Tag Archives: megan

Stories of a Life | Redux | Chief Cook & Bottle Washer

August 31, 2024Essay, fixin to die rag, Food & Health, Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life Redux, VanRamblingsjude, megan, simon fraser universityRaymond Tomlin

Jude and Megan Tomlin, aged 3 and 16 months, sitting at the kitchen table in 1978
1978. Jude, at age 3½, and Megan at near 2 years of age. At the kitchen table for breakfast.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was extolling the virtues of my Instant Pot to a friend, in a lull in the conversation, she turned to me and said, “You like to cook, don’t you?”

The short answer: I derive pleasure from both cooking and baking.

Here’s the story behind my love for the culinary powers of the kitchen.

1616 Semlin Drive, at E. 1st Ave. in Vancouver. One of the homes I lived in growing up.

From my earliest days, I fended for myself.

My mother worked three jobs, and my father worked the afternoon shift at the Post Office. When I arrived home from school, although my father often left a stew bubbling away in the slow cooker, from age seven on, for the most part if I wanted to eat, I’d have to make breakfast, lunch and dinner for myself, and for my sister.

So, being somewhat industrious, I learned to cook — well, make sandwiches and, for dessert, Jello, at least for the first few years.

I loved turkey growing up (all that triptiphan), so with the help of my mother, I learned to make her delicious turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and vegetables. For the most part, though, my cooking skills were rudimentary — but I didn’t starve, and more often than not there was food in my belly.

When in 1970, Cathy and I moved in together, marrying soon after, I was responsible for most of the cooking. Cathy’s mom sent her out $1000 a month (she didn’t know we were living together), visiting every three months, taking us to the local Woodward’s grocery floor, where she dropped in excess of $300 at each visit.

With Cathy’s mother money, we ate a fairly staple diet of generously thick T-bone steaks and baked potatoes.

Simon Fraser University’s Louis Riel House, SFU’S student family 1 + 2 bedroom residence.

Soon after moving into the Louis Riel Student Residence at Simon Fraser University in 1971, Cathy joined a women’s group, who met every Wednesday evening. Among the decisions that were taken by the women’s group was this: men shall participate in all household chores, and share in all food preparation.

As we often ate together with other of the students in the residence, my specialty became salads — all different kinds of healthy, nutritious salads, chock full of vegetables, nuts, sunflower seeds, and more.

At this point, Cathy still hated to cook — there was immense pressure placed on Cathy by her peers to develop culinary skills, but she refused. All that changed in the summer of 1973, which is a story for another day.

2182 East 2nd Avenue, in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver.

When Cathy and I separated in 1978 — Jude and I lived in the home above, before Jude, Megan and I moved to Simon Fraser University and Louis Riel House, when I began work on my Masters degree — the thought occurred to me one morning when making breakfast that I was now the lone parent, and the sole person responsible for ensuring the children ate nutritious foods at each meal in order that they might grow up into healthy adults.

I took on the task of learning the art of cooking (and baking), in earnest.

There was, however, a quid pro quo involved.

After returning from a day of larnin’ and T.A.’ing at SFU, after picking up the children at daycare at 4:30pm, and walking the relatively short distance to our two-bedroom apartment at Louis Riel House, while the children played with their friends on the lawn in front of our apartment, I prepared dinner, calling them in about 45 minutes after dinner preparation had begun.

The kids were famished, and so was I.

Here’s where the quid pro quo came in: at the end of each meal, each of the children had to turn and say to me some version of, “Daddy that was a good dinner. It was mmmm, delicious. Thank you for making dinner for all of us, and all the work you put in to feeding us healthy and nutritious breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and all those wonderful desserts we love!”

I needed the incentive provided to me by both children, and their gratitude — which, in time, they came to acknowledge as their own. The kids felt good about encouraging me, as I encouraged them in all of their endeavours.

We were a happy family, and all was well with the world for the three of us.

Now, I was an adventuresome cook, and not everything I made turned out to the liking of all of us, or each one of us.

Being a dedicated democrat, Jude, Megan and I made a deal with one another in respect of dinner. Both children had to eat at least two bites of each food item I prepared: after all the work I put into preparing a dish, the least they could do was try out the dish to see whether they might like it.

