Just Say No

“He probably just couldn’t say no,” my mom said about my husband today. I’m sure she was right. He can’t say no to a child who needs him or to a caregiver who needs a break. I know she wouldn’t say no either. I know she worries and wants to protect us. I know she herself would do the same in this situation.

“Just say no,” my other mom told me today. Tell them what you can and can’t do. 

I agreed, but inside me I knew. I knew that I wouldn’t have the heart to refuse for a while yet. It’s fairly easy to set boundaries on the weekend from the safety of my home, but when life gets real on Tuesday and 3 children call my name from 5 different directions while I’m trying to walk out the door I won’t be able to look into their eyes and tell them I’m not coming back. I know my mil knows that, too.

It’s exhausting to be a carer. Also, it’s exhausting to care. Some of my friends tell me the same thing. I will paraphrase.

“I need a coping mechanism,” one friend told me in the middle of a long busy week. She’s a very capable person, and like she says, her parents did a good job of preparing her to deal with the things she’s dealing with. Even so, being a carer is overwhelming sometimes, especially when the situation or the people are difficult. She asked me if she could say no. I didn’t tell her that she should say no, because I have a different perspective than she does. From a distance, I see that if she doesn’t do the things, they will fall onto someone else’s shoulders, and maybe those shoulders won’t be as strong as hers. So, even though she has really wanted to on so many days, she hasn’t said no.

Another friend told me she was tired of working with people. “I’ve done it for so many years, and now I’m tired.” She didn’t say she didn’t love her job. She didn’t say she was tired of her job. Caregiving is difficult, emotionally more than physically often. But she still doesn’t say no

“Taking care of a newborn with medical needs is difficult.” These words came from friend who is a new mom. “But BabyBoy makes it so worth it,” she concluded. She’s a mother, she’s responsible for this child. She can’t say “I don’t want to take care of you now,” and walk away. She can’t just say no.

This is from the perspective of women in their 20s. Kids these days assume we’re major adults Cos we old, but some of us know otherwise. From conversations with friends, and my own real time experiences, it appears like we’re still learning how to care and be caregivers. Many of us will make that our life’s work, but  right now, in the learning stage, we  haven’t figured out how to take care of others and ourselves. We sometimes give too much of ourselves away, sometimes too little. Sometimes we feel like we’re caring too much but in reality we’re not caring enough. Sometimes the opposite. Myself,  I often feel both. 

Does being a caregiver get easier as a person ages? Do you learn how to compartmentalize so this work doesn’t take over your whole life ?  Maybe it’s meant to take over our lives. Maybe it’s mostly personality. Some of us probably handle caring better than others. Some of us probably avoid caring when possible.  

The disclaimers come near the end:

To be fair to my mom and mil, I have to say that neither of them say no to children or to caring either. They are just looking out for us like moms do.

I wrote this a few weeks ago, but never managed to pull it all together to form a cohesive post. It still isn’t very cohesive because I haven’t figured out how to blend it all seamlessly, but seamless isn’t what I’m trying to portray here. Real. Raw. That’s life, my life, anyway. I didn’t think I’d post this one every but Today it’s so relevant, once again, that I have to. 

Today I think I can’t do another day of zoom school with hyperactive third graders with fasd who can’t read or write, of feeding the hungry children from empty cupboards, of trying to keep the marijuana-smoking preteen from killing his little siblings, of pouring out every single ounce of love I have into a dark hole of need sometimes only to have it regurgitated and hurled back in my face in the form of anger. 

But I can’t say no. 

I’m not sure what little things that keep you caring and caregiving when you think you honestly can’t do it another minute. For me today it’s Small boy picking a single perfect dandelion for his teacher. The angriest boy who now lets me give him hugs/comfort even when he’s upset, a relatively new development. The weed smoking preteen making a point to talk to me in the mornings and open the door (after first slamming it) to yell  LOVE YOU at me instead of slinking off to school without a word. The little girl who treasures the tiny birthday gift I gave her and who calls me 3 or 7 times every day, even the days that I’ve  been there, because she needs someone. It’s the pure delight of a circle of children when we make a recipe they found on tiktok and it turns out perfectly. 

Inadvertent Faux Pas

Don’t  let Mama see you do that. I startle at the words, momentarily relaxing my busy repetitive scrubbing of the broom across the floor. Confused. 

