Category Archives: Stories of a Life

Stories of a Life | Late, Late for a Very Important Date

November 21, 2020Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In the 1980s, I was perpetually late on almost every occasion where I was depended on to be on time. Now, as many would say, lateness is a sign of passive-aggressive behaviour, and a statement to those who are waiting for you to arrive that your time is more valuable than theirs — while others believe that being late is a barely concealed power play on the part of the person who is late, designed to “put you into your place.”
Most people won’t bear a grudge if you’re 5 minutes late — but to be more than 5 minutes late, when people might start getting annoyed with you is a whole different kettle of fish. Lateness betrays a lack of respect and consideration for those who you are inconveniencing with your lateness.
In the inverse, although being late insults others, it also undermines the person who is late, because it may betray a lack of intelligence, self-knowledge, will power, or empathy. Or, it may be that the person who is late has set unrealistic goals and over-scheduled her day, or underestimated the time that it takes to travel from one place to another.
But there may be more perfidious and faithlessly treacherous reasons for being late than mere mediocrity. Some involve anger and aggression, and others self-deception. Anger expressed as passive-aggressive behaviour is a vigorous means of expressing aggression covertly, and doing so without incurring the full emotional and social costs of a more overt aggression.
As written above, being late, especially egregiously or repeatedly late, sends out the message, “I am more important than you”. Of course, one can, and often does, send out a message without it being true.
A person may be late because she feels inferior or unimportant, and being late is a way for her to impose herself on a situation, attracting attention, even going so far as to “overtake” an event, situation or proceeding.
At this point, it should be pointed out that being late is not necessarily an unhealthy trait, or pathological in nature.
Sometimes, being late is your unconscious (intuition) telling you that you don’t actually want to be there, or that it would be better for you not to be there — for instance, it could be that a meeting (or even a job) is not the best use of your time, or will inevitably work against your own best interests. Note should be made that headaches can serve a similar function.
There are few habits as infuriating as someone making us wait, though.
But, despite what may be running through your mind as you’re kept waiting again, it’s unlikely your friends or colleagues who are persistently late are just being selfish. It is only when the latecomers make the decision to be punctual that they change. It must be a conscious decision, though — if they merely make a woolly attempt to “try” to be on time, they won’t be.

“Lateness is really a commonly misunderstood problem,” says Diana DeLonzor, author of Never Be Late Again, who has conducted her own research on the perpetually tardy. “Yes, it’s a rude act, but I’ve interviewed hundreds of people and the vast majority of late people really dislike being late, they try to be on time, but this is something that has plagued them throughout their lives.”

In 1982 an event occurred in my life that ended my lateness forever.
Now, in my contemporary life and with rare exception, I always arrive on time — or early, but hold back on knocking on the door or depressing the buzzer until the exact minute of my proposed arrival time occurs — and over the course of the past 38 years, I’ve felt all the better for it.

In the autumn of 1982, having finished work on my Masters, I found myself employed in a suburban Metro Vancouver school district as a secondary school English and Drama teacher. When I’d visited my mother on a mid-autumn weekend, she invited me for dinner in her North Vancouver condominium apartment, in the coming week. “Arrive at 5pm, Raymond,” she said to me. “You know I like to eat dinner early.”
On the mid-week day of the appointed dinner date, I skeddaddled out of the school at 3:45pm, a little later than I’d planned, but I figured that 75 minutes to travel from the Tri-Cities to North Vancouver should get me to my mother’s house in good time. Such, however, proved not to be the case. Traffic was particularly bad on the Highway One that day, there was an accident on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge that slowed my travels, as traffic moved along at a crawl. Now, this was in pre-cell phone days.
So, there I was stuck in traffic with no way to contact my mother to let her know I’d likely be a few minutes late. Long story short, I arrived at my mother’s door at 5:20pm — late for sure, but I had a good reason, or so I thought. I knocked on the door. My mother’s newest boyfriend, a tall and imposing husky bear of a man, a retired commander in the Canadian Armed Forces Navy, as it happens, looked at me standing in the hallway, and as I made my way into my mother’s condo, he grabbed me, lifted me off my feet, and shoved me up against a wall, my feet dangling below me, and set about to lecture me on how rude I’d been in arriving late, that on behalf of my mother, he simply wasn’t having any of it.

