Farewell to an old friend, the Now newspaper in Coquitlam

Final edition of The Tricities Now, formerly Coquitlam Now was published today. It rose from the ashes of The Columbian newspaper, which itself closed in 1983 after 122 years of publication.
http://issuu.com/coquitlam-now/docs/coqthu20151001

I wrote a tribute farewell letter that is published on page 10. It got edited down due to space constraints. Here's the full version, complete with references to the late great Larry Rose and Norm Wright, the Blue Mountain Royals, and young aspiring writer Annie.

Dear Editor:

The Tri-Cities Now and I go waaaay back. Back to the beginning. Back to when it was the Coquitlam Now.

When I was 17 back in 1983, I was an aspiring journalist, working on The Catalyst newspaper at Centennial Secondary and heading down to The Columbian newspaper after school to work as a file clerk.

Much to my dismay, The Columbian shut down in 1983 after 122 years. Not an auspicious start to my career!

Within the year though, I saw hope for the industry. Displaced Columbian reporters, ad sales people, and editors joined forces to start Now Newspapers in Coquitlam, Burnaby, New Westminster, and Surrey.

Norm Wright, the former sports reporter for The Columbian, was the founding sports editor for the Now Newspapers. He had covered the emerging sport of girls’ soccer and had often written about my team, the Blue Mountain Royals, and other local powerhouses. The coverage continued in the new Now format and we graced those pages several times.

When I was in first-year university at SFU in 1984, he offered me a stringer’s job of reporting on SFU sports in On The Hill, my own column in the Burnaby Now (sometimes also picked up by Coquitlam Now). In those pre-email, pre-internet days I would go interview the SFU coaches on Monday morning, write up the results on my electric typewriter, and drive them over to Now Newspaper headquarters in New Westminster in time for the Tuesday deadline.

Sadly, Norm passed away from cancer in 1986. He was a great mentor to me. My generation of girls’ soccer pioneers all appreciated his coverage of our sport as we broke boundaries and claimed our right to be in the spotlight. I gave a special shout-out to him in June of 2015 when three Blue Mountain girls teams were inducted into the Coquitlam Sports Hall of Fame.

I continued to appreciate Coquitlam Now from afar when I moved to Chilliwack to begin my career in university communications in 1990. I would always make sure I read it when visiting my in-laws. Larry Rose, my father-in-law, was a big community booster in Coquitlam and local public relations consultant, so we always had lots to discuss about Coquitlam politics and events during our visits.
When Larry passed away in 1999, then-editor Pat Cooper devoted a whole page of the Coquitlam Now to a tribute to Larry. The Dogwood Pavilion was filled to overflowing at his service, and many there read and appreciated her heartfelt tribute.

With the advent of the Internet, I was able to keep up with The Now via its web version.
I’ve been gone from Coquitlam for more than 25 years now, but it will always remain a special place in my heart, my core home. I lament the loss of the many community newspapers that are closing these days, and hope that we can find a way to continue to have “papers of record” for our communities.
Sincerely,
Anne Russell

Photo of one of Norm’s stories on us:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosedaleannie/16780827711

The evolution of (the) Rosedale Annie

Rosedale Annie wine tasting in the Okanagan with her hair twin.

Back in 2007, when I was an early adopter of Twitter, then a fairly new social media site, I had to choose a username for myself. Most combinations of my first and last names were already taken, so I settled on Rosedale Annie. (If we were being truly literal I would be East Chilliwack Annie, since we live a kilometre or two from the vague neighbourhood boundary of the unofficial neighbourhood of Rosedale on the outskirts of Chilliwack.) 

Since then the persona of Rosedale Annie has kind of taken on a life of her own, helped in no small way by my adventures, well documented on Facebook. She’s a fun-loving gal with friends in many circles, always ready to share a post-soccer beer and wings, or go on a new adventure, which may include cycling the Kettle Valley railway, touring wineries in the Okanagan, heading into Vancouver for a show, or attending, in costume,  a friend’s  Archie-themed birthday party. 

Hijinks often ensue when she’s around, and when it’s time to relax she welcomes friends and family from near and far to sit back on her deck overlooking her garden and backyard and the Hope Slough. If you’re lucky you may see river otters, great blue herons, and bald eagles, and her husband Daryl may have mixed up a batch of the Rosedale Annie, her signature cocktail. 