Most of the time they did, but sometimes not.

One night, I made cream of escargot soup. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. But at the end of the soup entrée, I turned to the children and asked them what they thought, to which they replied almost in unison, “It was all right, tasty enough I suppose, but I’m not sure if I’d ever want to have it again.”

I agreed with them. We never ate cream of escargot soup ever again.

Each of us were allowed to have three foods on a list of our creation, foods we did not have to eat, no matter what.

Megan had three foods, Jude had three foods, and I had three foods — those foods changed over a period of time.

In order to add a food to our individual “nah, I don’t want to eat that food” list, some food on each of our lists had to come off. Took some thought on the part of the children as to whether they wanted to remove a food.

Megan, for a great long while didn’t like avocados — but one day, while placing a new food she didn’t like onto her “don’t eat” list, she took avocados off her list, eventually coming to love avocados, as she does to this day.

Watching me prepare meals all the time he was growing up caused Jude to want to become a chef — he worked in the food industry throughout his late teens and twenties, before getting into teaching, which paid better, and was overall less stressful, with “more honourable people”, he’d say to me.

In her teens, Megan became a vegan — there’s a story there, too, which I’ll leave for another day — and, for the most part, took on the preparation of her own meals, as did Jude over a period of time.

After the summer of 1973, Cathy became a great cook — there’s not much I miss about that tumultuous marriage, but I sure miss Cathy’s avant-garde cooking, her culinary craftsmanship, spicing and phenomenally delicious cooking.

Ah well.

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

August 24, 2024Essay, fixin to die rag, Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life Redux, Vancouver, VanRamblingsbctf, cathy, jude, meganRaymond 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 breech birth, the hospital room was filled with a harried collection of nurses and doctors and an anesthesiologist who’d been called to assist with the birth.

As a medicated Cathy lay peacefully, 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 our 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 / bonded with 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 off 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 Vice-President 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 was 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 of 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.

The summer of 1977, when Megan was a few months old, and Jude was two years of age

Long story short, by early 1978, I had been awarded custody of both Jude and Megan, Cathy was off gallivanting around the globe, drinking and carousing with a rock ‘n roll band she’d joined — and I was left to raise our 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 & me.

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, 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.

The knowing glance tells you everything you need to know about fathers & daughters.

Stories of a Life | Redux | Jude, Megan and Me | Movies | 80s and 90s

August 17, 2024Cinema, Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life Redux, VanRamblingscinema, dangerous liasons, flamingo kid, jude, megan, vancouver international film festivalRaymond Tomlin

Film has always been a central, organizing force in my relationship with both my daughter, Megan, and my son, Jude.

Our collective love of the cinema, attending film festivals and discussing what we saw following the various screenings we attended (usually at the Fresgo Inn on Davie, which was alive no matter the time of night or early morning) was, over the years, a central feature of our relationship — the relationship between son and daughter, and dad — that allowed us to delve deep into discussions of the meaning of life, and our collective responsibility to work towards creating a fairer and more just world for everyone.

Heart and deep caring for humanity was at the centre of our love of film, and at the centre of our loving familial relationship, informing the choices we made about how we would conduct ourselves in the world, and the projects and causes to which we would devote our time and our energies.

In the 1980s, when Cathy and I were going through a rancorous divorce, film brought us together.

When in Seattle — which we visited frequently, always staying on the non-smoking 33rd floor of the Weston twin towers — in 1984, we took in a screening of Garry Marshall’s The Flamingo Kid — the story of a working class boy (Matt Dillon) who takes a summer job at a beach resort and learns valuable life lessons.

Megan was seven years of age, and Jude 9 — both were uncertain about the efficacy of our trip south (without their mother’s permission — we called her upon arriving at our hotel), but the screening alleviated and, finally, repaired any of their concerns, and all went well that weekend. Fortuitously, too, upon our return, the divorce proceedings inexplicably moved forward into a more reasonable and thoughtful direction, reflective of all our collective concerns.

Whenever there was “trouble” in our relationship — generated, most usually, by their mother — film served to salve the wounds of dysfunction, allowing us to find our collective centre while healing the wounds that rent all of our lives during a decade-long, million dollar custody dispute.

