Merry Christmas 2021 - from our house to yours

 

 

Dear friends and family:

This time last year most of us thought that by now we'd be reminiscing about Covid-19 ("Wow, wasn't that an incredible time?"), not talking about it as a real and present threat. But here we are. It's affected and dictated so much of our lives these past two years. We can take comfort, I suppose, in the fact that (despite experiencing it differently depending on our circumstances) we really are all in it together.

I wanted to share a little bit about what's been going on in our lives this past year. 

Jonathan turned 19 in September. He has coped amazingly well with the changes and disruptions Covid has caused. He's actually been fortunate because when schools closed in January and April, he was able to keep attending because the province made provision for special needs students to go in-person. His School-to-Community class was the only class in the brand-new Kingston Secondary School for a lot of the time this past winter. Jonathan loved going to school and being with his crew of friends. He was also able to attend Extend-a-Family day camp for six weeks this summer, giving some normalcy to his summer break. Jonathan is a tall, busy guy who loves watching garbage truck videos on his iPad, sorting the recycling, and adjusting neighbours' shovels and brooms on their porches.

The last six months have been a time of concern for us with Jonathan's seizures. They've been fairly well contained with meds for the past few years; normally he'd have maybe 2 or 3 seizures a year. But since June he has had about 17. One involved a trip to the Emergency Department after he fell during a seizure at school and hit his head hard on the floor. He was fine, but it's meant a lot of time working with his doctor to adjust his medications and try to get the right combination. He's now been seizure-free for four weeks, so we're hopeful. In January he will transition from pediatric neurology to adult neurology; this means meeting a new doctor who will take over his care. The pediatric neurologist has been very helpful, but he really needs adult services now and we've been waiting quite a while for this transfer to take place.

Allison is 23 now and well into her Queen's degree work in Linguistics. She has really found her niche with this area of study. Last winter she took three online linguistics courses; this fall she took two online language courses and an on-campus course. Queen's is going online for at least the first half of the Winter 2022 term because of Covid, so she'll be back to all-online again. Allison has adjusted well to all the disruptions and has worked diligently on her courses. In her free time she's enjoyed outings with her social club, reading, playing games, and going for walks.

 

Richard continues to work as a nurse at Kingston General Hospital, although for two months this spring he was redeployed to Hotel Dieu Hospital while KGH was making changes to accommodate Covid patients from out-of-area. He enjoyed this temporary change but is now back to his regular position in Orthopedics. Most of Rich's sports and volunteer opportunities have been put on hold due to Covid, but this fall he enjoyed running and volunteering on Saturday mornings with Parkrun, an organization that holds non-competitive 5k runs on Saturdays all over the world. He's also made a point of getting together regularly with a fellow from church for a little informal baseball. (Jonathan enjoys these outings as well, especially picking up all the balls that have been hit into the outfield.)

 

I (Jeannie) have continued working as an online instructor at Queen's, although I'll be phasing that out next spring; I'm feeling it's time to dial back my university work and do something different. I recently started working as a copyeditor for a local news organization and while that's been sporadic so far, I really enjoy it.

I was glad to be able to go to PEI this summer and see Dad. I had not seen him since August 2019 (at which time he was in the hospital and hadn't even moved yet to the nursing home where he lives now). Though we didn't go to the Island as a family, my brother Errol and I went down in July for a week; I was grateful for this opportunity to see Dad and my brother Lincoln and other relatives. Dad is not well, but he is holding his own, always calm and stoic and accepting of what life brings.

Other big news for me was that I had a second eye surgery earlier this month to improve my double vision. I'd had one surgery (on my inner eye muscles) in Sept. 2019, and there was some improvement but it didn't last. This time the surgeon tightened my outer eye muscles (I know: ewww, right?). It's only been a couple of weeks but it seems to have made a really significant improvement so far. So I'm grateful to have been able to get that done.

I had three publications this year:  

• My short story "End of October" was published at Reckon Review
• My poem "Mary" was published at Voidspace (it's based on Mary's Magnificat and was a response to the journal's challenge to write a poem using only the letters in "Merry Christmas")
• My poem "Gazing upward at night, with Chesterton" was posted on the local library's Poetry Blackboard as part of our Poet Laureate's "Joy Journal" series. 

It has not been the most creatively productive time for me during Covid, but I have done some good reading (see my end-of-year book post HERE) and have watched some excellent TV series including Poldark, Victoria, Sanditon, Cranford, Wives & Daughters, Schitts' Creek, and Belgravia. I've found it so relaxing just to just sit down in the evening, enter into the lives of fictional characters, and forget about Covid for an hour. 

