An Anniversary

For as long as I’ve been alive my parents have lived in the same house.  Before they built on the land it was an orchard and when I was growing up my parents used to make me pick up thousands of rotten plums that had fallen off the trees (to this day I’ve never eaten a plum).  It is the only home I’ve ever known.  The carpet in my bedroom is still the original carpet - it’s a lovely dark brown colour, very 1970s.

Home is a safe place for me.  I can come home and sleep in my old bedroom in my old bed (a bed I used to imagine murderers were hiding under) and know that nothing really changes.

Thinking about my home brings up so many memories.  In the summertime I think about my parents garden and the smell of blossoms, the chooks scratching through the garden, Aussie the dog snoozing lazily under a chair outside and I think about my beautiful mother.

In a few days it will be 5 years since she passed away and it sort of feels like a milestone.

On the first anniversary of her death I was in Ireland.  I climbed up to the top of Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone.  It was an icy cold day and climbing up the castle stairs was made harder by the wet slippery stones and the narrowness of the stairways.

When I got to the top I marched forward to the edge of the castle, I looked down and smiled, sucked in my breath and turned to the 2 old Irish men who helped me lie down and tip me backwards to kiss the stone.

Later that night I was in a gorgeous snuggly pub in the countryside.  There was a roaring peat fire and I was drinking Guinness and listening to a man sing traditional Irish songs that made you want to cry.  And so I did.  Shamefully I cried in public.

But other years I’ve been completely ok and I’ve spent the day praying, not for my mother or my family or myself, but for those living with cancer or those who were dying.

Last year I was in Chicago and I bought 2 pairs of shoes.  Somehow that felt like the right thing to do.

And this year I will be on a plane touching back down in Vancouver after a 3 week holiday in Australia.

I have to admit that I’m glad I won’t be in Australia for the anniversary.  Somehow I think my Mom would be pleased to know that I got out and I’m doing the thing that makes both me, and made her, the happiest; and that’s traveling, experiencing new cultures, meeting new people and learning as much as I can.

On a side note, kissing the Blarney Stone is said to give the ‘kisser’ the gift of the gab.  Now I’m not sure if that’s true or not but I once talked my way out of a parking ticket by explaining that a ‘No Standing’ sign surely couldn’t be applicable to my parked car because my car wasn’t standing it was parked!  The parking inspector laughed so hard at my ridiculous theory that he had to let me go without a fine.  Unfortunately I have not been able to talk my way out of a speeding ticket ... Yet!