Tag Archives: death

Remembering Johnnie

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It was my nightly ritual, lying in bed in the dark listening to the radio.

Still in high school and living at home, I had finally exercised some autonomy by moving my bedroom to the basement of our townhouse, two full floors from the rest of the family. It was my sanctuary, surrounded by my books, my mattress resting on the floor, the sounds of Toronto’s 1050 CHUM filling the room, disturbing no one.

The music stopped, as it often would for commercial breaks, but this time for a news announcement. Odd for this time of night.

“Reports are coming in that John Lennon has been shot and killed outside of his Dakota apartment in New York City.”

The air then hung silent—for a moment, a minute, an hour, I can’t say for certain—and then the room filled with the simple piano chords that start the song Imagine.

I knew of John Lennon, at that point in my life. Knew his songs from years of listening to the radio.

And I was well aware of The Beatles; from their music, their movies and even the lesser remembered cartoon series of my childhood.

But where my awareness of John Lennon and The Beatles had been a passive thing up to that dark night of December 8, 1980, something changed in me upon learning that Lennon was dead. A fire to understand, to turn my awareness into knowledge, to experience more kindled inside me, overtaking me.

The world had lost a beautiful, elegant poet who I was later to learn could also be a fragile, ego-centric asshole.

The world had lost a magnificent artist who stood atop a mountain of pain, grief, anger, vindictiveness and sorrow.

And in a Lennon-esque stroke of irony, the world had lost a man who had finally come to grips with his frailties, who had finally learned to express love and not just demand it, who could offer his talents to the world as a gift and not a response.

Although at times I found myself worshipping John Lennon as a god, I now remember the artist as a man.

Later tonight, I will play Imagine and I will remember.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

“Fury” and futility – a review

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fury-movie-poster

Rarely am I stumped by a movie. Usually, I like the film, it is okay or it is bad.

But every now and again, a movie makes me work at an opinion. David Ayer’s Fury is one of those films, the 2014 film being released this week on Netflix.

Starring Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf and Michael Peña, Fury tells the story of an American tank crew in the last year of World War II, pushing deep into Germany but heavily outgunned by German Tiger tanks.

And there is my challenge with this film. I have now explained the entire movie to you, because there is no real point to the plot.

It is seriously as though a camera crew showed up on a battle site one day and followed a tank crew for a few days as it wound its way through various other battles into the belly of the Nazi beast.

Thus, I cannot really tell if this movie is an amazingly stunning metaphor for the futility of war—there is no glory here—or if it was just a badly penned film.

logan-lerman-and-brad-pitt-in-fury

Ideals clash with reality

To be fair to Ayer, who not only wrote, but also directed and produced this film, there is a human interest side to this story as the war-weary, battle-hardened tank crew is joined by doe-eyed recruit Norman  Ellison (Logan Lerman) who just days earlier was a typist for the military bureaucracy.

Thus, as the tank—the titular Fury—lurches from battle to battle, we witness the corruption of a pure heart by atrocities committed not only by the enemy, but by his fellow soldiers. And we see the toll this corruption takes on the boy’s tank commander Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) who personally starts that downhill process.

But again, to what purpose?

fury-respite

War taints even the most peaceful moments

Almost all war films seem to be based on men fighting toward a higher purpose, whether it is a battle that turns the tide of the war—e.g., Sands of Iwo Jima; Tora, Tora, Tora—or a moment of humanity amidst chaos—e.g., Saving Private Ryan—or men fighting for sanity within that chaos—e.g., Good Morning, Vietnam; Catch 22; Apocalypse, Now.

For me, Fury had no such pretense.

Yes, the Americans are the “good” guys and the Germans were the “bad” guys, but neither side in this film was any nobler than its counterpart. Within the confines of this movie, this was carnage and hatred purely for the sake of same.

As to the film itself; all of the actors did an admirable job, wearing the carnage of war on their faces and in their souls. Brad Pitt at his harshest expressed an internal dignity if not nobility. Shia LaBeouf was restrained. And Michael Peña really didn’t have much to do.

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Truthfully, this film might have been stronger as a silent movie, as it was the facial expressions and battle scenes that told this story. The dialogue offered little to the visceral impact of this film (emotions are drained pretty early).

Beautifully shot, this is a grisly film and not for the faint of heart or stomach. Bullets and bombs don’t just pierce a body; they rip it wide open. The fallen remain fallen, to be ground into the mud by jeep tires and tank treads.

For all of these reasons—and it was a slow burn for me—I am coming down on the side of Fury being the embodiment of the ultimate futility and barbarism of war.