 As it stands now, Kingston is not doing great with Covid. After having an amazingly low case count for a year and a half, our city's seen a big rise in numbers in the last few weeks as a result of the Omicron variant. Richard and I have already had our booster shots; the kids will get theirs on Boxing Day. We just continue trying to live as wisely and safely as possible, staying home when we can, and following the protocols. But I can't deny that there's kind of an ominous pall over everything right now that makes it hard to get into "the Christmas spirit."

Still, I was thinking about these lines from How The Grinch Stole Christmas:

He couldn't stop Christmas from coming: it came!
Somehow or other, it came just the same.

Despite the uncertainty and tragedy in our world right now -- and really, when has there ever been a time in history that there was no uncertainty and tragedy? --  Christmas comes. Christmas comes because Jesus comes. As the carol says, "He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found." 

No matter what your religious celebrations and observances may be -- or if you have none at all -- may we experience peace, friendship, and hope this season and in 2022, and may we do all in our power to ensure that others experience them too. 

Thank you for being a part of our lives.

Jeannie, Richard, Allison, and Jonathan

Five Minute Friday: SACRIFICE

Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday community, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. 

The word this week is SACRIFICE.

free image vectorstock.com

I've been a parent for over 21 years, and I hope I don't sound like I'm looking for a Nobel Prize when I say that parenting involves a lot of sacrifice. Parenting may require us to sacrifice time, privacy, peace and quiet, plans, a clean tidy house ... oh, and sleep. A lot of sleep.

As a child I took very little conscious notice of the sacrifices my parents made for me and my brothers. They weren't passive-aggressive "Why aren't you grateful for all I've done for you!" types, so I never felt the weight of guilt or shame that we kids were preventing them from enjoying the life they might otherwise have had if they hadn't been parents.

We were their life. I know that now. Maybe it's because I'm a parent, or maybe it's just because I've grown up and can see the extent to which they sacrificed in great and small ways for our happiness.

That's what this poem of mine, "On whom his favour rests," tries to capture: the spirit of sacrifice that comes from a heart of love.

On whom his favour rests

We watched from the kitchen window as Dad plunged down

the lane through knee-deep snow, flashlight beam bobbing

ahead, to start the truck. Exhaust plumed round the red

tail lights, and soft snow flurried as he brushed off the hood

and windshield. Afterward, he walked back to the barn to hitch

the horse to the sleigh, then drove it to the door for Mom

and the boys and me to climb on. We sat on bales he’d placed

on the sleigh bottom, and held tight for the lurching ride

down the lane to where the truck sat running. While we waited

in the warm cab, he returned the sleigh to the barn, tied up the horse,

and came back to the truck at last. At the time, we were so impatient:

it was Christmas concert night, and we wanted to be at the church

already, to shrug out of our coats, don angel wings or

shepherd’s robes, and act out the greatest story again. Yet

now what I think of when I recall that night is not my lines

or cues, or even the news of great joy, but the whickering sound

of the horse’s breaths, the creak of wooden shafts on leather harness,

how the stars swung shivering overhead, and how my father

did without complaint all he could to give us those times of wonder

and bring all the peace on earth our hearts could hold.

Five Minute Friday: PRAISE ("Excellent job!")

Today I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, where we write for five minutes about a given prompt.

This week's word: PRAISE.

This morning I took Jonathan to the dentist for a checkup and cleaning.

Dentist visits with an autistic child can be challenging, but now that we've been going to this clinic for several years, Jonathan seems very comfortable with it. He actually looks forward to going, maybe in part because he likes being fussed over by all the women on staff. They also make sure to schedule him for the first appointment of the day, which ensures that our wait will be minimal.

One of his favourite people in the office is Erica, one of the dental hygienists. They greeted each other enthusiastically this morning. 

Erica knows about Jonathan's interest in garbage and recycling, and she knows that his favourite part of the appointment is throwing away all the trash: wrappers, gauze, used gloves and masks. 

So while Jonathan was lying in the chair, Erica said, "Look, I'll pile everything up here for you, and when we're all finished you can throw it away."

To Erica's great amusement, Jonathan replied, "Excellent job!"

He uses this expression when he sees someone shoveling a driveway or sweeping a floor or raking leaves.

He compliments fast food workers, janitors, garbage truck drivers, and construction workers.

Everyone needs praise.

Everyone needs to know they're appreciated for what they do.

Everyone needs, now and then, to be told they're doing an excellent job.

