Last year at this time, I discovered that our pre-lit tree no longer lived up to its name. I sat on the floor snipping strings of lights and unwinding the strands from faux branches.
The phone rang. I missed it as I had been sitting on the floor and am not as limber as I was once. It rang again almost immediately which set off alarm bells and I whispered “uh oh, that cannot be good” to myself. It was an unknown number with a very known number exchange.
“Is this Janice?” Reader, not many good things follow someone using my government name. This time was no exception. This time it was the news that my dad had been rushed to the hospital. We said our final good-byes only hours later.
This piece isn’t about his death.
It is now almost one year since that day and this week felt like a good time to get out the tree. I am very much a “done is better than perfect” type person and typically I hurry through the set up so we can just enjoy the soft glow of the Christmas lights a little bit sooner. Good enough suits me just fine.
This year, I slowly took each layer of tree out of the box and took my time fluffing and straightening the branches. I found some rogue light strands that I had missed last year (please see above reference to “good enough”). I tested the replacement lights before I strung them and even took them all off and started again because they just didn’t look right. In the quiet of this process I felt peace and calm.
This isn’t about the tree.
Traditions are part of the fabric of life. Making memories is kind of the point, isn’t it? I don’t want every November to be a sad reminder. So I am embracing bittersweet and resetting things. November will be for pausing and taking time to do things right, not rushed. I think from now on I will set the tree up on my own and take that time to think about my dad, his love of Christmas cake, mint Laura Secord chocolates, and his cover of Peggy Lee’s song “The Tree“. I will remember telling him there were less dramatic ways to get me to come visit. I will reflect on my gratitude that I could be at his bedside as the veil lifted and assure him that we would be okay, he could go.
I am certain he heard me then and I think he’d be happy to see this reset now.
You don’t realize middle age is upon you until you are in the thick of it, but there were signs it was approaching.
It starts off subtle. You find yourself tilting your head more often to see the total payment due, but it can’t be because you need bifocals. No, no, no, the tech manufacturers are just cheaping out and making the screens smaller and with extra glare (those monsters).
Middle of the night wake ups are no longer due to small children needing your attention, but are a result of a poorly-timed cup of tea before bedtime. This is tough to accept since you now plan your evening beverage consumption with military precision.
When you use a device a child or teen was on recently, you have to first increase the brightness to supernova level. However, the increased font option is still on an as-needed basis. You’ve decided that stretching is a helpful recommendation. You now do that regularly with your arms when trying to read anything on your phone, not because you can’t see it, but because healthy habits, guys.
Walking, gardening, baking, and reading are not just fake hobbies you listed in the “tell us a bit about yourself” sections of forms. They are now your preferred activities. I recently found myself contentedly pulling up clover in the front garden while listening to an audio book when it dawned on me that it was a Friday night and I couldn’t be happier.
You wake up one morning and realize that instead of being irritated with the birds chirping outside your window at 5am, you are very invested in learning which ones are making which calls. Hence, the addition of a bird watching app to your homescreen. Also, did you know that there are seven types of chickadees, but only two are found in Ontario?
Gradually you have come to the realization that yacht rock is seriously underrated. Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald are treasures that must be protected at all costs. What a fool believes, he sees. No wise man has the power to reason away. What seems to be is always better than nothing. Than nothing at all. Preach it, Michael. Preach it.
Staff room lunch conversations about movies and current events have been replaced with discussions about which supplements everyone is taking. Magnesium biglycinate is a game-changer when it comes to managing the middle-of-the-night heart racing. No more playing “is it a nightmare, anxiety, or am I dying?” The answer is now “you just forgot to take your magnesium with the ashwagandha chaser, silly”.
Home clothes are now just your clothes. Life is too short to be uncomfortable. Anything that requires a belt has been purged from your wardrobe. Ditto for shirts needing to be tucked in (and yes, that includes the French tuck, no one has capacity for that on top of trying to get through the work day).
The first app you open in the morning is the weather forecast because knowing the humidex value for the day is now critical. The second one is Goodreads followed closely by the aforementioned bird identification app. You now interact more often with the public library’s book holds system more than with your own children.
