Back to Vernon

After waking at 6:50am and arriving at the dock at 8:20, I caught the nine o’ clock ferry to Vancouver.  Now, I’m lined up with fellow passengers like a bird on a wire at one of the many workstations.  I had plenty of time before the 9:00am ferry to get a cup of coffee to drink in the car as I ate my breakfast, a fig bar that I had bought yesterday at Ottavio’s in Oak Bay.  I had thought it would be like a granola bar, although it did look a bit dark.  It turned out to be just a densely packed mass of figs.  Fortunately, Barbara and Terry had given me a snack bag for the road as I bid them adieu before leaving this morning.  In it was a HUGE hermetically sealed and very typical bag of Korean crunchy snacks, which went well with the figs and made a hearty breakfast.  Also in the bag was a chocolate/hazelnut bar, to remind me of our wonderful morning chats and cups of hazelnut coffee, which I will miss.

I will miss mom too.  In spite of the fact that we have epic arguments and different priorities in life, we did have some good times these past weeks and came to appreciate each other a bit more, I think.  She’s still feeling very sad and often depressed.  Her most frequent refrain is, “What’s it all about?”  She’s tired and her PHN is not giving her any breaks.  I can’t get a handle on the kind of pain she’s enduring and sometimes lose my temper when I see how cavalier her attitude to drugs is, but that’s all part of her nature.  She’s either way up or deep down.  Like the Grand Old Duke of York’s men, when she is up, she is up.  She wants to do everything and have all the fun there is to have.  When she is down, she is down.  I’ve never known anyone with a bleaker outlook than hers in those times.  And when she is only half way up, she is at her best.  I, of course, am either perfect or perfectly ignorant of my own faults.  Bill and I have worked well together to try to help her, so we’ll see what happens.

I still hope to see my friends in Vernon and do a little skiing and snowshoeing before going to Mexico.  It’s going to be a busy two weeks in March because if all goes well, I fly to Leon on the fourteenth.

My last walk along Willow's Beach for this visit

Mom, inspired by a picture of Jay after his morning workout, assumes a 'fighting trim' pose.

A grey day on the Coastal Renaissance, but I did feel reborn as I breathed in the sea air on my short walk around the 'sun deck'.