“This is the last time you’ll be late for any event, ever, for any reason,” he roared at me, my feet still dangling below me. “From here on in, not only will you arrive on time, you will arrive early — but wait until the appointed time to make contact with those with whom you are to meet. You will plan all of your excursions and travels, and in so doing will always leave more than enough time in order that you might arrive at your destination not just on time, but early. Do I make myself clear to you?”

I nodded my head meekly, and said quietly, “Yes sir, I do.”
And, you know what? From that day to this, I have always made a point of leaving early, allowing myself at least an extra half hour of travelling time, often more — whether I’m travelling over to Vancouver’s east side from my Kitsilano home to visit newly-acclaimed author Jak King, as I did yesterday, or my friend who lives nearby Jak, the kind and generous Patrick Mokrane — or meeting someone for lunch or dinner, or a couple of beer, or for any other reason I am to meet with someone of my valued acquaintance.

Investigative Journalism | Why We All Must Subscribe to Media

November 18, 2020Media, News, Stories of a Life, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

The future of journalism will increasingly depend on you paying for the news directly. Subscribing to newspapers, magazines and online journals represents nothing less than your essential duty to your fellow citizens, a necessary act of good citizenship, particularly when the algorithms developed by social media feeds like Facebook knowingly publish what can only be considered as “fake news”, and a true diminishment of knowledge.
The genesis of today’s VanRamblings derives from this tweet by longtime, respected Globe and Mail labour reporter, Rod Mickleburgh …

I spend about $50 a month subscribing to various US, Canadian and local newspapers…that's about $1.70 day…what a bargain! Cheaper than a bus ride, and you get so much…Support journalism, folks…We need it more than ever #COVID19

— Rod Mickleburgh (@rodmickleburgh) November 17, 2020

For those who don’t know: I love short form writing, have for almost 60 years now. As this is my blog, and in some sense an expression of what I care about, it is also (increasingly) about who I am, and how I have arrived at where I am in my life, psychologically, spiritually, philosophically and intellectually at the age of 70 years, and a few more COVID-19 months on.

As I’ve written previously, from age 6 on, I pretty much raised myself — my father worked the afternoon shift til 1 a.m. at the post office, and my mother worked evenings at Canada Packers / Swift Meats on Lulu Island. After making myself some dinner, or eating some stew that was bubbling away in the slow cooker, I was left to my own devices. Sometimes that involved going to the movies, sometimes in the 1960s that meant rehearsing for a play at Templeton Secondary school, but mostly it meant spending evenings at the Vancouver Public Library, at Robson and Burrard (pictured above). In some measure, librarians helped to raise me.
The library opened up previously unimaginable possibilities about what the future held, not only introducing me to the great works of literature, but providing me with insight into history, politics, development, and the arts.
Amidst the many tens of thousands of books, there was a newspaper and magazine room, where I would spend the better part of an hour each evening, reading through Time magazine, the London Times, the New York Times, the Manchester Guardian, the Toronto Star, and in time, the “gang of activists” folks who began publishing This Magazine, Canadian Forum and Canadian Dimension. I read newspapers from across the globe, and consumed magazines as if I was starved for information about the beauty and breadth of the world around me. I carried on that tradition of magazine and world newspaper reading while attending school at Simon Fraser University in the 1970s, and carry on that tradition thru until this very day.
At present, I subscribe to the following newspapers, magazines and …