Injuries that once were caused by too much heavy-lifting or evening volleyball games are now a result of sitting at a weird angle to watch a murder documentary. Other causes may include: putting your jacket on, getting up from the couch too quickly, or the very risky decision to sit on the floor. You get light headed from stretching too hard.
Your brain starts to do weird and random things, such as reworking the lyrics of a song from your youth:
All of these signs accumulate until one day you look in the mirror to discover more gray hair that previously noted and a few age spots you had been in denial about. And then the truth really hits you: you don’t care. Getting older is part of life. Aging is actually a privilege and grays are simply confetti celebrating that you’ve made it this far. Sure, your body is beginning to betray you, but you’ve got this.
It’s been one month since you left. The past thirty-one days have been the wildest buffet of feelings and memories. You have always been a part of the fabric of our lives, but it has been felt more keenly these four weeks.
Did you know that I often quote or refer to you to my class?
“As my dad always says, let’s do this just for kicks.”
“If my dad was here right now he’d tell you to pick up your feet.”
“You’ll never be a card shark like my dad if you don’t learn your addition facts.”
When I sing an instruction to them (they secretly love it, I’m sure), I think of you. Not every time, it is just part of who I am now, but I know it’s because of you.
I tell them they are my favourite grade fives and they always answer “we’re your’re only grade fives!” Just like you always told us we were your favourite ten-year-old, oldest child, youngest child, or any other descriptor.
For years I thought you just had songs for various things. Someone in the family asked, “who shoved all the Tupperware in the cupboard and just closed the door? They all fell on me!” You could be heard from a corner of the house singing, “Must be Janice, must be Janice.” I did not know until I was in my twenties that that was a cover of Raffi’s “Must be Santa”.
Did you know that one of your grandsons does this all the time as well? He’s always got a tune going, it’s more about whistling with him, but it reminds me of you. I can hear him from corners of the house and always know he’s home.
When my boys were little, I had so many songs individualized for them, but copyright laws prohibit me from sharing them online. I still do it now, with our puppy (he’s the fluffy boy I love a lot and Denver is his name-o).
When I taught kindergarten I’d often piggyback teaching themes onto known songs. That’s how we reviewed the seasons, and how to put on our winter clothes, and so many other skills. That is not a coincidence, I was taught that from you all along, even if the lessons were a bit sketchy. I clearly recall hearing you sing (midsummer):
The tree, the tree Let's go and steal a tree We'll string it up with stolen lights Where no one else can see
It’s Christmas and that always reminds me of you. You’d set up a gift-wrapping station in the front room and we would bring you presents. Like a machine, you’d produce perfectly creased, cut, and folded packages. There was no item you could not expertly wrap. We all love the story of how you learned that skill: wrapping period products in the fifties-era drugstore. You were oblivious to the contents of the boxes and just went about your job. The whistle-loving grandson asked me to teach him to wrap and I had to tell him that I never learned as you always took care of that.
Friends and I were recently sharing what we have bought for Christmas and how to hide it from our kids. Of course I had to share the story of the year you bought a cassette case and hid it so well that we never found it.
when you died your magic didn't vanish it is carried by those who love you like we swallowed the sun and every star. we don't tell your story to make the world darker. we tell your story to make the world brighter. no one will see that light shine again if we never get to let it out.
I miss you. I miss hearing “hey kiddo!” when I call. I miss your shoulder-shaking laugh. I miss stocking up on your favourites before you came for a visit.
There was a double rainbow in the sky the other day. I went to text you and ask if you remember making rainbows in your backyard with the garden hose.
Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” came on the radio during my drive home. Do you remember your babysitter, Vicky, who listened to this album on repeat all summer and humoured us and our endless dance routines? She was double-jointed and we begged her to show us how her elbows bent. That must have been a very long July for her. Remember that?
We played Barbies past the age when we wanted any other friends to know. I’d carry mine in a grocery bag over to your house and we played for hours in your basement. There was that time that you filled your Barbie pool with water and claimed your mom had given her blessing (she had not).