???

?

Do what ? I finally have to ask, because I’m not figuring it out. It must be something important; these people don’t give orders or tell me I’m doing something wrong often. Just love the kids like they’re yours and do things like you’d do it at your house, is a favourite phrase here. 

That. Distracted for a second with keeping Mir from pulling out her feeding tube, R gestures vaguely toward the table. 

I wait. My mind spins in circles. 

Those shoes, he gets around to telling me. 

You mean on the table ? I’m sorry. I just thought they weren’t dirty-

No. He cuts me off. It’s our superstition. You’ll get bad luck. It doesn’t matter about them being dirty. But You might get bad luck. 

I apologize. Three times. Or five. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just know Mir only uses them in her playroom so they aren’t dirty. I didn’t know. And then, because I’m all the way across the room, I’m busy, I leave them there, thinking I’ll grab them when I leave the room in two minutes and go put them away. Thinking the conversation is over. 

We don’t care about that. But you might have bad luck. Him

I laugh it off. I’ve had black cats run in front of me. My clumsiness has broken more than one mirror.  I laugh, because I still think he’s mostly joking. I’m not sure if I’m rambling about luck out loud or in my head. If I was going to have bad luck I probably already have it. 

I keep sweeping. I think about other things. 

R doesn’t forget that quickly. It’s bad luck, he says again. 

And again. 

Its take me a while, but I finally realize he’s not laughing. He’s serious. He believes this. He probably would’ve gotten up and moved them himself by now if he had been able to safely leave Mir’s side. I drop the broom and go move the shoes. He’s happy now, but still can’t resist one more worried comment a few minutes later, I really hope you don’t have bad luck because of this. 

I tell him I will be okay.

All the way home after my shift I’m wondering- Ukrainian superstition brought from the Old Country 2 generations ago? family belief handed down through the ages? personal belief based on experience? Possibly I should’ve asked. Possibly I should have told him there was Someone stronger than mere bad luck.  

Unforgettable

We’re approaching the end of our lockdown here in Saskatchewan, and I’m a little sad. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not ready for normal life to resume fully. 

I like our Sundays of sitting by the pocket-sized speaker listening to church. But beyond personal enjoyment, these Sundays at home listening to church and not being able to socialize have offered us opportunities and experiences we wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

Take last Sunday for example. The 4 preteen neighbour girls stopped to see us in the morning and ended up hanging out with us all day. The first ones came just as the church service was starting to stream through our speaker, and we could still sit around listening and drawing together.  A little later, two more girls came, and at that point their noise nearly drowned out the pastor’s words. Nearly, but not quite. .

Tal, the oldest of the four at 12 years old, came and huddled over the speaker with me for a couple minutes, listening intently. How you live is how you’re going to die, the pastor intoned. Tal didn’t like that statement and repeated it three or four times before deciding she definitely disagreed, But it must have got her thinking. 

For the next five minutes Tal sat silently. Then she  surprised BTT and me with an insightful question, are you ready for the Lord to return ? We both told her we were and asked her if she was ready for the Lord to return. She said she didn’t know, she said she was worried about it.  She didn’t really know how she’d figure it out. My Mom says she’s ready; you guys are ready. But how do I know if I’m ready for the Lord  to return? she wondered. 

My heart aches for this girl, but I’m a little speechless. How do I explain Jesus to a twelve year old who has only once or twice set foot in a church and has learned everything she knows about God from movies and her off and on drug-addicted mother ? She knows a lot facts about Jesus, the Bible and heaven, (When it rains on earth, it’s the angels or God peeing, don’t you know?) but so many of the things she believes, I have a hard time reconciling with the real life Jesus I know. 

Finally, I find something to say. If you’re worried or confused about if you’re ready for the Lord to return, you can talk to Him. In fact, you can tell Jesus whatever you think and feel, anytime you want to. He’s always around to hear you. I don’t come up with those kinds of words. I mean, there’s a reason I’m at home in Saskatchewan and my sister is the one off in distant lands being the Missionary. Not my words. But I said them, never realizing the immediate effect they would have. 