• 2 oz of Absolut fruit-infused vodka (mango is best; peach will do) ... (always a double!)
• 1 oz sparkling water
• 4 oz Western Family unsweetened grapefruit juice
• 1 oz Sunrype wild raspberry juice.
• (Measurements are rough estimates; feel free to experiment!)
• Shake the first three ingredients in a martini shaker with ice.
• Pour into tumbler-style glass.
• Pour raspberry juice over top for a layered look!

 Enjoy.

 

Eulogy for an old, old friend -- my tribute to Jean Scott

I lost my oldest friend a few weeks ago. Not oldest in terms of duration of the friendship, although we were going on 14 years. No, my friend Jean was simply the oldest person I had ever known, two months short of her 103rd birthday.

Jean had been a social activist longer than most people have been alive. She devoted her life to causes that promote social justice, women’s equality, and the rights of the common person.

Many know the public Jean, but I was lucky enough to get to know the private Jean, as we forged a strong friendship borne of mutual admiration. I love to hear stories, and she loved to tell them, so for a decade and a half I heard many chapters from the story of Jean.

Back in 2001 I was a busy mum, juggling kids, marriage, and a full-time job, when I met Jean.
She called me up at work, having somehow got my number, and demanded to know: “What is the university planning to do to commemorate Person’s Day this year?”

My boss, who knew her, told me to do anything Jean wanted.

First Jean had to educate me about the Person’s Case of 1929 and why there even is a Person’s Day, commemorating when the Privy Council recognized women as persons under the law. Then I helped her find speakers, order refreshments, and promote the event, which went quite successfully.

Fascinated by the impact this octogenarian had had locally, provincially, and nationally, I decided to nominate her for an honorary doctorate at the local university. That continued our formal relationship a while longer, and I was delighted, as was she, when the nomination was successful.

That could have been it for Jean and I, but I was intrigued by this feisty senior who seemed to have personal experiences relating to every major event of the 20^th century. The Titanic? It sank in the weeks before she was born. World War I? She could remember her uncle going to fight in it. The Spanish Flu? It nearly killed her father. The Depression? She scraped through it doing menial labour. World War II? She had a dalliance with a German POW. The 60s? She helped arrange health care for the hippies on Vancouver’s Fourth Avenue. The 70s? She was a driving force nationally in feminist issues.

I didn’t have time for a new “old” friend, but I was won over by her energy, her relentless positivity, and her verve, and we quickly became close. How could I resist? Besides, I figured, she was almost 90. How long would this friendship go on for anyway?

Although I escorted her to many public events and she loved them all, the best parts of our friendship were the private moments.

She became a treasured elder in our family, and loved nothing more than being invited to share dinner around our table after a country drive out to our house. (She loved food in all forms, had a robust appetite, cooked for herself into her 100th year, and the last word I heard her speak was “delicious” as the nurse fed her some pudding.)

I wasn’t her only friend, of course. She was so effusive that many were drawn to her positivity.
Jean had a healthy ego and an extremely strong need for her voice to be heard. I think she lasted so long partly because she couldn’t stand to think of a world without her.

Her drive to share the narrative of 20th century women’s experience through the lens of her own life led to her writing and self-publishing Brown Sugar and a Bone in the Throat, her memoir of growing up in poverty, overcoming abusive relationships, and emerging into a political consciousness that inspired her to speak up for others. One of my proudest achievements was helping to stage a public reading of the book, with my daughters reading the part of young Jean and women friends of every age reading the other stages.

I also enjoyed taking her to visit my son’s Grade 3 class as a living example of a 100-year-old, who proved to them that centenarians CAN dance (AND play the ukulele).

Jean was a living link to many stages of Canadian history and an inveterate name dropper who had known Pierre Berton, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, and every left-leaning politician, it seemed.
She demonstrated how to grow very old gracefully while remaining extremely engaged with loved ones and community, all the while retaining a sense of humour, vivaciousness and a lust for life. (Did I mention she was also a notorious flirt?)

When she began suffering with heart trouble late last year, she told me:

“All this time I never knew I HAD a heart, it just kept ticking away and giving me no trouble. Now the bottom half works but the top isn’t doing so well, and apparently you need your WHOLE heart to work.”