Remember all the jumps we made up in my pool? I still do them sometimes with my kids, despite their protests. The Sprinkler, the Granny, the Dolly Parton. We were swimming stars.
One time you told me that your cousin blew a bubble so big that when it popped she had to have an operation to remove the gum from her head. I use that story to teach my students about tall tales. You were so convincing.
I was devastated the day you sat me down and said you might be moving to be closer to your grandma’s house. That was until you clarified it was one block over. Yes, those 500 metres would be a real time-saver in a two hour drive.
Remember when we went to church together and saw the older man make change in the collection plate? He dropped in a twenty and took his time rummaging around for smaller bills. We couldn’t stop gawking, then we couldn’t stop laughing.
We made our own band and tried to sell tickets to a concert on your front porch. Remember when we tried to sell the mud pies we’d made from actual mud? Or when we went door to door selling pebbles from your driveway?
Biking riding. Remember when we were allowed to go all the way around the block without asking first? And how we would trade bikes? Remember your yellow bike and how it would always skin the inside of our ankles?
I came over once and you were low-key showing off how you’d solved your Rubik’s cube. I pretended not to notice that you’d just moved the stickers around. You always were a bit of a rascal.
I think of you almost every day – in one way or another. When I make spaghetti I think about eating raw noodles in your kitchen. When I bake I remember your mom saying you had to ask your brother if he wanted to lick a beater. You whispered it as quietly as you could so you’d have plausible deniability when he (shockingly) didn’t hear and so we got both. Every time I stack the dish rack way too high, I want to text you a photo and see if you can top it.
We became friends so long ago when we were so little that I cannot recall a time I didn’t know you, you’ve just always been in my life. Even when we grew up and moved away, some random memories always made us reach out to check in and ask, “do you remember…?”
I remember.
There are memories that our siblings might share with the two of us, that we’ve told other people, that we experienced as a group. Our parents recall things we’ve long forgotten. But there are some that only you and I hold.
We recently got a puppy under a few conditions, one of which is that I would get up with him in the mornings and walk him. I am still not a morning person, but four months in…I’m not mad about it.
On one of these quiet mornings with just me and the pup, I decided to bake some cookies and listen to music. The night before I had fallen down a rabbit hole thanks to TikTok and fell asleep to the musical musings of Kenny Loggins.
If you think I was revisiting the 80s and the Top Gun version of Kenny, let me stop you right there. I was deep into the 70s Kenny of the duo Loggins and Messina and their hit, “Danny’s Song” and then “House at Pooh Corner” and then “A Love Song” because that’s how rabbit holes (and my brain) work. These were all recorded years before I was born, but my parents were big Anne Murray fans and she had covered several Loggins and Messina ballads back in the day, so this Canadian kid was in the know.
On this morning, “Danny’s Song” replayed based on my search history, and was followed by “Leader of the Band” which was a song I only vaguely recalled…until the chorus. When that chorus hit I found myself singing along word for word without error or thought.
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band
I was shocked. Who is Dan Fogelberg? How did I know that was the artist’s name? Where did this hidden knowledge come from? What else do I have locked away in my brain?
This must be what a sleeper agent feels like when their code word is finally spoken and they are activated.
I let the random playlist continue in order to test my spy hypothesis. There were a couple of false positives such as when I began singing along to “Operator, can you help me place this call” before Jim Croce (didn’t know I knew his name) began to sing the opening bars.
Recollections I never knew were sealed away in my mind interrupted this kitchen concert for an audience of one. I was time travelling while baking cookies and, unprompted, I could clearly picture our old console TV and how I’d change the channel with my feet (no clickers back then). I could feel the texture of high-low shag carpet in our living room and the burned spot from when my brother dropped a light fire log on it. Granted, the seventies were a wild decade of very questionable fashion and decor tastes, so it is also possible I repressed these memories. Really repressed them.
Another possibility is that I really am a seventies music fan, but don’t want to admit it. Many of those artists and songs would have been a background soundtrack to my life. My parents had an extensive vinyl collection back in the day and while they leaned more to Roger Whittaker, Anne Murray, and George Baker Selection, there must have been some of the others mixed in there.
