schoolhouse in Bamfield that I attended, Valentine’s Day was not dissimilar to what kids experience elsewhere. We made and decorated little ‘mailboxes’ for our desks and exchanged cards with cheesy messages. The only difference was a tradition that had been going on in our community for decades. Every year we would get called into an assembly and presented with a package that had been ‘found’ in the schoolyard addressed from Belinda the Valentine’s Day Witch (I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t go over so well these days). Inside would be a heart-shaped cookie for every student – about 80 – with our names handwritten on them in icing. There would also be a letter that described Belinda’s adventures from the previous year. I can only remember the details of one and it talked about how she and her raccoon friend had flown over Vancouver and were surprised to find a giant golf ball – this description of Expo ’86 was the closest some of us got to actually experiencing it.
Now if it isn’t clear already, Belinda was a fictional character. And this story is as much a defence of my love for Valentine’s Day as it is a tribute to my grandma who passed away last year. It was a coming of age for many generations of youth in Bamfield to discover that Belinda the Valentine’s Day Witch was actually Grandma Ardie. And this passage into adulthood usually came well after the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny. For her, creating this beautiful tradition was an expression of love for our community and about giving what she could. Through years of poverty, she always found ways to be generous – sometimes just with her time, and that was enough for all of us to feel loved.
Belinda’s presence in our lives taught us that Valentine’s Day wasn’t a day about being accepted or chosen, about eating fancy dinners or getting expensive gifts, it was about inclusion, friendship, tradition, and community. She created a day that wasn’t about bad last minute drugstore gifts or the disappointment of being single for just one day a year; instead she created a want in all of us to meaningfully express our love to everyone in our community – and this is often more effort than buying an expected box of mass-produced chocolates.
I still think that when someone dismisses the big V-Day as ‘just a Hallmark holiday,’ they are being lazy, because even if Hallmark created it (which they didn’t) – why be so sour about a day devoted to love? Pick up the phone and call a friend, bake some cookies for someone nice, mail a card to your parents, whatever it is, use the day as a reminder to celebrate the people who make your life special. And when you do actually do these things every day, then I will let up. But until then use Valentine’s Day as a reminder to celebrate everyone in your community, not just the ones you’re sleeping with.