Author Archives: ij

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5 Years Post-COVID – What Have We Learned?

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I don’t know about you, but anytime something bad has happened in my life — well, the good things too, but especially the bad things — I try to figure out if there’s something I can learn from it.

I suppose it’s in our DNA to make an attempt learn from the bad stuff so we don’t do THAT again.

Mistakes I make are one thing, but the things that happen TO me, I try to understand them and then let them go. I even succeed! Occasionally.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve recently passed the 5 year mark since the W.H.O. declared COVID a global pandemic. In some ways it feels like a very long time ago. And going through an event as major and earth shattering as a pandemic has taught us all something.

Okay, some of us anyway.

There was a lot of good that came out of the bad. To begin with, it was amazing how scientists came up with a vaccine for COVID. And even more amazing how quickly that vaccine was distributed to all of us so we could stop the spread.

Of course, it didn’t get to everyone soon enough and some paid the ultimate price. I, myself, knew of a couple of people who died from COVID.

The rest of us figured out how to adjust to a very different world. It wasn’t easy and it was definitely scary sometimes, but we did what we had to. Well, most of us.

“Social distancing” became the phrase of the day. Wearing masks and standing far enough apart in public, or learning to use technology to meet online instead of doing so in person, became the thing. People started working from home, and some continue to do so to this day.

My husband had to go through a rigmorale to get his work computer hooked up in his home office. But once he did, he could more or less continue his work with just a few minor inconveniences.

I had to stop teaching guitar in person for a couple of months. I tried to teach online, but it was a lot more awkward, so I ended up taking a break instead. I was lucky that I could get away with that. And CERB helped.

A lot of people and businesses struggled, of course, and some have never fully recovered. We still see buildings and offices standing empty, even 5 years later.

Kids suffered a lot with having to get their school lessons at home and not being able to see their friends, or play at the park. For a child, those are BIG things.

And people in care facilities or confined to hospital suffered equally as much.

But we adjusted. We found ways to stay in touch without the touching part. We celebrated health care workers, really appreciating them for the first time. We put hearts in our windows and made a racket with our pots and pans every night when their shifts changed.

We stocked up on toilet paper. Yeah, that was kind of weird.

We learned the value of masks and disinfectant and washing your hands.

Oh, about the masks. Some people still haven’t figured out that wearing it under your nose doesn’t work. IT DOESN’T WORK.

Sorry, got off track there.

We came to value our families and our friendships so much more. Sitting together for a meal with an old friend. Going to a movie or a hockey game with the kids. So many things that we took for granted before.

And somehow we made it through. Especially when we found toilet paper.

These days we hardly ever see the word COVID in the news. Oh, it’s still around and probably always will be in some form or another. And there are some who are struggling with long COVID and who have had to adjust to a new physical norm. For them, COVID goes on and on.

Some stores or offices still have those old social distancing stickers, faded and worn, but a small reminder of our experience.

People wear masks more readily now than before the pandemic and I don’t blame them. We’ve become a lot more conscious of how easily disease and bacteria can spread. Been there, done that, don’t want to do it again.

In the end, an experience such as surviving a pandemic teaches us that we can overcome just about anything that threatens us. Anything. And ANYONE.

Yeah, you know who I’m talking about.

Now THERE’S someone who needs to be taught a lesson or two…

IJ

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He Could Be Me – A Reflection On Homelessness

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There were only two of us in the liquor store, an older fellow who was taking his time choosing his beer, and me. I was running around, distracted as usual, grabbing what I needed for the weekend.

By the time I got to the checkout, the older guy had beat me to it.

I didn’t pay much attention at first, and then I realized he was trying to buy one can of beer, looking for change in his pocket to pay for it. It was a Faxe, a Danish beer, and I had grabbed one of those for myself too. It made me smile.

Then I noticed he was was counting out his change coin by coin, but couldn’t quite come up with enough. The lady at the checkout and I looked at each other. He was short about 25 cents. He slowly dug into one pocket again, and then another.

I could see his clothes were a bit worn and his fingers a little dirty. He might have been in his 70s or older. It was hard to tell.

I ventured to guess that this fellow was probably living on the street, or close to it, like so many people these days. On my daily walk in Oaklands, I pass a park where there are a number of tents set up around the tennis court. People in tents and other people playing pickleball. Two groups living in stark contrast.

Sometimes a tent or two comes down, only to be replaced by others. When I count them, there are usually 6 to 8 tents stuffed full of, and surrounded by everything the occupier owns.

Every now and then the police and city workers come in and surround the area with yellow tape, asking people to pack everything up and go. There’s always a lot of garbage left behind, so there’s usually a garbage truck to deal with that too.

By the next day, the tents are back again.

