Kelake

I flew with Camren to Montreal last week so that he could arrive in time to participate in a 1500m race at Point-Claire.

We had hoped that the swim team would go up together. Team building exercises are important; lumping a group of kids together on a bus is one way to build camaraderie. Unfortunately, after a couple of meetings, it was decided that each parent was responsible for delivering their own kids to the meet, as the cost of renting a bus has quickly doubled. During the last meeting, a few parents offered to drive more than their own and stated a Thursday departure, which would be too late for Camren, the only swimmer who qualified for the Thursday evening race. To get Camren there on time, we decided to fly. Later, we discovered that everyone had changed their minds and left a day earlier. This meant that the flight wasn’t necessary, which was unfortunate. Flying out of Charlottetown is incredibly expensive and inconvenient.

I’ve never flown in or out of Charlottetown in December (or any time of the year, really) without a problem, so I was very pleased that our flight to Toronto, then to Montreal, went without a hitch.

We took the bus downtown from Montreal airport to get something to eat. A quick search for “all-day breakfast” led us to La Luncheonette, a local café where we had a fantastic croissant breakfast sandwich. We bought seconds. Their coffee tasted fine, but the steamed milk was sans art. A highly recommended spot, close to the subway.

It’s hard to fill Camren, so we went to another nearby breakfast spot, Bagel St-Henri, where breakfasts were about $7, depending on how many eggs one desired. We decided to buy a few bagels but will return another time.

From there, we took the subway to a shopping centre so Camren could shop, but I soon remembered how much shopping at places like these sucks. Unless you are looking for a specific brand store, like Decathalon, they are devoid of “interestingness.”

After walking a bit, Camren started complaining about sore legs, which I was surprised about, considering I felt great and he’s the athlete. He then reminded me that his bag weighed about 50 lbs, while mine just contained a change of clothes.

So we rested and got bored.

Finally, I realized that I had booked a hotel room for myself, the team was staying elsewhere, and we could check in early and have a nap. Camren had been up since 2:30am to catch our 5:00am flight.

Uber stated a 20-minute trip, which would have had us arrive in time for a one-hour nap. That 20-minute trip turned into an hour due to a truck losing its load on the highway.

When we finally arrived at the location of the Holiday Inn, there was no Holiday Inn. It was nowhere to be found. Camren and I walked to the nearest hotel and were told that they had moved a couple years ago and that they still get people arriving daily wondering where the hotel was. No one had bothered to update the hotel listing on mapping services.

At this point, we were starting to get anxious as the time Camren thought he had to be at the pool was approaching. The hotel staff graciously called us a cab that delivered us Fast & Furious style to the pool.

We arrived at the pool at 3:30pm to find out that he wasn’t swimming until 8pm and that his coach wouldn’t arrive until about 4:45pm. All the other teams’ swimmers were warming up while ours had gone to the mall. Camren started getting anxious again, so more walking ensued.

Ultimately, it was his weakest swim of the three-day event. But despite the cost and my on-again-off-again saltiness due to miscommunication and mishaps, it was one of those experiences we will talk about for years to come. Well worth it.

I arrived in Charlottetown late the next night and left the next day for Truro. He returned with the team.

The day the Fiona hit was Catriona birthday so our annual sojourn to New Glasgow for dinner was prudently put on hold. Unfortunately they decided to close for the season so we took her for lobster at The Water Prince Shop on Saturday.

I age for the both of us.

Though he at times struggles with being overshadowed by his extroverted peers, and the negative framing that seems to follow being quiet, Camren has many of the qualities I respect in young men. He is quiet and determined, posesses grit, is intelligent and curious, dependable, works hard, and has great athletic potential.

On Christmas Day in 2005 we had an impromptu swim on a Kenting beach.

We must teach our children….
To smell the earth…
To taste the rain…
To touch the wind…
To see things grow…
To hear the sun rise…
And night fall…
To care…

~John Cleal

We were fortunate to be able to send our kids to a private kindergarten and elementary school that emphasized letting them experience the world without shoes. They built things, grew their own food and we hiked through the mountains and the tall grass. They learned about snakes and the dangerous sounds of killer hornets. They would whistle at stray dogs and got chased in return. It was a marvellous time. Catriona to this day continues to talk about elementary school.

Somehow this little girl who used to run around Jusco singing songs turned 18 today. It is a cliché but I really don’t know where the time has gone. This morning while getting some coffee near my office I saw a group of young kids excitedly going to dance class, just like she used to, which made me wish I could experience it all over again.