I replied: “Oh, believe me, your whole heart has been working hard for a long time! Just look at how you’ve shared it with so many people.”

Having lost Jean, but not begrudging her passing (she was 102 after all) I reflected on her attitude towards life, which is part of what kept me so eager to continue to be her friend.

I recently read that only 10% of those born in 1917 made it to age 85. Jean, born five years before that, made it to almost 103. So she outlived her peer group by a longshot, but stayed connected to the world by continually making new friends from all generations.

So in the hopes that we should all have the good fortune to live life to the fullest for as long as we get to be here, I offer you some life lessons from our friend Jean:

1) Embrace life with passion

From an early age (I know, because I listened to her stories and read her book), Jean met the world with excitement and unbridled enthusiasm. From the brown sugar she recalls sneaking from the barrels in her father’s grocery store, to the beauty of the blossoming fruit trees on Spadina Avenue, to the many types of music that she played and enjoyed listening to, to men she flirted with and the women and children she engaged with and encouraged, Jean brought a certain gusto and appreciation to everything she encountered.

2) BE engaged, with your causes, your passions, your community

I often thought that what was keeping Jean alive was one more project, one more cause. She moved to Chilliwack in her late 60s, ostensibly to retire, but took on project after project, all of them for the betterment of the community. I know she did this in her six previous decades as well. The Chilliwack Museum, housed in our heritage city hall thanks in part to Jean, the transition house movement, the Academy of Music, the local NDP chapter, the Heritage Singers, the Carman United Church, and others all benefited from her devotion to causes that Jean cared about and that helped others.

3) Inspire others to care about the things that matter to you

Jean didn’t have Facebook or Twitter to spread the word about her projects and causes (although someone – not me – did create a Facebook profile for her that you can check out if you want). No, she spread the word about her causes the old-fashioned ways: letters to the editor, photocopied flyers (she would say mimeographed), telephone chains, and fiery speeches. A few years before I formally met her, I encountered her at the campaign offices for the Alliance for a Better Chilliwack, where she was improvising lyrics to a campaign song for the municipal election coalition. Whatever approach she used, she was always inspirational, infecting others with her enthusiasm.

4) Value education

It brings joy to my heart to know that something I instigated brought joy to Jean’s heart. Receiving an honorary doctorate from UFV was one of her peak life experiences, because she had always regretted not getting a university education. But Jean was a lifelong learner. One of her prized possessions was a plaque with a quote from Michelangelo that said: “I am still learning.” Among her favourite sources of knowledge and culture were CBC Radio, library books, concerts and theatre outings, and courses taken through UFV partner ElderCollege.

5) Appreciate friendship and family

Anyone who was friends with Jean became friends with her entire circle by proxy. For years I heard stories about Spencer and Sonia and their kids and grandkids, her sisters and nieces and nephews, long-lost relatives who came back into her life, and friends Sharon and Phil Blaker, Pat Carfra, Jean and Jim Servizi, Doug Wickers, Bobbi Jacobs, Brenda Janzen, and others. She thanked me every time we saw each other for being a good friend to her, and always insisted on hugs and kisses. She was appreciative of every outing, especially one Christmas Eve when she was snowed in – unable to get to Langley, and we brought her out through the storm for prime rib at our house and an impromptu trip to the Rosedale United Church’s candlelight ceremony. And she remembered incredible details about me and my family –- not always accurately -– but very vividly. For years she mistakenly thought my daughter Molly wanted to be an architect and would tell her about famous female architects. When two of her sisters died in their 90s a week apart in 2008, she felt so adrift that she sought formal grief counselling. On her last good day, she asked me to bring my kids to see her, so the next day I did, on what turned out to be her last -– not so good -– day. But she still beckoned my girls to her bedside and grasped their hands for a final loving connection with her radiant being.

6) Be grounded

Jean loved social life and the adrenalin buzz that came along with it but she also appreciated the basic good things in life, such as home-made food. Up to the age of 100, the woman could take a butcher’s bone and an onion and come up with a tasty soup. She didn’t understand why you’d buy muffins from a store when you could make your own. Until she left her own home with a yard she grew a bounteous garden. Simply listening to music, singing, playing the piano, or meditating on a poem or a prayer also grounded her. And of course there was the soothing company of her cat Nicky -– unfriendly to so many but so devoted to her.