In this movie, even if you saved the person of Private Ryan or Ellison, the soul is long gone.

Remember

A good choice for Remembrance Day, highlighting purposeless sacrifice

Blood red poppies

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Remembrance Day

Every year, as October transitions into November, I go in search of a new red poppy pin in honour of Remembrance Day on November 11. It is a tradition in my family and across Canada to append the crimson flower to our lapel as a reminder of the bloody sacrifices made a century ago.

I also wear it to honour my great-grandfather Francis Sowden, who came home from the Great War, unlike so many others, including siblings on my great-grandmother’s side who are sadly just names without faces to me so many years later.

I am one of few in my generation to have known Francis Sowden.

I am one of few in my generation to have known Francis Sowden.

Recently, I have heard people complain that the commemorative symbol of the poppy has been co-opted by those who want to hail it as a symbol of the glory of serving in the military, if not actually the glory of war itself. This bothers me.

I greatly thank all those who have, do and will serve in the military both in Canada and abroad, many risking their lives to keep others safe. Although I was an unthinking idiot in my youth, I have learned that these people, while frail humans, are noble titans who see conflict as a last resort.

For all that nobility, however, the poppy must remain a separate symbol.

A painting from the Royal Ontario Museum that haunts my dreams. (sadly, I cannot remember artist)

A painting from the Royal Ontario Museum that haunts my dreams. (sadly, I cannot remember artist)

The poppy reminds us of the horrific toll of war. It is a crimson stain upon our lapels that taints us all and reminds us of the fragility of the peace that surrounds us. The bloody hue taunts our civilized smugness with a warning of how easily we can fall into the pit of violence, whether as individuals, communities or countries.

While we wear the blood red poppy to honour the fallen of World War I, we also wear it as a badge of shame that the war ever took place, and that the war to end all wars wasn’t.

This dual purpose must never be diminished. We must strive to be better.

And next year, as October transitions into November, I will go in search of a new red poppy pin in honour of Remembrance Day on November 11.

I will never forget.

A cemetery near my home reminds me of the sacrifices

A cemetery near my home reminds me of the sacrifices

The Drive (a short story)

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grouchy

“Are we there, yet?”

The phrase that irritated me for the thousand times a week it bore into the back of my head now haunts me.

It had taken forever for me to convince the boys to leave their seat belts alone, to keep their hands from compressing the buttons that stood between confinement and filial battle. And more than once, I found myself wishing that rather than cross their laps, the belts crossed their mouths, stilling the staccato tarantella that skipped across my brain.

Silently, I would curse my husband for wanting children so close in age; built-in playmates, he would argue as though siblings were naturally adept at civility and sharing. Never marry someone who was an only child, I would remind myself; too many delusions of a happy peaceful family to dispel.

“Are we there, yet?”

The words and whine a cattle prod to my ear drums, my head involuntarily snapping to one side, threatening to glance off the door frame, the open window insufficient to drown the drone from the back seat.

“Are we—“

“Has the car stopped moving?” I’d shout at the rear-view mirror as though it was the source of my agony rather than simply a reflection of what I’d left behind.

For a second—a glorious second—the car would go silent, but the silence was an illusion, a prelude to crises yet to come. Inquisitive urges not quelled so much as turned aside, as unsatisfied attention-seeking demanded to be slaked.

“Mo-o-om!” came the high-pitched cry.

“I’m not doing anything,” its wounded echo, pre-emptorially defending actions yet unchallenged.

“Enough,” I charged, confronting the miniature offenders with turned head.

The light was green, or at least that’s what the report said, as though the colour protected me from my guilt any better than it protected my car from the panel van approaching from the left; as though an absence of fault even approximates an absence of self-loathing anguish.

The car was a write-off, and after six months of my husband’s words telling me it wasn’t my fault while his eyes told another story, so was my marriage.

And now, sitting here in my wheelchair, all I can think of is “Are we there, yet?”

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Floater

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grey waves

Terry’s biggest fear was pain. He had a particularly low threshold for it, and so the thought of his limbs bashing against the rocks had brought a clammy sweat to his palms.

Turns out, he was worried about nothing.

After the initial crunch of what used to be his left knee cap, the free rotation of his leg really didn’t hurt. Rather, it was more of a surreal distraction.

What actually bothered Terry was the unquenchable cold, as wave after wave of grey water sponged the heat from his flailing limbs.

Winter had come early to the Scarborough bluffs, and despite being well into April, showed no signs of releasing its crystalline grip on the world. More than one chunk of ice from the nearby shore added insult to stony injury as Terry rolled with the currents, thrown tantalizingly close to the pebbled beach only to be unceremoniously tugged back to the depths.