Film spoke to us, made us better, took us out of the drudgery of our too often protean daily and, more often, troubled lives, and engaged us while putting our lives into a broader and more human scale perspective. Never once was there a film that we saw together when we didn’t come out of the screening feeling more whole, and more at one with ourselves and the world.

Such was true, at the screenings of Glenn Close and John Malkovich’s Dangerous Liaisons over the holiday period in 1988, or months later at the screening of Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, which we took in at the Oakridge Theatre, a favourite and comforting cinema haunt of ours.

When Megan wanted some “alone time” with me, it almost always revolved around watching a film together, although as Megan matured (and as her love for film matured), Megan made it plain that she was present in the theatre to watch the film, not “share time” with me, choosing always to sit in a whole other section of the theatre (it drove her crazy in the times that we were sitting together in a theatre that I would check in occasionally with her, looking at her to determine how she felt about the film — talking during a film was an unforgivable sin, so that was never going to happen).

Some days, Megan would call and say, “Dad, take me to a film.”

And because I was a film critic at the time, and had a pass to attend at any cinema in North America, off the two of us would traipse to see Kathy Bates’ Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) or Johnny Depp’s Benny & Joon (1993) at the old 12-theatre complex downstairs in the Royal Centre mall.

Other times, post dinner and after Megan had finished her homework, I’d say to Megan out of the blue, “I’m heading out to attend a screening of a film. Do you want to come along with me?” Megan would ponder my question for a moment before asking, “Which film?”

In 1991, one very long film screening we attended was Kevin Costner’s directorial début, Dances With Wolves, about which we knew nothing other than it starred one of our favourite actors, and off the two of us went.

At screening’s end (Megan and I actually sat together at this particular screening, which took place in the huge Granville 7 Cinema 7, because the preview theatre screening room was just packed), Megan turned to me, and said, “Dad, I knew this was going to be a great film.” And it was. “And, you know what else? It’s going to pick up a raft of Oscars this year, too, and be considered one of the, if not the best, films of the year.”

Jude and Megan also attended film festival screenings with me.

Almost inevitably, Vancouver International Film Festival founder, and co-owner of Festival Cinemas Leonard Schein was present with his wife Barbara, and at a screening’s end, Megan would make her way over to wherever Leonard and Barbara were sitting to enquire of him whether or not he intended to book the film into either the Varsity, Park or Starlight.

Following screenings of Neil Jordan’s 1992 putative multiple Oscar award winner, The Crying Game or, that same year, Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, Megan marched over to Leonard, and asked him boldfacedly, “What do you think?”

When Leonard indicated that he thought the films were not quite his cup of tea, that both films would have difficulty finding an audience, and that it was unlikely he’d be booking either film into one of his cinemas, Megan lit into Leonard with a passion and a vehemence I had rarely observed coming from her, saying …

“Are you out of your mind? Strictly Ballroom and The Crying Game are wonderful films, and just the sort of films that not only should you book, but that you MUST book — these are both groundbreaking films that will only serve to reinforce your reputation as an arts cinema impresario, but will also make you a tonne of money, and we all know that you’re all about the money. Either you book these films into The Varsity, or believe me when I tell you that there’ll be hell to pay when you see me next.”

And with that, Megan marched off.

At the 1990 Vancouver International Film Festival, I’d caught a screening of Whit Stillman’s directorial début, Metropolitan, in preview, and knew that this would be a film Megan would just love (and be astounded by, at the revelation of one of the characters, mid-film).

I made arrangements to pick Megan up from University Hill Secondary at 3pm sharp on the day of the festival screening, we drove downtown, found a parking spot, and rushed over to The Studio Cinema on Granville to catch the 4pm screening of Metropolitan — which as I had predicted, Megan loved.

In early December 1993, on a particularly chilly and overcast day, at 10am in Cinema 2 at the Granville 7 theatre complex, I caught a screening of Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking new film, Philadelphia — a film about which I knew little, and a film that knocked me out (along with the handful of film critics in attendance at the theatre for the screening).

Emerging from the theatre just after noon, making my way onto Granville, I looked for the nearest telephone in order that I might call Megan at school.