The Globe and Mail sets me back $29.36 each month, by far my most expensive subscription, I subscribe to the news channels through TELUS Optik TV. The annual subscription to the LA Times is $71.01 (or $5.92 a month), the Washington Post, $76.08 ($6.34 monthly), Slate Plus is $35.86 annually, while Vulture / New York magazine comes in at $27.36 for the year. The New York Times is $8.40 per month, and The Guardian is an even $5. The total monthly subscription to the news channels, and all the magazines above comes in at a whopping, easy-to-digest $67.28 a month.
Each morning when I arise to Stephen Quinn and The Early Edition, sometimes at 7 a.m., sometimes at 5 a.m., I immediately flip open the iPad Mini beside my bed, and click on the morning digest of news on my Flipboard app, a free and indispensable source of news.

Next, I surf through the New York and Los Angeles Times, then Slate, The Guardian, the Washington Post, and Vulture. Then, it’s up to make some breakfast while listening to the New York Times’ Michael Barbaro podcast, The Daily. Over breakfast I catch up on the news on CBC Network, the CTV News channel, CNN and MSNBC. After breakfast, it’s to my computer to continue with an hour of reading of the Globe, and the NY Times, the Washington Post and LA Times in depth, with a gander at Slate, and checking out Vulture / the New York magazine — and whatever I’ve found on Flipboard that I found interesting, in The Atlantic, Esquire, Vanity Fair, after which it’s off to Twitter and Facebook.
And then, after all that, I’m ready to begin my day.
Okay, okay, I can hear you say, “It’s alright for you to read and subscribe to so many news outlets, but not all of us have money to spend burning a hole in our pocket,” which will now lead to the following graph of my total income for 2019. I have an extra $75 in tax taken off, so I’ve got a bit of money, usually $900 in a tax return, each spring — thanks to my good friend (who knows how he puts up with me?) and accountant for nigh on 30 years, the spectacularly kind Patrick Mokrane, who’s kept me afloat financially thru his on the up-and-up derring do on my annual tax return.

A friend of mine tells me that he believes I live better on $1870.75 a month than anyone he knows. I have created an Excel spreadsheet that tracks every penny I spend, so that helps keeps me focused. My housing co-op monthly charge comes in at around $600, my bills (Internet, TV, mobility, home phone and Hydro, Netflix, Prime, etc.) comes in at around $245 — which leaves me with $67 for my subscriptions, $350 for food and household products, $75 a month on dining out or ordering in, another $75 a month for clothes and shoes — which, ordinarily, would leave me $400 each month left over to pay for dental, books, tech, insurance, hair cuts, donations to various causes (oh yes, I forgot, I donate $100 each month to the NDP provincially and federally, as well as to a faith organization, and various “causes”). Unfortunately, when in 2018 I came into a windfall arising from a 30-year-old union grievance I filed and won (for me, and hundreds of others locally), Canada Pension deducted that windfall from my annual income (economics - the dismal science), but in 2019 I had no such windfall, so in July Canada Pension cut my pension by $172.50 a month!
All of the above is by way of saying, if I can live relatively well on $1698 a month, or so, and can still prioritize subscriptions to various online news organizations, and donate monies to political parties I support, so can you.

As all of us are aware, it costs money to create content, and it costs a lot of money to fund good investigative journalism, as the nonprofit-run Mother Jones pointed out this year during a fundraising effort.
These past few years, we’ve also become aware of the controversy surrounding Mark Zuckerberg; the indifferent Facebook CEO claimed it was “crazy” that fake news on Facebook could have influenced the recent U.S. election results, or that his social media site has anything to do with aiding the repression of citizens across the globe. Sadly, that’s far from the truth.
Awhile back, Facebook eliminated the human editors who curated trending news; now an algorithm handles this — but the algorithm often gets it wrong, as stories from Russian bot sites present themselves as credible news organizations, make the rounds and trend on Facebook, feeding conspiracy theories and misinformation. Little wonder that, at last count, Facebook remains the world’s #1 purveyor of false or inaccurate news.
All of which is to say that you have an obligation to yourself, to those around you, and to society in general to keep yourself well-informed, and read credible news sites that are, in actuality, truly “fair and balanced.”
If you believe the newspapers and magazines above are a little too “conservative” for your liking, in Canada, there’s always rabble.ca, the public affairs journalism of richochet.ca, This Magazine, and Canadian Dimension, as well as down south, In These Times, Mother Jones, Crooks and Liars, and so many other left-of-centre journals and magazines that may be found online. There are places online where you can get credible, well-thought-out and researched, witty & engagingly written truthful news.