(Photo property of Gail Shotlander Photography)

(Photo property of Gail Shotlander Photography)

To all outward appearance, Terry was as lifeless as the shredded plastic bags that clung to his limbs as their paths crossed. Even the gulls had stopped their surveillance, his constant mobility keeping them from determining his potential as food.

Terry didn’t thrash. Nor did he scream.

What his lost will to live couldn’t achieve, the water completed as his body involuntarily pulled muscle-activating blood from his extremities, its focus completely on preserving his heart and mind. Ironically, these were the two things that first failed Terry.

In the grey waters under a grey sky, tumbling mindlessly with wave and wind, Terry knew his death was just a matter of time.

And oddly, for the first time in his life, Terry had all the time in the world.

Snow drifting

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(Image property of Duncan Rawlinson; http://duncan.co/tag/snowing/)

(Image property of Duncan Rawlinson; http://duncan.co/tag/snowing/)

From thousands of feet, the snowflake made its way from its misty nursery to a gentle caress of Henry’s cheek, slowly melting where ice meets the dampened skin to puddle with its fallen brethren.

Henry faces the sky, his back firmly planted in the snow bank, the drift slowly cocooning him as the crystalline waters descend, tears of boreal gods.

Flakes weave with the hairs of his beard, completing the whitening that age has yet left undone, his thinning scalp protected by the few remaining threads of a toque too old to be merely ancient.

Pedestrians trundle by, eyes held askew, muttering their disapproval as they bow their heads against the wind and cold. But he remains oblivious to their stares and sneers, in a world of his own, one with the thickening storm that swaddles him.

Henry doesn’t feel the cold they feel. He doesn’t feel the wind they fight. Nor does he feel the latex-gloved hands that lift him to the gurney as an unusually cold winter claims another life.

Remembering to Imagine

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I had just moved my bedroom to the basement of the townhouse we lived in. The lights were off as I lie on the mattress listening to the radio. I can’t remember what I was thinking of, but it probably had something to do with my next day at school, Grade 12 at White Oaks Secondary School in Oakville, Ontario.

As a song ended, the announcer came on the air to deliver the fateful news that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside of his home at the Dakota Apartments in New York City. Details were sketchy at that exact moment, so the announcer simply put on the song Imagine.

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For every way that the death of Elvis Presley affected my mother just three years earlier, the murder of John Lennon felt that much bigger for me.

Not quite old enough to have been impacted by Beatlemania the first time through, I had fond memories of The Beatles cartoon, the movie Help, and the bajillion songs that the four band mates had produced together and in solo ventures. To this day, I cannot see Ringo Starr without thinking back to the movies Caveman or The Magic Christian.

But with the murder of John Lennon, my fondness became a mania as I started to realize what I had largely missed in only listening to pop radio and watching late night movies. I set out immediately to learn everything I could about the man and the band. If nothing else, this instantly made birthday and Christmas present buying so much easier for those around me.

Within a few years, the can-do-no-wrong mania tempered into an acknowledgement that these were not gods, but brilliant artists with all the flaws that go with being humans under a microscope.

I don’t like a lot of the music John Lennon produced, but what I do like, I adore. The man was an absolute prick at the best of times, and yet I could see where some of that came from as I learned his life story. Had we ever known each other, I seriously doubt he and I would have been friends. Our personalities simply would not have meshed.

But none of that takes away from the wonders of his music and his poetry.

Thirty-four years later, I still have reason to weep in the dark for my loss, but thankfully, 34 years later, I still have your art to refill the broken heart.

Hoar-ror Show

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The silence screamed

As unyielding steel

Violated the ground.

Frozen corpses flung

To cadaverous skies,

Plummeting anew

O’er sacrificed brethren;

Unwelcomed freefall

Not insult enough

To be ignored

By violent injury.

Territory reclaimed,

Only to await

New fodder,

New victims.

Winter, it seems,

Is getting to me.

(Image is property of owner and is used here without permission…the horror…the horror.)

The day I killed my friend

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I’ve had bad days throughout my life. Watching loved ones get hospitalized. Attending funerals and giving eulogies. The break-up of my marriage. Suffering pain from illness. But none of them compare to the day I killed my friend.

Before I go any further, this isn’t a drunk driving story. This wasn’t an accident with a hand gun. This wasn’t a childhood dare gone wrong. All of those would be horrific and I count myself fortunate never to have experienced anything remotely like that.