It’s easy to think I’m a world away from all of that because I have a place to live and don’t have to worry too much about money. Although living on a pension is an eye opener.

But a number of months ago, a member of my family had to move in with us due to a series of unfortunate events. As we adjusted to another person in the house, inflation got worse and worse and the cost of living went through the roof.

It’s not only happening in my little family. According to statistics, in the last couple of years about 60% of Baby Boomers and Generation Jones’s are having to support children or family members in one way or another because of the high cost of living. I never once imagined this for my retirement years.

What on earth happened? I’m sure there are a gazillion reasons and, as usual, it’s very complicated. But it isn’t entirely new.

My Dad wrote in his memoirs about going through the “dirty 30’s” and his family having to live on what was then called relief. Another name for welfare. My grandfather had to wake his family up in the middle of the night once so they could sneak out of the place they were living. He didn’t have enough money to pay the rent.

And many years ago when I lived in downtown Vancouver, I’d walk down Robson Street on my way to work and see a number of people sleeping under the covered doorways of the stores along my route.

In the library where I worked, a few street people would come in when we’d open the doors in the morning so they could sit inside and warm up a little. Especially in the winter, or when it rained. There were no warming centres back then.

Poverty and homelessness has always been a problem to one degree or another, but now it seems even more so. I look out my upstairs window towards downtown Victoria where I see more and more new high rises popping up. But who can afford them?

Nobody I know.

I glanced at the liquor store clerk again. “I’ll pay for it.” I said quietly to her, reaching for my wallet.

“Oh, isn’t that nice? Sir, this lady has offered to pay for your beer!”

I smiled at him and picked up my Faxe to show him. “We have the same taste!”

He looked uncomfortable, almost embarrassed, and whispered a “Thank you.”

We finished the transaction, and he left with his beer. I moved closer to the counter. “I would have gone to the back room to get him the change he needed,” the clerk said. “We have some we put aside for people who are a little short of cash.”

I nodded, understanding. “Oddly enough, I think I felt better about paying for his beer than he did,” I said.

We are, many of us, one depression, one recession, and maybe even only one paycheque away from living on the streets. I turned and watched him walking carefully through the parking lot.

He could be me.

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The Christmas Candle – a tribute to our Christmas traditions

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I’m pretty sure I was in Grade 1 or 2 that day my mother told me we were going to invite some of my friends over to bake gingerbread cookies for Christmas.

She’d found a recipe somewhere and thought it would be fun for us all to do some Christmas baking together. I was an only child, so the neighbourhood kids were my surrogate brothers and sisters as I was growing up. We did everything together.

We picked a day and my mother started the process of making the gingerbread dough. I remember being in the kitchen with my friends, giggling as we rolled out the dough and cut the cookies.

The really fun part was decorating them with silver balls for eyes and red and green crystals. And icing. Lots of icing. We used knives to spread it all around and toothpicks to tweak it.

I’m pretty sure we ate half of the cookies as we were decorating. We definitely licked a lot of icing.

Ever since that time, gingerbread has been a part of my Christmas, whether it’s cookies or gingerbread houses. Oh, I’ve tried other store-bought gingerbread, but nothing compares to the home made stuff. You know?

My mother was an artsy-craftsy type, so she was always creating something. One day she discovered a way to make a big square candle using a 1 liter milk container as a form, so she made a Christmas candle.

All too soon, when I wasn’t quite 15 years old, my mother died of cancer. Suddenly all of the things that she’d made with her own hands became really important to me.

I don’t know how, but I managed to keep that candle with me when I moved away from home at the age of 18. And through a half a dozen moves I made over the next few years, I hung on to it. The truth is that I’m still surprised that I managed not to lose it or forget it somewhere.

When my two daughters were little, we began the tradition of making gingerbread too. And as a way of remembering my mother and my first gingerbread baking session, I pulled out the old candle and lit it.

From then on, we lit that candle every year and put it on the table beside us as we listened to Christmas music and made our gingerbread cookies.

Eventually I realized that the candle was going to burn down completely if we kept burning it (duh), and we didn’t want that to happen! So I started putting a tea candle inside it and lit that instead. Which explains the picture you see here.

No, the candle doesn’t look like much anymore. It’s more than 50 years old! But it really means everything to my daughters and to me. Even though my girls never had the opportunity to meet their grandmother Fanny, it’s a way of having her with us every year as we do our baking. Just a simple little tradition.

There are all kinds of stories out there from people recounting their Christmas traditions, many of them quirky, funny, and almost always sentimental in some way.

Even when you’re going through the worst of times, if you can have that one little thing you do, it brings back the cozy warmth of a Christmas memory. There’s nothing like it.

So Merry Christmas. And may the memories of your Christmas traditions give you great joy and comfort this year.

IJ