Do yourself a favour today: subscribe to one or more online, or home delivery, newspaper, journal or magazine. You’ll feel better for it. Honest.

Stories of a Life | Summer Travels to Nova Scotia, But No More

November 14, 2020Stories of a Life, Travel, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In the mid-1980s a friend of mine with whom I’d gone to school at Templeton Secondary on Vancouver’s east side, and someone with whom I’d worked in radio — his achievements in radio were far greater than mine — met a woman, fell in love, and in 1988 the two were married, in Nova Scotia, her home since the late 1970s, where she worked as a librarian.
Now, this woman had in the 1960s, while in her teens and early twenties, had a very successful career as a model, and on the advice of her financial advisor invested in property in Nova Scotia — which to this day remains undervalued — and specifically in the community where her parents visited each summer when she was a child, the east coast township of Annapolis Royal, a beautiful waterfront community nestled in the Annapolis Valley.
Both my friend and his new bride — who had moved to British Columbia with her new husband and taken on a job as a librarian in a rural, waterfront community just outside of Metro Vancouver — were people I spoke with regularly and visited often. We were close, and whenever they were in town, we would go for dinner at a comforting restaurant where the food was good, somewhere in the city of Vancouver. For seven years, the two of them were a regular fixture within my social circle, and good friends.
In early March of 1995, when I called over to their home one Wednesday evening, quite surprisingly my friend Corinne did not answer the phone — Donald answered the phone. “Where is Corinne?” I asked. “Oh, she’s at a library Board meeting,” he answered. And so it went, twice a week, every week through near the end of June — Corinne never available, at a meeting or out with friends, or a walk, in town, or otherwise unavailable. Until …
One day in late June, I got a call from Corinne; she was back in Nova Scotia, had returned there from her home in British Columbia, had filed for divorce from Donald, and was as lonely as lonely could be, she told me. “Raymond, come visit me in Annapolis Royal. I miss you, and I need to see you. Come stay with me this summer, and I promise that the two of us will have a good time together, and that you’ll just love Nova Scotia.”

And thus began, the first of 15 consecutive summer visits I made to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia and environs, a lovely community, where I met everyone in town, during the summer months becoming something of a fixture in the community, where people pleaded with me to move back east, where I was repeatedly offered the job as general manager of the King’s Theatre, where I could purchase a house on 10 acres for $40,000, where I helped run NDP campaigns on three occasions (and where I met a callow young fellow by the name of Stephen McNeil who, as I predicted when speaking with him, would be Premier of the province one day — a prediction, quite obviously, which came to pass), where I fell in love with the community and all the wonderful people I met over the years, recovering from the hurly burly of my west coast life, over the weeks I spent each summer in the tranquil community on the Annapolis River.