This was the day I euthanized my beloved collie Rebel.

Rebel had started life as my family’s pet, a puppy we bought from a breeder friend of ours. Although he was a thoroughbred who won his modest share of ribbons, he was a pet first, show dog second. As my mother’s living arrangements changed, she could not take Rebel to her new apartment and so I became his host (we both knew he was the master).

He lived with me for several years in my boxy one-bedroom apartment while I did my graduate training, spending almost as much time with my grandparents who lived in the same building, as he did with me. He was a constant companion for my grandfather throughout the day, and my roommate throughout the evening and morning.

Eventually, I bought a house not far from my grandparents, which was a bit of an adjustment for me and an even bigger adjustment for Rebel, who now spent his days on his own. When I got home from then work, he would be waiting anxiously by the door, doing his best to wag his tail while keeping his legs crossed to keep from urinating.

In the evenings, while I would read or listen to music, he would lie by my side. While cooking dinner, he would sprawl across the kitchen floor, a perpetual tripping hazard. And when I would sleep, he would take up two-thirds of the bed, preferring to sleep diagonally so that I learned to sleep with my feet dangling off the bed.

And when he wasn’t sleeping on the bed, snoring in my ear, I could find him sleeping with his head in my closet. It took me quite some time to figure that one out, but eventually I realized he was sleeping on my discarded clothes that awaited a trip to the laundry. He was immersed in my scent, which made him hardier than most people I knew. His security blanket was my old jeans.

As with all of us, pets grow older, and soon, Rebel was unable to make it up the stairs to the bedroom. Accidents increased as no doubt his anxiety increased, and I found myself spending more nights on my couch than in my bed…we had a partnership, after all.

Eventually, though, my life grew more complicated and it was getting increasingly difficult to get home in a timely manner. As ashamed of it as I am, Rebel became less of a priority. There were times I considered him a burden. But he was my friend. My beloved companion.

I wish I could say I made the appointment with the vet because Rebel had a fatal or severely debilitating illness. I wish I could say that I merely wished to put him out of his misery and that his cries in the night were from something other than loneliness and confusion.

I can’t.

The appointment was made more for me than for him.

I was fortunate to have a friend staying with me on the day of the appointment. He drove Rebel and me to the vet’s and waited outside.

I lifted Rebel onto the metal table, and while he never much liked the gripless surface, he settled quickly. The vet came in and had me sign some forms, and then as Rebel lie quietly, the vet injected him.

I stayed with Rebel throughout the final moments. All I could do was cry and tell him how sorry I was. Rebel didn’t flinch, never moved, never whined. He merely stopped breathing.

I waited a few minutes with him, knowing any attempt to pull myself together was futile. I didn’t want to leave and I couldn’t stay.

Eventually, I made my way out of the examining room and handed Rebel’s leash and brush to the vet’s assistant. They understood…the bill would be sent later.

My friend took me home and plied me with food and beer as I wept on the front porch all night.

The next day at work, I started the day as usual reading the Toronto Star comics, but today was different. I got to Lynne Johnston’s strip For Better or For Worse…the day beloved sheepdog Farley died saving the daughter April from a river. Within two frames, I could see what was coming and I wept. This was definitely for worse.

To this day, I feel the guilt of my decision. To this day, I want to apologize to my mother and to my brother Scott, who was particularly close to Rebel, for my selfish decision.

And rare is the day that I do not wish I could hear the gentle snoring of Rebel next to the couch or feel his chin resting on my lap as I read.

His photo sits on my bedroom dresser as a reminder of a love I have not experienced since.

 

Earlier today, an acquaintance of mine put down his beloved friend of several years, in this case, because of inoperable and untreatable cancer. My friend is hurting in ways he may never have thought possible and my thoughts go out to him, and to anyone else who has been through a similar experience.

I wish I could say, 18 years later, that the pain goes away. What I can say is that the loving memories remain.

Little Joe’s Heart at rest

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Goodbye

I am saddened to report that Little Joe has “joined the angels”. He gave life a valiant effort but in the end, was unable to win the fight.

My heart goes out to his parents and his beautiful sisters, who stood by his side throughout his too brief time with us.

I hope you will join me in remembering this little boy who brought so many people together and who reminded us how fragile life can be.

We can still remember Little Joe by continuing to spread the urgent need for people to register as organ donors. Although we were unable to help Little Joe directly, his legacy and memory will live on.

Peace be with you, little man. Know that you were loved.

 

Story background:

500 views of Little Joe’s Heart post

Little Joe’s Heart – An infant awaits a donor

A parent’s call in the darkness