I called the office at University Hill Secondary, and asked them to find Megan and bring her to the phone. When Megan asked, “Dad, is everything all right?”, I told her about the film I had just seen, and that when it opened in January, I wanted to take her and Jude to a screening at the Granville 7. We talked about the film for a few minutes, with her saying about 10 minutes in, “I’m holding up the school phone, and calls coming in. Let’s get together after school. Come and pick me up, and we can continue our conversation. I’ll see you then, Dad. I love you.”

There are gifts we give our children. From my parents, it was what would emerge as a lifelong love for country music. For Jude and Megan, my gift was a love of music, a love of the ballet, and an abiding love for film.

Stories of a Life | Redux | Marriage For The Better

February 10, 2024Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life Redux, VanRamblingsmarriage, mcbride park, megan, stories of a life reduxRaymond Tomlin

Megan Jessica Tomlin, aged 7. Photo credit: Cathy McLean.

When out for a walk in our Kitsilano neighbourhood when Megan was 7 years of age, as we were walking down the street heading towards Jericho Beach, Megan stopped and turned to me, and said in a matter-of-fact and portentous manner, “Dad, when I grow up, I’m going to get married.”

“Good for you,” I said to Megan in response.

As we were nearing McBride Park on that sunny summer 1984 Saturday afternoon, Megan pulled me over to sit on the grass opposite the tennis courts to begin a discourse on her thoughts on marriage …

“I could marry a poor boy, and I would love him, and he would love me, and we would have children together, and be as happy as happy could be every moment of our lives together, for many, many years of wedded bliss, happily raising our children together, all of us loving one another.”

“On the other hand, I could marry a rich boy, someone I could love with all my heart, and we would have children, and love our children as much as it possible for a parent to love their children — which, if you and mom are any indication as to how much love there is to be given to their children, is a huge love, one of immense and sustaining proportion.”

“Now, if I was to marry the rich boy, and we were to have children together, as we most assuredly would, each of the children would have their own bedroom, and my husband and I would have ours. My children would not want for anything, ever, we could travel, and every day of our lives together would be filled with joy untold, our love for one another carrying us through all of our days, in a life of immense satisfaction and happiness, in comfort and without concern to distract from our lives.”

“Y’know, Dad, if I have a choice, I am going to marry the rich boy.”

Megan’s extemporaneous but thoughtful treatise on marriage was surprising for a number of reasons, the most prominent being that her mother and I were in the midst of an overtly contentious and very ugly divorce and custody battle that had gone on for some years — which both Jude and Megan found themselves precipitously and distressingly in the middle of — so I found it to be a bit more than surprising she would ever want to marry, given what she was experiencing with her own parents, that she had quite obviously given the matter some thought, and how pragmatic she was about whom she might choose to marry, and the — forgive me for saying so, but somewhat mercenary — criteria she had set for her future intended, and the tenor of the married life she felt assured would follow.

Make no mistake, Megan was raised as a feminist and a socialist — at least by me, her mother’s “politics” post marriage reverting to the conservative politics of her parents, and the peers of her distinctly privileged youth.

Over time, Megan and I returned to the topic of her future marriage — still many, many years away — as I took pains to impress upon Megan the necessity of agency, that she should always be true to herself and to her values of compassion and contribution, that love must be a part of her life always, but not if it were to come at the expense of her independence and place in society as a difference maker striving to make ours a better and more just world for all.

From time to time, Cathy would catch wind of my philosophizing and say to me, “Stop lecturing the kids. They don’t like it!”

And Megan?

Yes, Megan married the “rich boy”, the two very happy together, their children perhaps not quite so much (children, as we all know can be, and often are, rebellious, as Megan was with her mother most of the time she was growing up, and as she often was with me — honestly, it’s to be expected), although her children (and her lovely and successful husband, Maz) love her to distraction, Megan in “middle age” quite the sophisticated (if too bourgeoise for my tastes, if I might be so bold as to say so) woman of 46 years of age, her life not having taken the path of her best friend growing up, Kasari Govender (she/her/hers, who took office as B.C.’s first independent Human Rights Commissioner on September 3, 2019), but for Megan, her life still one of meaning and substance, if not quite the degree of societal contribution for which she possesses an unparalleled aptitude.