What happened next was the best. With her typical half smile and a simple, Okay! Tal immediately folded herself into a reverent pose, clasped her hands under her chin and prayed. Miraculously, the other noisy girls noticed her praying and shushed each other to give her some semi-silence for her conversation with Jesus. Tal prayed silently, so I have no idea what she said. I also prayed silently and I have no idea what I said either. The pastor was still droning, unheeded, in the background, and the other little girls and BTT were hissing at each other to shshshsh! Tal’s praying! And then she looked up and smiled and said she felt better now. 

and that was that. 

Truly, though simple, this is a raw story, full of energy and emotion. It's the story of a deep-thinking child, often confused by the things she sees happening around her. I don’t know the future. I only know today. Tal is young, she’s hopeful, and she’s very spiritual. Jesus is and means and expects something different for every single child of His, so I’m trying to squash my tendency to think He’s limited to the way I know Him and the things He asks of me. Now Tal is worried that she might not go to heaven if she doesn’t spread the gospel like the Bible says to. I told her Jesus would tell her how she needed to spread the gospel, and if she’s not sure  her she can talk to Him about that too.  She said she’d do that. She might be growing as a Christian faster than I am. Tal is obsessed with the original 12 disciples of Jesus and likes to try to list them by name. And now that she had this conversation with Jesus, Tal says she’s a disciple of Jesus, too. I have no doubt she is. 

Selfishly, I also got some things out of that day. I got faith. I got to witness  another of the weird incredible ways Jesus works. And I got a story to tell. It’s not my story, it’s God’s story. It’s the oldest story, but for me it’s the first time I’ve witnessed it in action like this. And I. feel. unready. unworthy. and unable to forget it or stop telling it. 

Let Them Eat Whole Canned Mushrooms

 I have a tin of whole mushrooms in the my mini pantry. 

Also, I have a bit of a hoarding problem.

I’m not exactly sure what I had in mind when I bought a couple cheap cans of mushrooms a few months ago, because I generally don’t buy cans of anything, but it probably had something to do with the idea of an emergency rainy day mushroom soup or similar. 

My little neighbour Lex loves canned mushrooms.  Although I can’t personally understand their appeal, she’ll happily eat a whole tin of them at one sitting and then dreamily wish there was more. Since I bought these cans she’s eaten all of them except for the one last can I had hidden on the top of my fridge, hoping she wouldn’t think to look there. She never did find it, although she was suspicious I had one somewhere and tried half heartedly to find it.  Eventually I got tired of seeing that speck of yellow wrapper on the top of my fridge and moved it back to its real home in the pantry. Guess who discovered it there on her next hungry tour of my cupboards and fridge. Of course she did. And of course she asked if she could eat it. I. Said. No. Next time she came over she asked again, and, again, I told her I wanted to keep it. Sometimes she’ll just open the cupboard to look at that being yellow can with a hungry glimmer in her eyes and I’ll hard heartedly pretend not to see her. I think she’s stopped asking if she can eat it. 

Today I opened my pantry and saw that can of mushrooms and wondered, Why. Do I even care. Is a dollar twenty five worth of disgusting canned mushrooms going to do me half the good it will do her ? Or will it give me a fraction of the joy it will give her ? Never. Will my proverbial rainy day come before this tin has been bumped and bent and sat in my cupboard forgotten for 3 years ? Probably not. And by that time Lex won’t want it anymore either. Lex isn’t here today, so I shut my pantry, left the mushrooms in there, and kept thinking off and on about the absurdity of hoarding a stupid can of mushrooms. 

But now, as I wrote this, I had a brilliant idea. Lex just turned 9 years old, and I have a little gift for her sitting on my counter. As soon as I’m finished posting this I am going to go to my pantry, pull out that can of mushrooms, and add them to her gift bag. And to be honest, I think that will be her favourite part of her gift. 

More Stories From Our Town

A friend came through town on business a couple weekends ago and we exchanged stories. We hadn’t seen each other for over 6 months. There were lots of stories. One random and slightly unnerving story even happened while he was here. A woman from our town who is involved in using and selling certain things that are not legal, tried to break into our house, not being able to process the fact that the door was locked and would not open. Then,  a couple minutes later, she half attacked this friend in the dark street. If you’ve read former posts or visited our town, you may not be surprised by this drama.

