My Cousin Francis

 "A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost." - Marion C. Garretty

I can't help but think of the Impala Club, hot summer days in Belle River and shared birthday celebrations when I think about my cousin Francis.  I do have to remind myself to make a conscious effort to call him Francis.  Until these last few years, he was Buddy to me.  Francis became my cousin in 1958 when my Aunt Nora married his father, Uncle Bud.  I was just three years old.  Francis was seven.  He was Uncle Bud's youngest child.  His mother passed away just a few years before.  He has two sisters who are considerably older and who I knew only peripherally, even as a child.  But Buddy was a part of my life.  I loved him from the start.  Still do.

We celebrated our birthdays together every year, his on July 1st, mine on July 2nd.  Shared cakes, shared family parties.  There hasn't been a single Canada Day when I haven't thought of him.  There was a long period of time when I barely saw him from one year to the next.  He went to Vietnam as a soldier the year I started high school.  Shortly after his return, he married.  I saw him only sporadically after that.  Eventually, Buddy's wife Pat gave birth to their only child, Stephanie.  I saw Steph once or twice when she was a baby and then at the funeral when my Aunt Nora died and again at the funeral of Uncle Bud.  Outside of those times, many years passed with no contact.  When my sister Cathy turned fifty, I invited them all to Toronto to join in our celebrations.  I was thrilled that they accepted.  It was on that trip that Buddy became Francis.  He really preferred to be called by his proper name and I've tried ever since to oblige.  I haven't always done it perfectly but he doesn't point out my lapses.

When Stephanie married her husband Eric in 2009, we were all so excited to be invited to Michigan for the wedding.  Since that time, Francis and Pat have visited three times, twice accompanied by Stephanie and Eric.  Most recently they came last Sunday and returned to Michigan this afternoon.  Steph's and Eric's beautiful baby daughter Bella was the icing on the cake for this year's visit.

My cousin Francis is an artist - the kind of artist who is good at everything.  He writes and paints.  He is a gifted photographer and musician who writes and performs his own music.  He's smart and sensitive and continually engaged in analysing the world.  We spent a great deal of time together as children, and yet we do not share our recollections or interpretations of those years or events.  At this point it is unimportant.  In spite of any or all our differences we still share love.  He is Francis, my cousin, my Buddy.  Always will be.

Busted

"You can say you've got issues
You can say you're a victim
It's all your parents' fault, I mean after all you didn't pick em
Maybe somebody else has got time to listen
My give a damn's busted"
- Lyrics to My Give a Damn's Busted by Jo Dee Messina

It may be the dog days of summer or it may be just fatigue, but whatever the cause behind it, my give a damn's busted and I'm not sure what to do about it.  I'm happy to have the business. After all the bills don't stop coming because I'm not in the mood. But I'm finding it harder and harder to listen to rants and whines from clients who are angry because life isn't fair.  It could be that I'd be feeling more tolerant if my current clients were young people who could be forgiven for believing life is supposed to be fair.  But the two people causing me heartburn right now are in their sixties and I'm feeling both annoyed and bewildered by their rants about the injustice of it all.  My feelings are further exacerbated by the fact that, in truth, neither of them has been treated unfairly.

I've been thinking a lot about what I would do if I went into a new line of work.  I know I won't be going into a new line of work but it's still fun to dream.  What do I want to be when I grow up?  Maybe a jewellery designer or furniture maker.  Perhaps I could start a new business selling penny tables and wall art.  Or maybe I could finish the novel I started but have only written mostly in my head.  Admittedly, the yearning for such solitary pursuits may seem odd for a woman who makes her living as a human resources consultant.  But my give a damn's busted and I'm out of super glue.

Vampires and Other Annoyances

"The weak are the most treacherous of us all.  They come to the strong and drain them.  They are bottomless.  They are insatiable.  They are always parched and always bitter.  They are everyone's concern and like vampires they suck our life's blood." - Bette Davis

Energy vampires.  We've all known at least one.  They are those people who suck us in to their dramas with pleas of help and woe is me views of the world.  No matter how much you do for them, it is never enough.  Whether you've gone to Hell and back, mortgaged your soul or devoted your last ounce of energy to the detriment of your own wellbeing - it's not enough.  It will never be enough.

I've known a few energy vampires in my day.  Some of them were friends who I had to let go.  It's sad but it happens.  Some of them were colleagues.  One came into my life through a set of strange circumstances staying only long enough to make a lot of unreasonable demands which I scrambled to meet for a few months before I came to my senses. 