And there’s another explanation. That puppy we recently brought home? His name is Denver. As in John Denver the folk singer of the seventies. An artist who is in my favourites playlist. And yes, I suggested his name.
But let’s not rule out the sleeper agent theory, because I didn’t name him Fogelberg, did I?
____________________________________________
Ever have a sleeper agent moment? I can’t be the only one. Let me know I’m not alone in this.
In the elementary education system, the educators are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The primary division, who initiate students into school life, and the junior division, who bravely use urban dictionary to find out what their students are saying.
These are their stories.
There is a wee bit of a supply teacher shortage going on, in case you haven’t heard. So one Friday not long ago, some of us were reassigned for part of the day to help cover a grade one class. Some were cocky enough to volunteer because “it’s only thirty minutes, no big deal.”
Oh, it was a big deal alright.
I am not new to teaching younger classes, but it has been a while. You know how after time passes, you remember things differently, usually more positively? (my teacher bestie says I have a tendency to frequently don my rose-coloured hindsight glasses – that’s fair.) This is one of those times.
If you chat with a grade one learner, they can hold a reasonable conversation. I see them following the line leader down the hall, putting on their snowsuits independently, managing their lunch containers on their own. All these casual exchanges inflated my confidence that half an hour with these little cherubs would be a breeze.
Primary teachers, this cannot be stated enough, you have superpowers the rest of us can only hope to attain.
Things started off great! I read them one of my favourite books, silly voices and all. They hung on every word. We had a lovely follow up discussion about flamingos and how someone’s brother ate the last Bear Paw. Which led us into what I thought would be the pinnacle (and easiest) part of their day: the long-awaited FREE TIME.
Kids went off and got out blocks, doll houses, building toys, and games. It was glorious. For 4 minutes. Then there was “the incident”.
I am a firm believer that being curious and asking questions is a helpful way to navigate life. That is not always true in an elementary class.
Me: Why would you hit him?
Student: He took my train. And HE HIT ME, TOO.
Me: That’s not the best way to solve the problem. How did you feel when he hit you?
Student, leans in and whispers: I mean, he isn’t that strong, I didn’t really feel anything.
We both agreed that next time words would be a better option and there was no need to pursue the matter further. With that situation now resolved thanks to my top-notch conflict resolution skills, I realized it was getting close to home time, so I asked, “How much time do you need to get ready?”
A few students quickly replied, “usually about five minutes.”
And with that answer I discovered that grade one students grossly underestimate their getting-ready-for-home-skills and that I am far too trusting.
Reader, there was panic, sweat, and possibly tears (some were even the students) as the bell time drew near and we were nowhere close to being ready.
“LEAVE THE CHAIRS I WILL STACK THEM FOR YOU.”
“You have to wear YOUR boots, not just any pair in the hallway. Please, I’m begging you.”
“IF YOU TAKE THE BUS JUST GO. YOU’VE GOT THIS. I BELIEVE IN YOU.”
Rest assured, all students were matched up with their respective special someones. I left that grade one class with a renewed appreciation for my primary teacher colleagues. Oh, and also a sweet portrait (check out those biceps).
Excited that this piece was shared on Five Minute Lit. You can find it here.
You can read about my dad and his love of polyester and enlisting me in his shopping trips here. He is also an excellent gift-giver as you can see here. stories about my dad can be found here and also
“I can always spot you a mile away – your coat is a beacon.”
We were chatting in the schoolyard as usual, waiting for our children to exit for the day and hurry home for snacks.
“I should get one of those for outdoor learning time with my kindergarteners. I hate wearing those safety vests, especially over my winter coat. That looks so warm, too. Might need to invest in some new teacher gear.”
We both chuckled and then moved on to other small talk. The bell rang minutes later and our children rushed over to our waiting spot, bursting to ask if their friends could come over and if we’d carry their backpacks for them while they did the monkey bars one last time before the walk home. Eventually he went his way, and I went mine.