BTT and I sometimes get immune to the drama of our town. Until we get into story telling mode. Or until dramatic things happen when other people are around to witness them with us. Or until their children show up on our doorstep without proper clothing and start talking about what’s happening to them. Or disappear entirely for weeks on end. The children, always the children, the loved-but-forgotten, neglected, self-sufficient, children. It’s always about the children with us. But I vowed (to myself) I wouldn’t focus on them today.

People die and come back to life in our town. Maybe this doesn’t happen often, but it has happened at least twice in the last year or half year. I don’t know a lot about drug use, but this town had taught me most of what I do know. Sometimes someone accidentally overdoses, and when they do, someone else is there to administer the antidote and count the minutes until they start breathing again, and, depending on their fear level, call 911. Those adverts I’ve been seeing that read, “don’t use opioids alone!” are there for a reason.  

BTT was called by the RCMP to the aftermath of one of these happenings a couple weeks ago, minutes after the ambulance had left the scene. He listened to a woman who had watched her friend die, then come back to life. Although she is a user herself, this happening really shook her up and she cried as she told the story. She takes this risk frequently to quell her demons and satisfy her addiction. But it scares her  .

I haven’t been able to see drug use from this angle before.  In my mind Ive know exactly what kind of person this woman is: the kind whose addictions are more important to her than her children, who are no longer in her custody. Hearing this from her, made me realize it may not be that simple. For her, these addictions aren't only a hallucinative break from reality. They scare her with their tight hold and uncertain power.  They are a power, an evil one, stronger than she is. She may have once chosen them, but now they choose her and she is powerless to resist. 

I am almost ashamed to say that I can’t fathom my life so desperate that risking killing myself daily was my best attempt at happiness.  Ashamed, because who am I to be happy.  So many people the world over are so desperately unhappy. So many people are squandering their Easter weekends in the euphoria of opioids or the soothing company of alcohol. As a result, so many marriages are ending violently as mine thrives; so many children are being neglected or abused in the houses of my town and every other town across the globe, so many families and communities are being ripped apart by the sinister power of drugs and alcohol. 

One friend who works on the local ambulance told us that drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and domestic violence has skyrocketed in surrounding  communities in the past couple months, presumably due to continuous social and physical isolations. I don’t have much to add on this other than to implore you: if you’re feeling isolated and depressed please find a trusted person to help you, or begin new healthy habits and hobbies instead of cultivating  brand new drug and alcohol addictions. And if you do find yourself locked in a routine of drug and alcohol abuse, don’t use opioids alone. And, please, find someone you love to take care of your kids before the government has to do that for you. 

Parachuting into Another Community

Sacrifices

I got a life (a job) so I quit blogging. Full disclaimer: I’ve had a part time job in a town nearby for a few months, but it hasn’t interfered with my blogging. Only recently, however, I got asked to work full time with another family for a few weeks in another town almost 100 kilometres away from my home, and that’s cramped my (blogging) style and perhaps affected other areas of my life as well. My floors are dirty. I’ve cooked only halfheartedly and we’ve been eating a lot of repetitious leftovers (and even serving them to company. I know my mother and mil are probably horrified.) And our yard really needs a spring cleanup.  On the other hand, some things haven’t changed: My neighbour girls still spend hours here, for one thing, and, as I told one friend, I don’t think I’ve cooked for just BTT and I for month: it seems like there’s always someone here: brothers, more brothers, sisters!, parents!, the neighbour girlies a few evenings a week, a nephew....... 

Payback 

So I’ve established that there have been sacrifices or compromises with my lifestyle. But the payback has been worth the sacrifice, and I don’t mean in actual money. I have become a small part of helping to keep children with the family they already know instead of going into different foster homes or group homes. I’ve witnessed firsthand the devastating effects that being shuffled from foster home to foster home or group home to group home has on children. Although I had no idea what my job as a support worker would entail or where it would take me when I first started it, it’s giving me a chance to do something that, while not glamorous, is allowing me to be part of a process I care deeply about: keeping children with the families, biological, adoptive, or foster, who have loved, cared for and bonded with these children. And there’s another reward. In my most recent assignment I have been able to get to know some brother-in-law  A’s bio family, which is such an honour and a delight. I’ve seen the sparkle in his eyes in the eyes of his little brother and witnessed some of his personality traits coming out in siblings, aunties, and cousins.  It’s just so cool. 