All was well in each of the summers, until 2010, when I travelled back east to Annapolis Royal to celebrate my 60th birthday. Corinne, a decided personality, had over the years become increasingly dissatisfied with her life, both in Annapolis Royal, and with life in general.
As the years passed, she made it clear that my visit was to be shorter, more truncated, no longer than 10 days, after which I must leave. On my birthday in 2010, which we celebrated at a wonderful waterfront restaurant, Corinne insisted I pay for the two of us, a bill which far exceeded $150 — which for me was a lot of money, when added to the now $1000 airfare, my stay in Halifax on the way to Annapolis Royal, and on the way back, and Corinne’s insistence that I pay for all expenses for the two of us during my stay in her home, which was strange given that Corinne owned two large, revenue-generating apartment buildings in town, as well as thriving storefront properties, and her own, nicely-situated waterfront home.
In the summer of 2010, with Stephen McNeil finally having fulfilled his commitment to bring high-speed internet to his rural Annapolis Royal constituency, I also helped Corinne establish a stable Wi-Fi connection, set up her new laptop computer, got her on the world wide web, and placed a couple of thousand mp3s of her favourite music — like me, she’s a big fan of progressive country music — onto her newly acquired computer.
All was right with the world, as four of the nights I was in Annapolis Royal, the two of us were invited out for dinner at the homes of various mutual friends, enjoyed an incredibly bountiful church dinner on the Friday nights, visiting at the farmer’s market on Wednesday & Saturday, where I picked up a handful of hand-sewn wash cloths and nautically-themed cotton coasters, as well as a beautiful and a small, lovingly hand-sewn quilt, paying only $10 for the latter — all of which items I enjoy to this day!

All was well until the Saturday evening, when Corinne and I repaired to the King’s Theatre, to attend a student concert of a choir, musicians, and individual singers hailing from Annapolis Royal, a beautiful night of music and song celebrated with the townspeople, and visitors from across the Maritimes and the U.S. northeast — and me, of course.
On that evening, Corinne was working the front of the house prior to the concert starting, supervising the volunteer staff, making sure tickets were taken, the concession was working well & efficiently, and persons taken to their seats in readiness for the concert that was about to begin. One of the volunteers was a 17-year-old young woman, recently graduated with first class honours from Annapolis Royal Secondary and enrolled for the fall session at Dalhousie University, as becoming as could be, all primly dressed (as Corinne insisted) in a black skirt with a hem no more than two inches above the knee, and a starched white blouse, hair neatly kept, and all freshly scrubbed and presentable, a picture of innocence and sophistication.
As it happens, I first met this young woman when she was just a toddler, when Corinne and I visited at her parent’s home, which we both did each of the 15 years I travelled back east. So, I had watched this young girl grow into a woman of substance and no little élan, the apple of her parent’s eye and I’m sure they thought, a tribute to their superior parenting skills — which is to say, they loved her, brought her up with the values of service to the community, teaching her to express kindness and consideration for all.
Now, I hadn’t noticed it, but Corinne did, and as she was standing next to me, called the young woman over to angrily express her disdain at the …

“… entirely inappropriate nose ring you are wearing, which I will simply not have. You know the dress code, and have failed to meet that dress code. In consequence, I am suspending your participation as a volunteer, sending you home immediately, with an instruction that you may not return until I have spoken with your parents, and ensured that you have removed that damnable ring from your nose.”

The above said in a bitterly critical voice designed to embarrass this young woman, who by the time Corinne finished was in tears, the front of her blouse soaked, her nose running (I offered her a freshly-pressed cotton handkerchief, which I always have on my person), shaking, inconsolable.
The young woman left the theatre, people now seated, the concert began.
During the concert, I got up from my seat to repair to the lobby, during which time I called the parents of the young woman, both to check on their daughter’s emotional state, and to gain an understanding as to their position on their daughter’s nose ring, as to whether they approved or not.
They told me that although they were not necessarily thrilled with the nose ring, they saw the ring as an acceptable form of rebellion, and respected their daughter’s body autonomy, that as long as she was not engaged in an activity that would bring her harm, the two of them were just fine with her choice, and nothing as inconsequential as a nose ring would interfere with their love for their daughter, or her love for them. That said, it being a small town, neither would speak with Corinne about “the incident.”
Later that evening as we prepared for our overnight slumber, with warming herbal tea in hand, I addressed “the incident”, doing so quietly and respectfully, that had occurred earlier that evening in respect of the young woman and the “inappropriate” nose ring, asking Corinne, perhaps, if there might have been a better venue than the front of a packed house to address her concerns with a young woman she’d known since birth, and who had been brought to tears resultant from Corinne’s “intervention” to protect the heritage of the King’s Theatre.
Corinne was having none of it …