7) Spread love and joy as part of your daily life

You couldn’t be friends with Jean without hugs and kisses -– on the lips! But I also saw her share love wherever she went. She would have kind words for the waitress, ask after the taxi driver’s family, encourage the many UFV students she met at events, throw cheerful words out as she pushed her walker down the hall at the Lynnwood, and profusely thank the nurses as they tended to her in her hospital bed. A fine example to follow!

8) Share what you know

When I was interviewing Gwen Point, the new Chancellor at our University, she told me that her grandmother told her this: “What you know has no value. It’s like sand falling through your hand unless you pass it on to others.” Jean understood this, and was forever teaching others, about the importance of women’s rights, major achievements in the labour movement, local history from both Chilliwack and her prairie homes of Rocanville and McAuley, and lessons learned from years in the trenches fighting for the common good.

9) Make sure your voice is heard and your story is told

Not all of us have the gift of rhetoric and a whole autobiography itching to be written, but we all have a story. Jean’s keen desire to tell hers so that it would not be forgotten led to her writing her memoir. That should inspire us all. You may not write 20 chapters, but your story shouldn’t die with you. All of our stories are important. History is the collection of individual narratives. Start telling yours to your family and friends so that your stories and the experiences and wisdom that shaped you lives on in their hearts.

And speaking of hearts, here’s the final life lesson we can learn from Jean:

10) Keep hope in your heart

Jean was an eternal optimist, despite a life filled with struggle. She NEVER gave up. As she languished at home with the heart trouble that eventually led to her demise, she told me she had to get better so she could host one more birthday party in April. So as we celebrate the equinox today, one month from what would have been Jean’s 103^rd birthday, let’s all take a little hope in our hearts home with us.

Thank you.

My kind of busy life

I had occasion to eat lunch with a man I'd never met before this week. He asked this seemingly innocuous question: "And what do you like to do when you're not at work?"

The answer went something like this:"Three kids at three different schools and stages with concurrent and concomitant homework, activities, and life-planning stresses, two of them with health conditions that cause us additional stress. Five members of the family involved in soccer, four games per weekend. I like riding my bike up and down mountains, but don't have time for much actual off-road mountain biking because ... kids. Many dear friends accumulated through the many facets and stages of our life in Chilliwack so lots of socializing. Two women's clubs (if you count the Rosedale Rockers, as I do). Two soccer teams (for me). Reading, theatre, music, movies. Bootcamp twice a week, badminton. Four cats, one dog. Four brothers and sisters-in-law. Fourteen nieces and nephews, plus my husband's extended family. Caring for aging parents and their intensifying health concerns. Chores, chores, more chores."

That about says it. Tired me out just recounting it. Plus some me time and some Daryl-and-me time.

Farewell to a friend

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My eulogy for my dear friend Karen Heiber.

We’re all gathered here today because of a dear common friend: the amazing Karen Heiber. In a way, you could see this as the final stop on her farewell tour. And in her very organized way, this is her show!

After having had the privilege of being her friend and bearing witness to and sharing — albeit from afar — in the struggle of her cancer journey, I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of friendship, and how you don’t always know when meeting someone for the first time what types of intense experiences you will share with them as a friendship develops, or what impact they will have on your life.

I have met many of my friends through my work at this university, and we have gone on many journeys together. My friend Sandy is your volunteer bartender today. When I met her on my first day of work here I didn’t think “Oh, here is the woman who will be the labour coach for two of my childbirths and provide support and counsel during some of my life’s hardest moments.”

But that is indeed what happened.

And when I met Karen as I interviewed her to replace me for my third maternity leave, I didn’t think “Oh, here is a person with whom I will share some crazy fun times and laughter, whose quirky sense of humour will make her a joy to be friends with, who will come to my rescue during some intense life challenges, and who will teach me about generosity, resilience, and compassion as she makes her final journey a community event shared by those she loves the world over, via the power of social media.”

But that is indeed what happened.

I couldn’t tell you precisely what my other two maternity leave replacements are up to today, but Karen and I, along with Mike and Daryl, struck up a friendship that endured.

So I guess in a way we can thank my son Miles, who is turning 11 next Friday, for bringing us together and bringing Karen and Mike to Chilliwack.