Now that Catriona is attending University her schedule has freed up considerably which allows us to start having the ability to enjoy morning coffee and tea together at The Shed. I don’t think we’ve had this much time alone together in years. We don’t talk much, she reads, and I wade through piles of email and such, but I think we both share the characteristic of extended periods of quiet juxtaposed by periods of manic conversation.

She is studying medieval literature at the moment, which I warned her about as I always thought it got in the way of more important things, like the study of medieval music and the drinking of beer. She obviously gets her smarts from her mother as she thinks all the stories are easy, predictable and boring. I remember struggling.

We arrive early (to her) at 8:30am but the prospect of me paying for her tea and car ride into town (I get the feeling my bike would be stolen by end of day) gets her out of bed faster than the school bus ever did.

My Uncle Wendell, and our last remaining elder on my side of the family, turned 90 today. We were fortunate to have a small celebration for him this Sunday past in Hunter River and published a short notice in the Guardian – a notice in the Guardian seems to be of particular importance to his generation.

I didn’t have a particularly hard youth, but summers working on his farm, throwing bales of hay in blazing heat high up in a loft, taught me the privilege of choosing a different less arduous path. A staunch Liberal since birth, his biggest thrill today was no doubt a call from Ottawa from his MLA.

Yesterday after a short 7k run, a CrossFit session which I could hardly keep my eyes open for, we got in the car for a day trip to Nova Scotia. I’ve been cooped up here on the Island for a seeming eternity and I was expecting some feeling of euphoria akin to breaking free from the bonds of prison. Our pandemic time on the Island has represented the longest we have gone without a trip to somewhere in over 20 years, making a trip to anywhere off Island seemingly exotic. And looked forward to.

It was clear sailing all the way through with little in the way control points throughout the whole trip. A pit stop at the Aulac Big Stop reminded us of the time we are still in, as people walked about wearing masks, some going well out of their way to avoid contact with people. Returning to the Island we were asked for our PEI pass, and sent on our way. Though they were wonderful, I wish this part of the process was more akin to showing a bar code on a card in Apple Wallet that would immediately clear us to go. It took time.

There was no grand feeling on my part however, as I slept pretty much the whole time I was in the car. I’ve realized for awhile that I am exhausted; I’m more forgetful, irritable, and more prone to mistakes. But the fact that I could hardly keep my eyes open for most of the day indicated to me the depth of the problem.

Despite this, there were moments when we shared laughs, and the kids had a chance to act like siblings everywhere. We ate well, including some lovely fresh strawberries.

Catriona hasn’t stopped reading continuously since the days when she would sit at her desk in her playroom.

I just completed my 89 year old uncles income taxes (2 weeks later than promised) and am humbled by the amount of money he gives to charities that matter to him. And he does that on an income that is less than we pay in rent every year. He splits a box of Kraft dinner over multiple meals so he can afford to do this. Often a meal is a biscuit and tea. Selflessness like this is rare in our world today.

In 2007 Catriona and I flew to Hong Kong, and after I finished my business at the TECO office, spent a day at Disneyland. We had a perfect day and all the pictures I have are of her smiling and me a ball of sweat – the temperatures were likely over 35°C. I was at that time extremely over protective of her, and had a fear that she would wander off on her own, never to be seen again. Hence I had her wear that foolish card around her neck with all her personal info. in 2 languages.

Catriona and her Japanese teacher.

Catriona is off to UPEI in the fall to study modern languages. We had given some thought to sending her abroad but the pandemic here in Canada has changed so many plans, and UPEI should give her a more gentle start to adulthood.

She has studied and had interest in a number of languages. Chinese is her mother tongue, with English spoken at home, and while in Taiwan she studied Japanese, Taiwanese, and Hakka. She took a class or two of French in high school, but the results were primarily passing a test vs. any real understanding of the language.

She didn’t take a linear path to attending UPEI in the fall. When we first arrived on PEI we were discussing goals and I mentioned that McGill had a Chinese program that she might be a good fit for. But teenagers apparently have a mind of their own and she stated that she was going to be a surgeon, and that languages were no longer her interest. So began a painful 2 years of her taking sciences and math. She did well in math, but sciences less so.

With the prospect of a 4 year struggle finishing a science degree she quickly changed her mind and will start with the program offering at UPEI. And unlike her younger self when she stated that she was going to move to Alaska as soon as she could, she seems inclined to stay close to home, for now. And for that we are grateful.

This photo was sent to me recently to me on Facebook and reminds me of how supportive many colleagues and friends were during our early years in Taiwan.