A few months later there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, there he was, the husband of my friend, smiling and holding out a brand-new neon orange fleece coat.
“I got this for you at work. I remembered how much you said you could use one for your job.”
I’ve received many thoughtful gifts in my life:
a copy of my favourite novel after I’d dropped the original in the tub
a necklace with all four of my boys’ names engraved on it.
my four children (most days)
a latte dropped off when I was housebound with four children under six who had the chicken pox
the chipmunk stuffy from my dad that was not what I’d asked for, but cherished
There are many others I could mention, but the best gift I’ve ever been given was the bright orange safety jacket.
I’ve bestowed the name Big Orange to this coat as it is indeed big and quite orange. It is a fantastic coat and by far the best piece of teacher clothing I have ever owned. It is roomy and has large pockets where I store bandaids, tissues, mittens, pens, and sometimes my sanity. Students exclaim over it, teachers envy it. The coat is essentially the Room of Requirement in clothing form.
Its functionality is second to none, but that is not why it is the best gift I’ve ever received. You see, the coat was really a message to me. I was valued enough that a casual comment I made was filed away and remembered. That coat told me that I was heard and seen by this friend, that I matter.
Best gift ever.
Currently accepting applications to be the heir to Big Orange upon my retirement
Twenty-something me was a sleeper. Even when I was living on my own, I knew the importance of a good night’s rest and would pack it in at nine or ten if I was tired. Pull an all-nighter to study for an exam? Me? My motto was I know what I know and staying up won’t cram any more psychology facts into this brain. May as well go to bed. Some roommates suggested it was an avoidance tactic, I preferred to call it strategic, peaceful oblivion designed for optimal test-writing performance.
I could drift off anywhere if I was tired. Loud party? Snoozing. Watching a squash game? Napping on the gym bags. As a child, my friends thought I was hiding so well that I didn’t want to give up my primo spot, but I had fallen asleep behind a chair and didn’t hear them declare that round of Hide-and-Seek was over.
Sleep and I were best friends. I could not relate to people who struggled to sleep well or, even moreso, those who deliberately chose to get up earlier than necessary. Sure, going for a predawn walk is good for you, but you know what else your body needs? Sleep. Yes, you can get a lot accomplished in the early hours of the morning, but you know what else you can do? Sleep.
My thirties came along and so did four adorable sleep robbers. My memories of these eight years are disjointed and vague. This could be due to the sleep deprivation or my tendency to squash any stressful memories into a teeny-tiny box, never to be opened, but who’s to say? I recall panicking and unable to remember where I put the baby that I was holding in my arms at the time. More than once I woke in the morning baffled as to why I was wearing a completely different set of clothes than the ones I had worn to bed. And then there is the repeated occurrence of being scared by creepy toddlers standing silently at my bedside.
As I entered my forties, my children entered their best sleeping years. No more middle of the night wake-ups. They could stumble to the washroom on their own. There were the occasional nightmares, vomiting, and nosebleeds, but for the most part, sleep and I were reunited. It was a glorious and brief season.
Friends who were ahead of me in life and the parenting journey tried to warn me, but I was in blissful denial. My children were independent and so now I would make up for all those years of choppy sleep. Ha ha ha. No.
Fun fact: as kids grow up, they stay up later. And later. And cook a full meal at eleven. AT NIGHT. They also have no idea how to do things, anything, quietly.
This was an unexpected turn of events, but I was up to the challenge. Hello, melatonin and earplugs. I still had back-to-school dreams and some mornings I was up much earlier than necessary (and completely against my will) but overall sleep and I were once again on friendly terms.
We are now the parents of teens. Teens who have part time jobs. Jobs we strongly encouraged them to get. We expected them to gain responsibility, work skills, life experiences, and a paycheque. They have. They never miss a shift and give us lots of notice of their schedule so we can give them a lift. I did not, however, expect that one of our children would be slotted for a nightshift from time to time. Goodbye, sleep, it was nice while it lasted.