A few days ago, I got a LinkedIn request from a person I haven't seen or heard from in more than twenty years.  I worked with her many years ago and we enjoyed what I thought was a friendly relationship.  As I make my living working as an H.R. practicioner, I've always been actuely aware of the boundaries for friendship in companies that employ me.  Other than with my colleagues in H.R. and other members of the senior team,  I am friendly to everyone but generally, with few exceptions, I am not friends with them.  This particular woman, worked hard at ingratiating herself with me.  She worked in a sales function and seemed pleasant.  I was friendly with her.  We exchanged pleasantries in the kitchen when we were getting coffee and sometimes even sat down together and chatted about food and fashion. She pushed for a more personal relationship but I resisted. We had little in common.  After a couple of years of working together, the department in which she worked was reorganized.  I, of course, knew that a big round of terminations was coming as my department was responsible for preparing and conducting them.  Her job was eliminated and it became abundantly clear to me why I've always been so cautious about crossing the friendship line.  It's unpleasant to fire friends but when you work in H.R. it goes with the territory. 

Needless to say, she didn't take the termination well.  She was given a fair package and treated kindly and with dignity.  But in her mind, I had betrayed her.  I knew she was going to be terminated and I didn't stop it or warn her.  In what world she could have believed I would have or could have done that, I am unclear.  I did my job and I did it well.  She insisted that she would not attend in the office again even to sign the paperwork for her settlement.  In the interest of easing her discomfort, I agreed to meet her at a nearby restaurant to ink the deal and retrieve the company property still in her possession.  Of course, she seized the opportunity to tell me what a really lousy person she believed me to be and I let her.  I didn't bother defending myself.  The only time I saw her after that was at the wedding of a mutual friend.  She was very rude, refusing to greet me or speak with me.   

So I was certainly surprised when the LinkedIn request came though perhaps I shouldn't have been.  Many of my old colleagues have requested to connect with me on LinkedIn - the very same people who barely had a civil word for me so long ago, are seeking my help these days in getting themselves re-employed or in resolving difficult employment situations for which they would like my professional advice at no charge.  I usually oblige.  I thought for a few hours about whether or not I would accept her invitation to connect.  Ultimately I did, feeling somehow it would be petty of me to decline.  Then the long email arrived asking a lot of questions about my business.  I don't know what her angle is but I'm sure there is one.  I could take the time to answer her but I've decided not to bother.  I'm running very low on energy these days.  I don't have any to spare for an energy vampire.

Aunt Nora

"A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self."  ~Marian Sandmaier

I've been thinking a lot about my Aunt Nora lately. Aunt Nora was my mom's sister, just one year younger than my mom who was the eldest of four.  She married in her thirties to  a widower who had two teenage daughters and a young son.  While there were always tensions with her stepdaughters, she raised her stepson as her own.  Aunt Nora and Uncle Bud lived in Detroit.  She was a fixture in my everyday life.  My mom's two youngest siblings died while in their fifties, just a few months between their deaths. Aunt Bea lived in Phoenix and Uncle Ray in Montreal.  He was mostly estranged from the family.  I saw him only once during my adult life.  For many years, my sisters and I visited Aunt Bea in Arizona.  And most years, she visited her sisters in Windsor.  We even enjoyed a couple of vacation days as the junior sisters and the senior sisters.

Merv and I married in 1989.  By the time our third wedding anniversary came around, we had lost Merv's dad, my dad's sister Aunt Sadie, Aunt Nora and my dad.  It was a lot of loss in a short time.  Aunt Nora passed suddenly just six weeks before my dad.  Two days after her funeral, my dad was admitted to the palliative care unit at the hospital where he died.  It was a hard time for my family and we barely had time to mourn the unexpected loss of Aunt Nora.  Lately, I've been feeling an aching loss, a void in my life in the place that she filled.  And I've been wondering if things would have turned out differently had Aunt Nora not passed when she did.

Aunt Nora wasn't there to comfort and support my mom when my dad died.  At a time she most needed her sister, my mom found herself alone.  We tried to fill the void but it truly wasn't enough.  No one but a sister can provide a certain kind of solace.  I've been wondering if my mom would have made the terrifying descent into Alzheimer's that soon followed the death of my dad if Aunt Nora had still been around.  I can't seem to shake the notion that mom went to that dark place because it was where she could still connect to her sisters.  In the days when she could still communicate with us, she would often ask if Aunt Nora was coming over.

My Aunt Nora was special.  She had an infectious laugh and she loved to tease people.  She always took an interest in even the minutia of our lives.  When I was eight she gave me my very first book of poetry - A Little Treasury of American Poetry.  It's on the bookshelf in the guest bedroom.  I miss all my absent family members.  Aside from my dad, it is Aunt Nora that I miss the most.  I miss her laughter.  I miss seeing her chatting with my mom.  I miss witnessing the fun they had together.  Twenty-one years later, I am grieving.