Karen and Mike had two stints in Chilliwack. They stayed here from 2003 through 2006 as she worked my mat leave and then another year at UFV and Mike used his writing talent and hometown boy insider knowledge to do some excellent journalistic work for the Chilliwack Times. Then they lit out for Toronto for a dose of big city life. They came back to the Wack for a second time, during which Karen honed her entrepreneurial talents through a brief career as the Lash Lady. I served as a guinea pig in this eyelash-enhancing entrepreneurial endeavour. Then the lure of work and family in Saskatchewan sent them eastward again in 2010.

While we weren’t that far apart in age — she was five years older — we did lead very different lives during the times she lived in Chilliwack. I enjoyed Karen’s camaraderie at work and knew that she and Mike would be cool people to hang with, but for much of the decade I was juggling the competing priorities of working and raising three kids, two of them with significant health challenges.

She was sometimes in awe of how intense that juggling act would be, and I would summarize it to her thus: “you just have to effing do it.” Except I wouldn’t say effing. I would use the real swear word.

But we managed to squeeze in time for some fun together. On several occasions she created multi-course gourmet dinners for Daryl and I. Such a treat! A nice break from the kids and an honour to have someone work so hard to make great food on our behalf. Then they would come over and experience the mayhem of a three-kid, three-cat, one-dog household and be particularly charmed by the roguish hospitality of Miles. Mike usually went down to defeat in Wii boxing and Wii fencing against his four-year-old nemesis. Miles would then declare triumphantly ‘I winning, I winning!’ Mike suffered as Miles dangled a dirty sock in front of his nose and taunted him with the phrase ‘Mell it! Mell it!’

We all went to see Lucinda Williams together in Vancouver, and dined out on a few occasions.

And Karen did know how to have fun! There was that wacky sense of humour, combined with a rebel edge. And while I respected and supported her eventual decision to embrace sobriety, there was nobody more fun to have a few drinks with.

On the last night of her UFV contract, we drank our way through the martini menu and wine list at Bravo, the local bistro. At a goodbye lunch a few days before, she enjoyed a few cocktails and a few smokes on the patio before heading back to the office to work into the night to meet her last deadlines.

In addition to her witty side, her fun side, her quirky side, her rebel side, and her generous side, Karen had a compassionate side.

When Miles was a toddler he fell heavily into the grips of asthma and was hospitalized four times in six months, with numerous other emergency visits thrown in.

It was about this time nine years ago — exactly nine years ago tomorrow, to be precise — when I was trying to finish off a 24-page community report due to go into the local papers as a supplement, when Miles started to go downhill rapidly again, just days before his second birthday. Knowing and dreading the fact that I was headed to the hospital for a few days, I made a frantic Hail Mary phone call to Karen supplemented by an email detailing the myriad last-minute task that needed attending to for the community report. Karen stayed and worked day and night and weekend to get my stuff done in addition to her own and met my (now our) important deadline. Unsung hero, baby!

Then she came and visited me in said hospital/baby jail and brought me food. It’s hard to leave a toddler behind metal crib bars to go to the cafeteria and visitors are so very welcome.

Late in her tenure in Chilliwack Karen discovered Hicks Lake, northeast of Harrison, and began camping there with her man and her mum and her dog. My favourite kind of camping is when you can just drop in on friends who are doing the actual camping, and join them for a lake swim, dinner, and a campfire, and we did so on a few occasions.

By the time 2010 came around things were getting slightly less hectic in my household and I was better able to embrace the idea of adult friendships and childless outings.

So I was sad when they decided to pull up stakes once again and head to Saskatoon. I have a bit of an abandonment complex, and have said goodbye to a few too many people in my life for my liking, so I didn’t expect to have much to do with Karen in the future, what with all the long-distance logistics!

But through the power of social media, we were able to keep in touch pretty well. And when her life was profoundly changed and truncated via the cancer diagnosis and the rapid realization that it wasn’t just a little problem that would be dealt with easily, she used social media to reach out to, stay in touch with, and embrace her friends all over the world.

She LIKED with a vengeance on Facebook. She ‘liked’ it when I posted a funny story, an anecdote about my kids, a cute cat photo, or a vent about life’s challenges. She chimed in on debates about social issues. She was lavish with her praise for friends and family, and shared her favourite causes, especially those involving animal rescue.

When Daryl posted in early April about the frustrations of finding soccer coaches for spring soccer she told him how wonderful he was and scolded the community, telling them that they should step up — this from her bedside in Arizona!