Skydiving, Differences and Similarities 

I parachuted, figuratively, of course, into a community with completely different values and lifestyle than my community. Or so I thought. Others thoughts so too. One woman even said those exact words, point blank, to my face. I had a hard time taking that as a compliment at first because in my heart I just want to be seen as the same as every other Canadian. The whole job, distance to work, crowd of new faces, suddenly being part of a different family and community and trying to learn their lifestyle and routines etc. was a little intimating and intense at first, thus the skydiving metaphor.

I think I’ve gotten over that, and my time spent in this city community has reinforced something I should’ve, or maybe did, already know: most people aren’t so different than me. Their lifestyle choices might be different from mine. Their clothes definitely won’t look like my clothes. Except for our lawyer the other day, who was wearing a black headscarf. Matching ! Their family might have vastly different careers than my family (ballet vs yard care.) There’s lots of differences when you’re looking for differences.

Despite the differences, many people hold similar core values to mine.  Parents and guardians are mostly just trying to raise happy, healthy children. Many have different methods of teaching and loving their children than I idealize, but those methods can also yield happiness and security, and even though their ways of showing it aren’t my ways, parents from every walk of life love their children deeply. School teachers in public schools also love their students as much as I, as a teacher in an independent school, loved mine, and they are going the second mile and sometimes even the third, fourth, and fifth mile to make sure their students succeed. Some of them feel the same guilt I often felt as a teacher when they fail a student in need or miss a day of teaching and witness the fallout in their students as a result of their absence. There are others communities besides mine where grandparents, friends, and community members rally around each other in support in times of need.  There are homes in other communities whose doors are open to anyone who needs a place to go. These families make me aware of how selfish I am even when I’m feeling generous. (The school teacher in me thinks I should take out that last sentence because it’s veering slightly off-topic. I just came up with a solution: I’ll create another paragraph.)

And then there’s the things I can learn from this community. These families make me aware of how selfish I am even when I’m feeling generous. No one has made me feel unwelcome because I am just another government employee or because I wear a dress and a head covering. People treated me with respect and have been very friendly, which is not something I can say with certainty I would do if the tables were turned. This community seems to celebrate a laidback sense of time, where the priorities are politeness, taking time to talk to people and dealing with things as they happen, all of which aren’t natural for me due to my stoic German Mennonite ancestry.

And then there’s the children. There’s always the children. I didn’t even begin on them. That might be a story for another day. Or maybe I’ll post a recipe for steak with green enchilada sauce like my mom suggested. 

Update on Experimental Survery

 

I put up that poll and deserted. I know some of you have been wondering about results, so I apologize for going temporarily awol. It’s spring and I’m distracted, not only by the balmy winds blowing through my hair, but by all the other dramas: personal dramas (including my phone doing what all my phones do -quit working), work dramas (from minor and adorable temper tantrums to early morning calls to come in for a last minute shift), family dramas (I won’t even get into that. For more info talk to my mil; she keeps a diary.), world drama. 

All the drama. It’s distracting and fascinating. But you my friends and family are still important. And although I originally started this blog only myself, I continue it for you, my small and  faithful and extremely united group of supporters. 

You all voted the same, except one person who left the poll without voting. I don’t really understand how that whole Google Forms thing works or why it would register that one person left the survey without voting. I was also hoping for a little more drama out of you guys (Doesn’t anyone want me to shut up? At the same time,  if you are annoyed at me please quit reading this blog. Your choice.). All voters were comforting and encouraging, with 100% of voters choosing the more of either option in reference to what kind of content you would enjoy reading more of. And for this I thank you. Therefore that is the mode in which I will continue, posting life stories, random thoughts, or recipes, basically whatever. I often find it easier to post recipes because it doesn’t take any emotional involvement from me. So today, a recipe. Just kidding. The recipe I was going to post is on my not-working phone. So today, nothing. 

I know I shouldn’t write late at night because most things I say quite makes sense when I read it over in the light of day. I might end up ranting about how to write the plural form of the word Wednesday if I don’t quit soon and that could be offensive and traumatizing for people who are even less worried about grammar than I.

So I will quit, and I will be back with something more interesting (possibly, maybe) next time.