The slow, agonizing descent

It was the first day of autumn yesterday. I enjoy the change of the seasons, but here, in this place, the change from summer to fall leaves me cold and melancholy. I’ve come to dread fall in Scotland.

It’s still September, but the sun has changed. It’s sagging now, just sort of hanging there, low in the southern sky. Scotland is preparing for dark.

In Ottawa the onset of fall has deeper undertones and subtleties. The air turns crisp and cool, and the oaks and maples start their magnificent shed.  But as beautiful as autumn is in Ottawa, it’s tempered by the certainty of the long hard winter to come. The summer just gone will be a hazy memory, a fantasy of cottages and beer patios and friends and warmth. But though the next season (the hard part of living in Canada) is always tough, I always used to look forward to the first snowfall, the first blizzard, the first big hush.

Autumn in Scotland doesn’t evoke such memories of seasons, for there wasn’t really a summer this year (again), and winter here is bleak at the best of times. So I find my thoughts now are just precipitations of previous Scottish winters.

Wet. Dark. Roads shiny-slippery with diesel and salt. No traction. No light. Life on two wheels becomes more grim and less grin.

The sun’s trajectory has changed over these last few weeks. We are now headed downwards, down into the the long slow descent towards December 21st. Daylight lessens, and then lessens more, and in a couple of weeks we’ll turn back the clocks, making it darker still. Soon it’ll be dark when I get up and dark when I leave work. There’ll be no more rides home on the now treacherous back roads.

Visor fogs up. Cold, wet feet. Electric gloves fail, again.

In December in Scotland, darkness falls as early as 3:30.

But once into December, my spirits start to lift, for my favourite day of the year is rapidly approaching – December 21st, the solstice. The day the light starts coming back. Every day thereafter brings a few minutes more. By February the roads might be dry enough for real motorcycling. By March I will have forgiven Scotland’s darkness, again. By May Scotland is eternal light and I am happy once more.

Here we go! Hold on tight!

Big love

How can I possibly blog about what’s happened? It’s too personal; it’s still too raw. And I haven’t found my blog voice yet: I don’t yet really know what I’m doing. My ground rules are complicated and paranoiac. This blog was not supposed to be a journal.

But I can’t not blog about this.

Let me back up a bit, just for a moment. A couple of years ago when I was courting Sharon, I met her mother, Esther. It was an important event, in that although we were just meeting in a friendly, social environment, it was also a mutual interview. It didn’t come across like that – not for a second – but it was important that both of us approved of the other.

Of course, we each had our own reasons. She needed to be sure I was a good man who would love her daughter, take care of her, treat her right.

As for myself, I needed to be sure that there were no surprises down the line. A mother-daughter relationship is a powerful one. Many a man has married a good woman only to find his marriage slowly eroded by an over-controlling mother-in-law. I wanted to see what the nature of their relationship was.

What I witnessed was more than I could ever have hoped for. She was beautiful. A lovely, graceful woman that everyone wanted to talk to. And their love and regard for one another was sincere. I could see that she loved Sharon deeply, and only wanted the best for her.

And Esther seemed to approve of my own good self, for she accepted me immediately and made me feel like family.

As I got to know Esther over the years I came to realize the part she was playing in my own betterment. The love, wisdom, loyalty, and generosity that Sharon spoils me with is entirely her own, but I’ve come to see where she got the talent for it.

But now’s the hard part, the shit part, the part I don’t want to write: Esther passed away last Sunday.

She went peacefully, at home, surrounded by her family. She’d battled the cancer for five months but there was too much of it. She fought with strength, dignity, and above all, faith.

During our conversations over the following week, I came to ask her priest (who’d been her close friend for some twenty years) if she’d ever questioned her faith during her illness. He said immediately, “No, not ever – we’d all be in trouble then, wouldn’t we?”

I don’t have such faith myself, but I sure am inspired by those, like Esther, whose understanding of it leads to such selfless love.

During the funeral ceremony the same priest told us that she hadn’t wanted to be spoken of as a caring person, or a kind person, or a helpful person. He asked her, “Then what shall I say?” Esther thought for a moment. “Tell them I was woman of love.”

And she was. Big love. Women like her are rare. I’m grateful I found the two of them. Not having her physically here is going to be hard for Sharon, but I know Esther is still here with us, dressed to the nines, eyes sparkling, radiating life, deeply content in her children’s and grandchildren’s happiness.

But how do we move on from here? Simple, really. The way that Esther would have wanted us to, and the way that is feeling more and more natural to me: We move on with love. Big love.

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Please consider donating a little something to the cancer charity of your choice.

Here are a couple I’m familiar with to help you get started:

Cancer Research UK
Maggie’s Centres