On my birthday, four days before she died, she posted:

"Happy birthday, loved one. You are an amazing woman!"

She also used Facebook as a way of sharing and recording her cancer journey — I won’t say battle, because she had to concede defeat pretty quickly and just devised tricks to keep the beast at bay for as long as possible. She was funny, and frank, and raw, and graphic.

Now it was her turn to say: “You just have to effin’ do it.” Except she didn’t say effin. She used the whole swear word.

Some people were lucky enough to visit her during her final year, and I was one of them. Karen and Mike and I spent a nice weekend in Phoenix together. Even though she was almost immobile, she arranged outings for Mike and I, and the three of us went out on the town to a comedy club where she immensely enjoyed shocking the crude comics who tried to start a spiel about our little threesome. “So you’re here with your ex and your friend,” said the comic. “What’s that all about?” The previous victim had fought the comedian off by saying “I’m researching a cure for cancer.” Karen then took great delight in making the comedian’s jaw drop by replying “I HAVE cancer.” Then he said, "Oh wow, but you're going to beat it right?" "No," she replied. "It's incurable." The room went silent. No picking on Karen after that answer! But they did giver her star treatment and a t-shirt!

Later on she was talking about perhaps going to a drive-in movie and asked Mike if he would take her. They had been separated for some time, so when she said, “we could make out!” he hesitated a moment. She then plaintively said with a grin, “C’mon Mike, I’m DYING!” Playing the cancer card to her advantage again!

We also spent some quiet contemplative time together that weekend. She lived another 12 months, but we knew we probably wouldn’t see each other again. We certainly kept in touch though.

She was funny and warm and compassionate to the end.

Shortly after Karen’s death, I posted this on Facebook: My 102-year-old friend is teaching me how to grow very old gracefully while remaining extremely engaged with loved ones and community and retaining a sense of humour, vivaciousness, and a lust for life. My dear and recently departed 52-year-old friend, Karen Heiber, taught me that it's possible to do the same while facing a shortened life span.

As I end my remembrance of her, I want to share her final Facebook post, one day before her death:

“Hugs and lots of love to my Facebook family. I cannot express enough how much all of your support has meant to me during this incredibly challenging and painful past year and half. Wishing you all love, happiness and health. Forever and ever.”

We are all better people for having known Karen.  We loved her, and we will miss her. Forever and ever.

Thank you

Cheam from McElwee, Rosedale

Cheam from McElwee, Rosedale, originally uploaded by Rosedale Annie.

I live in a beautiful place!

Lunch with the nonagenarian

So my friend Jean is a very special woman. Famous around these parts and beyond for being a feminist and social activist for decades before either of those terms were invented. Known for rabble-rousing and getting things done. The self-published author of an autobiography that drained her savings account but that she had printed because she had a story to tell about determination, suffering, grit, and survival, and was compelled to share it in print (this was at the age of 92 or so). Honorary degree holder from the University of the Fraser Valley.

We share the same birthday week. This week I turned "halfway to 90" and she's hitting 99 on Thursday. I got to know Jean when she was 89 because she phoned the university demanding to know what we were going to do to mark Person's Day, the day honoring when the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that women were persons under the law in the 1920s. Jean is so old that she actually met some of the Famous Five activists that brought the person's case forward (or at least she talks about them like she did). One of her proudest honours was receiving the federal Person's Day medal from the governor general in 1990 for her activist work.

So back in 2001 I was a busy working mum but I figured, "hey, I can invest some time in this friendship because Jean's pretty cool, and she's almost 90, and she won't likely be around much longer anyway, and I could learn a lot from her."

Ten years later, here we still are, meeting regularly for lunch, going as dates to university functions and the theatre. She's become a treasured elder in our family, and loves nothing more than being invited to share dinner around our table. (Did I mention she loves food in all forms and has a robust appetite?)

Our relationship has evolved so that I'll correct her when she's wrong or chide her for claiming to have reached a new age two or three months before her actual birthday.

I've watched her move from her own mobile home to an old folks home in Langley. She then used a Chilliwack newspaper I casually brought by to plot her "prison break" from that home and find herself an apartment back in Chilliwack again. (My apologies to her family: I had no idea she was going to use the Chilliwack Times that way!) I've then followed her to her current old folks home in Chilliwack, where she remains a rabble rouser, advocating for seniors' rights, better food, and more reasonable rates. She sometimes feels trapped in a corporate environment in this chain-owned living arrangement.