Pictured is Sheryl and I, a very small Catriona, and the trio of friends who became my family in Taiwan. My Taiwan sister, Mother, and brother. Camren was still in progress. We were fortunate to have even more sisters and brothers who didn’t appear in this photo.

I often talk about how living overseas developed a kind of resilience, or self-reliance that we would never have developed if we had stayed in Canada. Taiwan’s government was efficient, and at times fair, but the farther the government was from our lives the better. If we lost our jobs, no help was coming, and in fact you would be required to leave the country quickly. If you wanted to retrain for another career, you pay for it yourself. There were no-one of the social or business supports that so many enjoy here (and interestingly, because we were away for so long there is no government support for us here either).

But we did have support from wonderful people for so many of the years that we lived there. Even after I left ITRI, where I met many of our Taiwan family, the support remained, and we have been in regular contact since.

Camren turns 15 today.

For the later part of elementary school we took Camren out of local private school to attend the Science Park school with Catriona. This was how they spent part of the lunch hour, eating at their desk, like many of their parents who would eat at their desk while at work. They start preparing them for work life early.

At lunch time most students had a hot meal prepared at home. Box lunch’s could be delivered, but they were, in elementary school at least, infrequent. Not all kids ate well of course. Parents are overworked in Hsinchu, and often squeeze as many hours of sleep in as possible. Last minute trips to the convenience store for whatever was available at breakfast, sometimes somewhat healthy, often times not, was common.

This was their first big adjustment upon moving here. Eating fresh whole food here at school time is difficult. Food allergies rampant, industrial and fast food preferred. At Birchwood they have a whole cooler devoted to chocolate milk. They have microwaves at the schools, but the kids complained of long line ups and the inability to have time to eat and socialize.

The new healthy food program has helped us divert their diet from the monotony of the sandwich, and all its carbs and salty meats. But we do miss the ability to be less restrictive with our food.

Camren and Catriona cira 2012 in our Science Park apartment.

It doesn’t seem so long ago when I was holding our daughter Catriona in the kitchen of our house in downtown Hsinchu. Now she is in full-blown teenager mode, with all the frustration that entails, and applying for University.

This is often how I find Sheryl’s devices, no matter if a phone, iPad, or in this case a laptop, they are always precariously placed on the edge of things. I don’t know exactly what this means, but miraculously none, in the many years I have noticed this phenomenon, have fallen off.

This past Wednesday was my son Camren’s 13th birthday. As per tradition the day started with pancakes and ended with cake. Gone are the homemade special cakes with seemingly massive amounts of chocolate on top. That tradition has been temporarily replaced with an ice cream from DQ, but will likely return in the future.

I’m pretty proud of his ability to adapt to life in this foreign land, and looking forward to watching as he develops into the interesting man he is sure to become.

This isn’t the best photo of her but it’s indicative of her patience for silliness. Other photos of her.

I lack the ability to express what it means to say goodbye to Lulu, our lab of over 10 years. We first met her as a stray in Taipei, and we rescued her by the time she was already about 2 years old, with all kinds of disagreeable habits learned. She didn’t immediately get along with our lab mix Elsa, which was also a rescue from the streets of Taipei, but they fast became sisters and have never been apart since.

She was the most gentle dog you would ever meet, she would gently suck peanut butter off your finger or gingerly take a piece of food off your hand. Never a growl. Never a bite. All she wanted to do was to be constantly by your side or at your feet.

She was playful, cuddly, and full of love. No matter my mood she would be there. She was my daughters companion too, and would wait eagerly for her to come home or wake in the morning. She had many annoying habits, but they seem irrelevant now.

A few months ago she started walking with a limp and after a couple days I took her to the vet, thinking it was a problem with her paw. I couldn’t see anything but perhaps she had a sprain, something she had experienced in the past. As it turns out she had a growth underneath her shoulder where right where all the nerve endings meet. As luck would have it this growth turned out to be a rare form of cancer with a terminal prognosis. We could operate and go through chemo, she would lose her leg, but it might give her another year or it might not. No one ever knows. Partially the decision was practical, the prescribed treatment was very expensive, with no guaranteed outcome. But mostly it seemed extremely aggressive, I didn’t want her to struggle and be in pain, so perhaps it was best to just to accept that this was her time.

We have given her 3 months of the best treatment we could give her. She ate her favorite foods and was pampered like a baby.

Today I had the unfortunate task of helping her “cross the rainbow bridge”. She was nervous at first but she trusted me to the end, following me into the doctors office where we said our final goodbyes before she went to sleep.

I think we will all miss her forever.