A fun discovery of parenting teens is that I don’t sleep well when they aren’t home. I also don’t sleep well if I am worried about sleeping through my alarm (please see melatonin and ear plug reference above) to do an early morning pick-up. Some night shifts he can go home early if all the work is completed. On these nights we have a protocol:
Text Mom for a ride.
Text again if no reply.
Call. The text notification has been incorporated into her dream.
Usually I sleep very lightly on these nights and there is no need to move to step two. However, we have this protocol for a reason and the other night it had to be implemented.
I’ve told you the truth, I am a very light sleeper. Until I am not. If I do get into that sweet spot of a nice, deep, sleep it is anyone’s guess what disoriented-me will do. So when the phone rang at 5:21am recently, I was certain it was my alarm and I frantically hit it so I wouldn’t wake the baby (the baby is eleven and sleeps soundly in his own room). It took me a full beat to comprehend my oldest was not already home and asleep, but was instead calling me for a ride. BUT I PULLED IT TOGETHER and groggily lied/exaggerated, “I’m on my way.”
I pulled on a hoodie, popped a piece of gum and was on my way. Another successful early morning pick-up complete. As the parents of teens who guided me years ago, gentle reader, this story has a few take-aways I will now pass along to you:
Car seats are cold and thin pajama pants do nothing to mitigate that.
Any street is creepy and full of potential serial killers at 5am.
Gum does very little to rid you of morning breath.
Check your camera roll and remove any evidence that you were anything but calm, cool, and collected when your child phoned you.
I definitely didn’t frantically hit all the buttons in an attempt to stop the noise.
“Mrs. Moyer, today is Day 3, not Day 2. You didn’t change the schedule.”
“Oops! Mistake of the day!”
Mistakes happen. We are definitely not perfect. And yet so often we get frustrated with others and especially ourselves when expectations are not met.
I wish I could remember the origin of “mistake of the day” but I cannot. As most great ideas do, I think this evolved from a combination of experience and influence of great people around me. Regardless of how it started, this phrase has become a staple in my classroom.
Forgot to grab extra pencils on my way to class? Mistake of the day!
Left the worksheets in the staff room? Mistake of the day!
Did the announcement team flub their script or play O Canada twice? No big deal, chalk it up to the mistake of the day.
The ability to laugh at yourself is a gift. Learning that making mistakes is normal, a common occurrence, and is to be expected eases the pressure we often feel to be near-perfect. When students see me failing with little things and shrugging it off they see that I don’t expect perfection from myself, so I certainly don’t expect it from them. When we can kindly giggle at a goof with announcements or a technical issue (again) with a presentation, it reinforces extending grace to others.
Social media allows us to post our highlight reels and successes and filter out the unflattering mistakes. We can curate an image we want to present rather than reality. That’s a lot of pressure. It’s so easy to compare and feel that we come up short. But we all burn the grilled cheese sandwiches (literally and figuratively).
A wise consultant once encouraged me to choose a “favourite almost” when marking assignments and highlight the things that went right with a student’s response when we reviewed as a class. Who wouldn’t want to hear how they succeeded rather than failed? Or be recognized for effort rather than perfection?
Over time, trust builds with laughing off our missteps as do the inside jokes and our sense of community. Last year’s class would randomly calling out “Hey, Google!” when they felt overwhelmed and some of us really enjoyed Rick-rolling each other. This year we keep returning to the Clock Incident when someone closed the door, the clock fell off the wall, skidded across the floor and never told us time again. “Remember that time Jayden* broke the clock?” And there is also this gem: “Remember how Mrs. Moyer thought Abdul* was in grade 6 for the first month of school?” (yes, he’s a grade five, but who doesn’t like a challenge?)
Learning in a pandemic has brought unique opportunities for my mistakes: “I was sure I included the attachment in that assignment, just a second.” “What do you mean you don’t have access? Didn’t I grant that to everyone?” “Guys, if I get kicked out of this meeting, just sit tight and know my router conked out and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” So many mistakes of the day.
Mistakes are inevitable. It can be refreshing to celebrate them rather than cover them up. Trust me, I’ve burnt a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches.
Tough Bananas 