I was very proud to help her stage a reading of her autobiography in 2005, recruiting my seven- and 10-year-old daughters, and women of every age decade up to 70, to read parts in her voice. She flirts with my husband, engages my kids in lengthy and detailed conversations, and remembers the names of all my cats. We're both famous for our sharp memories, which makes our conversations all the more lively.

Anyway, with my busy work schedule and her busy social life we've been having a hard time getting together recently. I'll be working at the other campus, or unable to take breaks, and then call her when I'm available, but she'll be busy shopping, or going to the doctor, or off to another luncheon engagement.

This week was a key one to get together, but the only time I had free was 11 am this morning. I arranged to pick her up for a "lunchy brunch" and drove to the old folks home, a couple minutes late as usual, and was somewhat alarmed that she wasn't waiting at the door for me.

I buzzed her, but there was no answer. I went upstairs, found her door unlocked, and called in, but she didn't call back. I opened the door and went in, thinking things were probably okay, but what if they weren't? I held my concern at bay, because I don't tend to worry until there's actually something to worry about!

I turned the corner in her tiny apartment and found her busy in the kitchen.

"Oh, you're here! Sit down. Lunch is almost ready! Didn't you get my message? I'm cooking for you today! The baked potatoes are almost ready!"

Now Jean has cooked for me before, and loves to make her own soup, but I'd gotten past expecting such treatment now that she's one year shy of 100.

But since it was my birthday week as well as hers, she wanted to make today about me. She'd made her own soup again. "Almost vegetarian! Just a little bone in there with the most delicious marrow! Lots of spices too!"

And she insisted on opening a bottle of very good wine that someone had got her. Now a glass of wine at 11:20 am on a workday goes against just about all my rules, but who's going to argue with the nonagenarian?

We talked local news, provincial politics (she likes Adrian Dix, I'm more a Mike Farnworth fan), and she crowed a bit (as she is wont to) about the birthday letters she received from the governor general, the lieutenant governor, the premier, and an MP. I had the odd honour of bringing the letter signed by Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper up to her room -- as an old socialist he's not her favourite politician!

Jean is almost blind and quite deaf, so things weren't quite perfect. She almost scooped the soup out onto my baked potato before I pointed out that we didn't have bowls. And I had to remind her that we needed knives and forks.

But I was touched beyond words that my old, old, old, friend had taken the time and effort to turn "our" birthday lunch into a special treat for me.

Happy birthday, Jean. It's been quite a decade knowing you!

A series of interesting coincidences

The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom
Movie review and musing



So those of you who know me well know that I was adopted and have a long and convoluted semi-reunion story that I can share parts of if you have the time and inclination to hear it.

As it's not my story alone to tell, I won't go into great detail here, except to note that April 9 was the 19th anniversary of me finding out key information about my birth family, including "who my mother was". (Those of you who know me well will also know that I have an uncanny knack for remembering and commemorating dates.)

Now I could go all technical and use phrases like birth mother, natural mother, adoptive parents, etc, but in my mind when I say mum and dad I mean the people who raised me from infancy with love and generosity of spirit, and when I say mother, at least in this little story, I mean the woman who grew me and birthed me and made the very hard decision to give me up. (Having had some experience with her, I know that this was a very difficult and very brave decision for her to make.)

The 19 years since the pivotal day when suddenly I had all this information about my family of origin (and found my mother in the pages of a magazine in the UFV library, of all things -- long story but what a way for a media person to get such info) have involved may peaks and valleys in terms of trying to come to know the people to whom I am linked by blood. I am blessed to have met my half-brother and sister several times, and to be in "e-contact" today. My mother and I have not met, but I am still very grateful for her willingness to share some information and tolerate, and even indirectly encourage, her children meeting one another.

But what I want to write about today is how I just "happened" to read the movie pages of the Vancouver Sun carefully on Friday, and became intrigued by the review of a brand new Canadian indie film entitled The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom. Once I read that it was about an 11-year-old girl growing up in the '70s who finds out she's adopted, decides Dolly Parton is her mother, and sets off on a cross-border bicycle quest, I knew that I "had" to see this movie, but it's not the type of movie that makes its way to Chilliwack in any hurry.