“Julienne came to the theatre dressed inappropriately knowing full well what the terms and conditions that have been set by me respecting matters of dress, she ignored the guidelines respecting her presentation, a slap in the face to me, and to the King’s Theatre. I could care less as to whether she is brought to tears — she ignored the rules, and if she wants to feel sorry for herself by crying, that’s her business not mine.”

No more was said that evening, but that was not the end of the matter.
The next day, I told Corinne that I wished to be heard on the matter of the young woman, and what had occurred the previous evening.

“I feel that what occurred last evening and your interaction with Julienne, Corinne, was entirely inappropriate and uncalled for,” I said. “You have, and had, no right to interfere with the bodily autonomy of Julienne, particularly when the item of her dress that so offended you was a barely perceptible nose ring, a bit of rebellion her parents told me last evening of which they both approve. Whether or not Julienne — appropriately dressed in a black skirt and starched blouse, wearing appropriate footwear, and as presentable as could be, the apple of her parents’ eyes, and a young woman, as you well know, who is celebrated for her many contributions to this community — meets the stringent requirements of a dress code you have established, a set of regulations for volunteers that I would suggest to you have been made by you arbitrarily and, as I understand, unilaterally implemented, to speak to this young woman as you did in a crowded theatre, causing her embarrassment, and for her to break down in tears, causes my heart to break, and offends every notion I possess on how those in our lives, and others, should be treated.”

Corinne did not respond, but simply got up and left the room. Later that day she approached me and said, “I’d like you to leave, first thing tomorrow morning.” Which I did, neither of us conversing again.
Upon arriving back in Vancouver, I received a terse, pointed e-mail from Corinne, which read, “You are no longer welcome in my home. Should I never see you again, it will be too soon. Please stay away from Annapolis Royal; it is my home, not yours.”
And thus my summer forays to Nova Scotia came to a close — although, annually over the December holiday season, I do post to Corinne my favourite progressive country music albums of the year, with a video of a song accompanying why it is I find the country artist to be deserving of both her time and my time, and the music transporting.
In 10 years, Corinne has not responded.

Stories of a Life | The Ties That Bind Daughters and Fathers

October 31, 2020fixin to die rag, Jude and Megan, Stories of a LifeRaymond Tomlin

When Megan Jessica Tomlin was born on a Saturday night, March 26th, 1977, at Burnaby General Hospital at 10:26pm, given that she was a breach birth, the hospital room was filled with a harried collection of nurses and doctors & an anesthesiologist who’d been called to assist with the birth.
As a medicated Cathy lay peaceful, laying stock still on her white-sheeted hospital bed — given that she was infused with anaesthetic drugs to aid in the birth, to keep her sedated for what turned out to be her second, very difficult birth — upon delivery, a nurse gathered my new daughter, Megan, and brought her over to me, as I stood to Cathy’s left, just behind where her head lay, and handed my hushed newborn daughter into my arms.
For the 10 minutes that followed, a seeming lifetime of remembrance and love, Megan her eyes all blue peered directly into my eyes and deep into my soul, and for those few brief moments I into hers, as my daughter imprinted on me as the father who would become in her early years, and in succeeding years through to her late teens, the single most transformative person in her life, a father she trusted & loved with all her generous heart.
In the weeks that followed Megan’s birth, the wheels began to fall of the bus that was my marriage to Cathy, as Cathy seemed to lose herself, quitting her job at the Ministry of Human Resources office, drinking, staying out all night long, and otherwise engaging in self-destructive behaviour.
Why?

