Pop 89: Stories Will Take You Home
By Madonna Hamel
My sister, my brother and I are looking at his MRI. It’s a sobering moment. It’s also fascinating. Despite how annoying it is to hear doctor after doctor say: “You’re very lucky”, we can see how indeed, he is fortunate not to have lost use of his limbs or his imagination. His peripheral vision may be hindered, but his insights into life and the present situation continue to be penetrating. And often, downright hilarious. He has the comedian’s gift of spotting the odd quirks about events and people and riffing on it.
There’s a saying on the Prairie - there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. I think Eugene said that to me one morning as he was shovelling the driveway in his insulated coveralls - which I like to refer to as an adult onesie. I was whining about the sudden freeze in my flimsy jacket; sleeves pulled down over my cold hands.
On this end-of-April morning, the driving rain suddenly turned to snow. Giant flakes stuck to the trees, weighing them down, making them look lovely but sad and droopy. Just the day before, we were in shirt sleeves in the garden, and we weren’t dressed for this sudden drop in temperature. Our one consolation was that we were sure to make the ferry - if indeed it was still running - because the doctor gave us a priority boarding pass. The drive to Campbell River Hospital is a short one, but living on the island has its own weather challenges. Anything can happen on the way to the ferry, including a cancelled ferry ride due to whitecaps on the ocean.
After the visit with the neurologist, we rushed down the hill to stock up on supplies. I was familiar with the drill - living in Val Marie requires similar twice-monthly trips to “the big city” (in my case: Swift Current). After shopping, a few errands to take care of and then back on the road - headed South to Comox airport to drop off a sister headed home to husband, her dog and our dad, who turned 91 last week. On the way, we encountered a rainstorm, two construction line-ups, and missed a turn-off. It ain’t over til it’s over.
Yesterday was a gift. We did not have to leave the island and actually had time to socialize with old friends of Doug’s from Banff who have moved here. My youngest sister drove the truck, reminding me that as kids the younger siblings bombed around town in a standard Chevette, while I drove my mother’s automatic, a lumbering but sleek bright red Rebel Rambler with a white hardtop. Despite having a father who sold cars for a living, I never actually got behind the wheel of a standard until I was in my fifties. (Spinning donuts in a shopping mall parking lot in my boyfriend’s Midget MG when I was in my late twenties doesn’t count. )
Doug fell asleep on the drive to Manson’s Landing coffee shop, but once he saw his friends, he lit up, and the stories came tumbling forth. He is a storyteller of the true variety- passing forward not only the myths and legends collected by his hero Joseph Campbell, but also weaving their universal truths and metaphors into his hero’s journey, especially now that he has felt so close to leaving his body and returning.
Stories will take Doug where he needs to go next, of that, I’m certain. I can tell by the way he gets energized, bright-eyed and silly whenever he tells them. He is aware that sharing his experience is healing not just for him but for those around him. I’ve seen him when he catastrophes and preaches - he does not have the same effect on people as he does when he mines the sweetness and the humour in an otherwise terrifying and frustrating situation. We need people like him to remind us of our small, strong essential gifts for turning lemons into lemonade, or, as a card I sent him just weeks before his stroke says: turn crappy into happy.
On the drive home, he falls into another nap, this time with a trace of a smile on his face. Sitting in the back seat, I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I know I am supposed to pray for strength to handle whatever comes up but, I’d rather cut a deal: You give him time to get his stories out and I promise to be a more compassionate woman and I’ll even strive to spot all the similarities between me and my fellow humans, not the differences. And yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to do that anyway, regardless of his situation, but this time I REALLY mean it.
The truth is, my tears are not exactly tears of grief, they are tears of gratitude or revelation, of summing up, of a sudden and profound sense of how fragile our lives are and yet, how many crazy situations we’ve found ourselves in and been spared from death and destruction, Doug especially. He’s jumped off cliffs, climbed mountains, guided white water rafts, not to mention acquiring the entire Carl Jung library with the intention of diving as deep as he can into Depth Psychology and the workings of his own psyche through self-examination and dreamwork and stories.
While, over the years, I was reading stacks of books, my brother was “reading rivers.” While I was building arguments, he was building houses, because he always believed a man should be able to build his own home. While he was ascending mountains, climbing the “vertical landscape”, I was taking the geographical cure, traversing the States and Canada back and forth, in my or my man’s car. We all do the best we can with what we have at the time.
The power is out again. I put another log on the fire. My brother starts the generator so I can send you these words.