Then I realized that I would be going to Vancouver that day for an overnighter, taking Molly and her friends in for a birthday treat. I figured the timing wouldn't work out, but then I saw that there was a 4:15 show, and only five minutes walk from the condo where we would be staying. Now ever since two of my kids have acquired chronic health problems they don't deserve, I've had a really hard time with any concept of fate or destiny, but something seemed to be making the universe align for me on this one.

The teens and I had a nice few hours eating and shopping on Commercial Drive, and arrived downtown "just in time" for me to catch the movie (no way was I going to try to talk them out of Robson Street shopping to see it with me).

I walked into the darkened theatre and within minutes was taken back to a very '70s milieu: macrame on the walls, avocado appliances, a mother with a fear of new-fangled digital clocks, and a girl with a banana-seat bicycle.

Unlike my parents, who were honest from day one about where I came from, the protagonist in the movie (Elizabeth) uncovers what has been a dark secret, as her mother has been telling her a false "birth story" (labour and all) for 11 years.

How she comes to decide that Dolly Parton is her mother is a tad convoluted, but what the movie really captures is her determination to KNOW that which has been withheld, but which she senses. Also, the Berlin Wall-sized barrier erected between adoptees and their birth families.

As they were for many special-interest groups (civil rights, feminism, gay rights) the seventies were a time of nascent activism for adoptees. The wall didn't crumble without a lot of effort, agitation, story-sharing, letter-writing, petition-generating, campaigning, lobbying, and paradigm-shifting.

These days we have open adoptions, mechanisms for reunions when the child comes of age, birth mothers choosing their baby's famiy, and TV reunion shows. In those days we had sealed records, new birth certificates "erasing" original ones, and the promise from government that those records would "never" be opened. Part of me even respects that approach, as the deal that both sets of parents made upon adoption is that it would be permanent, and that the child would be re-cast "as if" born to the adoptive family.

But we humans are a curious bunch. Adoptees (not all, but many) feel a strong need to know where they came from and who they look like (I had never met a birth relative until I had Molly). Birth mothers yearn for the child they left in the hospital and want to know what became of them. Even adoptive parents wonder about the quirks of the little human who was handed to them and where they got those characteristics so unlike their own. And when the adoptee has children of his or her own, they hand on the genes of the birth family: there's no fooling nature!

And the adoptees do fantasize. I never pegged Dolly Parton as my mother, but in my teens I did wonder if Jim Morrison passed through my birth mother's town in the sixties (have you seen my hair?). And I thought Joni Mitchell would be a pretty cool mum too (little did I know that she was keeping her own secret of giving away a baby) but we look nothing alike. We wonder if our parents were poets, or writers, or artists, and assume they must have been way cooler than the ones we got.

For the first half of my life I thought I would never know anything about my birth family. Those doors were CLOSED by society and government. But all that seventies-style agitation and lobbying paid off, and very slowly, the doors started to open. The BC provincial government decided to open the records in 1992, and I was among the first in line.

For all the complications and joys that have arisen from knowing who my birth family was for 19 years ("to the day" on the day I watched the movie April 9), and the realization that we can't completely "know" one another, I realize I've now internalized, even slightly taken for granted, that I "know" who they are. And I'm grateful for that, and the generosity they've shown in letting me into their lives to varying degrees.

Watching The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom brought me back to a time when it seemed like we would never know one another -- adoptees and birth families. Before there was email or Facebook, and the 'Information Wanted' section of the newspaper (title sounds quaint now) would carry little ads on the adoptees' birthdays, from birth mothers and adoptees, searching for their "other".

And the concluding scene, where little Elizabeth stands up before a crowd at an adoptee rally, proudly wearing her "bastards are beautiful" t-shirt with her parents cheering her on, made me thankful that some people (including myself) did choose to make a fuss back then. And that others (including my mum and dad) chose to support them.

April is a big month for me: I was born on the 17th, placed with my family on the 29th, my husband was born on the 30th (the very next day after I was placed with my family), I 'found' my mother on the 9th, and gave birth to my first daughter on the 6th. In the midst of all these milestones, it was nice to sit in a darkened theatre and ruminate on the meaning of it all, thanks to a little gem of a movie.