That’s us, to the right. Two years ago today.
Moments after sharing the bad news with Luba.

So early in a surreal journey.

Behind that smile, a big part of me thought life was over. All of me hoped it was just beginning.

We headed to Quebec City that week. As planned.  I tossed and turned in the hotel bed, hoping I’d somehow fall asleep before Lucy, Bayla and Mark finished watching “The Corpse Bride”, “Beetlejuice”, “Edward Scissorhands” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas”.

I was awoken, one of those nights, by a ringing thought: This was the beginning of “The Spicy Me”.

Before this ordeal, my aim was to get through life. To make it to some far off end without losing any of the fabulousness I’d stumbled into. New territories and aspirations were reserved for Luba. As a matter of course.

Two years ago today, I opened my eyes.
I became alert. Aware. Present.
Grateful plus.

I started examining. And choosing. And imagining more.

The two years since then have brought trauma and mourning, recovery and joy. I’ve made friends. I’ve taken chances. I’ve explored new territories. I’ve become the Spicy Me.

I’d never choose cancer. I never want it again. For any one.

And I’m supremely grateful for the efflorescing goodness I’ve been treated to since that mind-boggling beginning. Two years ago today.

I’m aspiring to many, many more good years.
By the way.

And our hearts all broke.

Last week, Lucy and Bayla were honoured with the opportunity to help nurture Bernadette. A sweet tiny abandoned kitten. She too passed away.

Our heart break was worse yet.

Lucy and Bayla have had to grow up fast. They’ve heard more than their share of sad stories. And, thanks to our history, the sad ones hit hard.

Will they keep risking compassion?

I hope so.

Time to re-read Tuck…

“Everything’s a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way it is.…”

“You can’t have living without dying. So you can’t call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Look what the postman just delivered.

A cozy, upbeat reminder of our dearly missed Jack. Straight from his beloved T.O.

Peace…. Love…. Jack Layton.

Perfect.

Thank you, Kingi. Thank you, Jack.

Related Links:

• We’ll Rebuild Jack Too
• Let’s Help Keep the Canada in Canada
• Vote. Please. Pass it on and on and on

Thank you, Mark!

A lot’s gone on in the past twelve years.

Hopes and upheaval. Disappointments. Triumphs. In work, relationships, parenting and health.

And through it all, there’s been a weekly evening with Jay.

Sanity. Sage advice. Laughter. Perspective.

Whatever the week brings, my evening with Jay makes it better. Those evenings make me better.

I think sometimes about our 18-years-younger selves. Saying our first hellos. With 7,550 km and ten provinces of cycling ahead of us. And all we never dreamed about those next 18 years.

And I think of the years ahead of us now. The venting and celebrating of our sixty-something selves.

And that makes me smile.

Thank you, Jay.
And thank you, Mark, for making those evenings possible. All these years.

Related Posts:

• Happiness Is… my long, strong friendship with Jay Schmidt.
• Happiness is… A Healthy, Happy Spring
• Here Comes the 10:15 Conniption, Right on Time
• Happy Birthday, Jay!!
• Coo-coo-ca-cha! Coo-coo-ca-cha!
• The party was off the hook
• Happiness Is… Cycling
• Glimmers

Relatives drop in and I’m sent to the local orchard to pick up some apples. It’s a 4km drive.
My 12 year old cousin, Susie, joins me for the ride.

We pick up the apples. Then, since we’re so close, I drive us down to the Rideau Locks. Park the car. Hop out and show my little cousin around.

But what’s that? A rusty little Civic is floating in the water.

The rusty little Civic that I just parked. Out of gear. On a slope. Facing the water.

My first full-scale failure.

A crowd. A boat. A tractor. A rope. Susie’s mechanic-Dad gets it running.

I squeeze out the seats. Cover them in blankets. Gussy myself up and pick up my hunky ex-boyfriend for our planned boat-cruise party date.

That’s forgiveness.
That’s resilience.

Twenty-nine years later — To. The. Day. — I learned that my long-lost cousin Susie and I are both breast cancer survivors.

Good thing we’re resilient.

We’re going to be fine.

That history-making, mega-foamy latté.

I snuck in the back door. De-toqueing and de-snowing myself, unseen.
Mark faced away. Tall, wiry, and newly goateed.

There was a table here, then. Several tables. It was Vittoria Trattoria and I’d been lining up regularly for breakfast, coffee and pesto pasta since long before the tables had arrived.
Collecting memories of the twenty-something me.

In the fifteen and a half years since that first date, we’ve enjoyed breakfasts, desserts, lattés — and then burgers, bruschettas and goblets of wine — here. I’ve tipped baby Bayla upside down to dislodge solids. We’ve celebrated report cards with Luba. We’ve been silly with friends.

It’s where we rang in Mark’s forties.

Today it sits empty. Awaiting rebirth.

And we’re watching. Just like that twenty-something me, peeking past the papered windows, exactly twenty years ago. Hoping its rebuilt self is friendly, affordable and fabulous.

We’ve got lots more great memories to make. We’d love to make some here.

Can’t wait!!!

Landscape photos thanks to ecstaticist,  BugMan50 and naserke.

Related Posts:

• Dusting off a Dream

With a puff of cold steam, a new world was born.

Today, Bayla turned ten. Twenty-two months later.

Today was a good day.

Lucy and Bayla spent most of it on their own together, being tweens: browsing their favourite shops, doing each others’ nails, exploring Bayla’s new DSI, painting pottery, strolling down to DQ to split a Blizzard.

And we ended the day with the end of Harry P. In 3D.

Today I did a lot of thinking back ten years. And back two years. And looking ahead.

Looking forward to many happy years of great memories behind and ahead for us all.

And feeling very, very grateful.

“The first thing to remember is this: as long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that pain. …because you want to keep yourself intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you… [The pain] is the living past in you, and if you identify with it, you identify with the past.

A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the of the truth. ..The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment.”

– Eckhart Tolle, “The Power of Now“.

More forgiveness musings here.