Given my position as the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation Learning and Working Conditions Chair for the Interior, and my long years of work previous with the Federation, and the great relationship I’d developed with Linda Shuto — working with her to form the first Status of Women office within an NGO anywhere on the continent — as well as BCTF President Jim McFarlane and, more especially with BCTF VP Don Walmsley, as you might well expect from a Federation comprised of mainly older members, Executive plans were afoot for Federation generational leadership change — and I targeted as the person who would become a future BCTF President.
Don Walmsley visited Cathy and me multiple times throughout 1977, in our newly acquired Interior home, to advise the both of us that plans were in process to, at the spring BCTF AGM in 1978, run me as a second vice-president of the Federation, with an eye to soon becoming BCTF President.
Here’s how the Federation saw it, Don explaining to the both of us: my organizing bona fides in the Interior had gained provincial attention, Cathy and I were a young couple “from the Interior” (the left on the Federation liked the idea of running candidates from rural areas), Cathy was a professional, was sophisticated and presented well, we had two children — we were, as far as the Federation was concerned, “the perfect couple”.
Here’s what Don Walmsley told Cathy and I …

“Next year, Raymond, we’ll run you for 2nd VP. Cathy, you can run as a Board of Education COPE trustee candidate for Vancouver School Board. Raymond, we’ll find you a job in Vancouver, find you a house, and Cathy we’ll make sure you’re employed, as well, finding you a job in the city similar to what you’re doing up here. Next year (1978), once you’re on the Executive, Raymond, and have moved down to the city, you’ll be closer to the Federation offices. In 1979, we’ll run you for 1st VP, and depending on how the election goes for President of the Federation, if our candidate loses, we’ll run you for President in 1980. If our candidate wins, and serves a three year term, we’ll run you for President in 1983.”

Sounded good to me — and not so good to Cathy, as elucidated above.
Once Don had left our home, Cathy told me that she had no intention of having the next 20 years of her life being planned by the teachers’ federation, nor was she enamoured of the idea of living in my shadow.
Understandable.
You know how when you’re watching an awards show on TV, and the winner is (almost invariably) a man, the first person he thanks, whom he gushes over, is his wife, saying ardently, “I couldn’t have done it without her — she’s been my rock, and has stood by my side throughout the entire journey that has led to tonight. I will love you for always, my beloved.”
Believe me when I write: Cathy was having none of that arrant palaver.

Long story short, by early 1978, I had been awarded custody of both Jude and Megan, Cathy was off gallivanting around the globe with a drinking & carousing rock ‘n roll band — and I was left to raise two infant children.
From the outset, Megan was a bright and engaged child, far ahead of her milestone maturational markers — walking at 9 months, speaking at age 1, reading at 18 months — and by the time she was two years of age, as in control of her environment as any 11-year-old child of my acquaintance.
Where Jude — 21 months Megan’s senior — wanted to be out and about all the time, one of the friendliest, most gregarious and social children you’d ever want to meet, Megan was quiet, reserved, pensive and thoughtful, as big a “daddy’s girl” as could possibly be imagined, by my side throughout the day, and separated from me only when she was in daycare, or asleep.
As Cathy and I often remarked to one another as Megan was growing up, “Whose child is this, anyway? Megan certainly can’t be ours — she’s just so much brighter & more capable than either of us, or both of us combined.”
For me, there has never been anyone to whom I have been closer, who has understood me and “had my number”, with whom my relationship has proved more loving & honest than has long been the case with Megan & I.

We acknowledge — as if we have known each other across many lifetimes — that we have found one another on this Earth, in this lifetime, and as I josh Megan by referring to her as her very own diety, in this life the two of us take succour in the knowledge that we love one another, know one another, that as we live lives that are separate, Megan now married with children, and me in my west side home spending hours each day writing stories just like this, that as we run across one another from time to time, as we often do in my Kitsilano neighbourhood, that the first words each of us will utter will be, “I love you” — as we set about to continue our day.

</ br>The knowing glance tells you everything you need to know about fathers & daughters