Five Minute Friday: INCLUDE

Today I'm joining Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. This week's word is INCLUDE.

I teach an online university course in academic essay-writing. In our course, students learn how to develop a thesis statement, an outline, and strong introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs.

One problem faced by many student writers (writers of all kinds, really) is not knowing how much information to include. So we put a lot of emphasis on having a plan -- a thesis statement that sets a road map for the rest of the essay. It's a useful metaphor. If you're trying to get from Kingston to Montreal, then your road map will include stops along that journey; you don't have to worry about including Toronto in your road map because that's not part of a Kingston-Montreal trip. Likewise, in an essay, if you narrow your topic or thesis sufficiently -- let's say, you decide to write an essay about diabetes in children -- then you don't need to worry about including information about adult diabetes, because that's not part of your topic, so it's not on your road map.

Another metaphor I often use is the recipe. I tell students, "Have a general idea of what you want to make first, before you go grocery shopping. Are you going to make lasagna? or cabbage rolls? or trifle? Then look for ingredients that will contribute to that dish; don't just go the store and wander around selecting ingredients that look interesting but might not end up working together." Likewise, with an essay, they should have at least a basic idea of where they think their essay might go so that they can decide what information, sources, or data to include -- and what to exclude.

These are great principles, yet there are also times when a student will contact me and ask, "Is it OK if I change my topic? I started gathering information and realized I really want to write about X, not Y." I've even had students start out taking one side of an argument and, as they worked on their essay, ending up with exactly the opposite argument. So as much as I urge planning, outlines, and clear thesis statements, I also want to encourage students to be changed by the process of writing rather than to be so narrowly focused that they can't see anything beyond their specific parameters.

I't s a paradox, isn't it? Sometimes -- whether in writing or in life -- we need to hold our plans, road maps, and recipes loosely. Sometimes we need to make room to include something that wasn't on the original agenda.

Sometimes we plan the journey; sometimes the journey plans us. 

Five Minute Friday: SIMPLIFY

Today I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. This week's word is SIMPLIFY.

In my job as a writing instructor, I often advise students to simplify their sentences.

Sometimes inexperienced writers think that they have to sound formal and sophisticated, so they write sentences like this:

The intimidation felt by the students results in a tendency toward expressing ideas in overly flowery prose.

So I ask them to look at the basic core of the sentence -- its subject and its verb -- and ask themselves, "Who is doing what in this sentence?"

In the sentence above, INTIMIDATION (the subject) RESULTS (the verb) in a tendency toward expressing. Uh ... that's kind of confusing and abstract. Have you ever seen intimidation result in a tendency toward expressing? Kind of hard to visualize, isn't it?

So I suggest that they rewrite the sentence by focusing on who is actually doing something in the sentence. The revision might look like this:

When students lack confidence, they often write in overly flowery prose.

Ah... that's better! Who's doing something? Students. And what are they doing? They're lacking confidence and writing in flowery prose. I can visualize that: an intimidated student sitting hesitantly at her desk, thesaurus at her side, trying to make her writing sound sophisticated.

The second sentence is simpler, clearer, and more direct. The reader doesn't have to wade through a lot of abstract words to find that core idea.

Maybe it might be a good idea, now and then, to step back and ask ourselves what our simplified sentences are. What are our core ideas: the things that, when we get rid of all the extraneous padding, remain true and fundamental to our lives? Here are just a few that come to mind immediately for me:

"God made me and loves me."

"I'm called to be a wife and a mom of two special-needs kids."

"God's mercies are new every morning."

Sounds pretty simple, but maybe it's enough to keep me going for a while.

Five Minute Friday: EXCUSE

Is it Friday again already? Yes, which means it's time to join the Five Minute Friday linkup, where we write for five minutes on a given prompt. This week's word is EXCUSE.

I went to a salon this morning. The young staff member, whom I'd never met before, asked me what I did, so I told her I taught an online course in essay-writing at the university.

"Oh, I guess that's the way of the future," she said.

I told her that for many years the course had been offered by correspondence: I would walk to campus to pick up my papers, mark them by hand, and walk back to return them. But now, I said, everything is uploaded to the course website, so no student can use the excuse that they couldn't submit their essay because their dog ate it.

"No, a dog certainly can't eat a cyber paper," she laughed.

I had some fun looking up this cliche -- "The dog ate my essay" -- on Wikipedia. An early variation of this trope occurred in the early 1900's when a minister was filling in at a church in Wales. After the service, he tenatively asked the church clerk if the sermon had been all right -- and then he apologized that it might have been a little short because his dog had eaten part of the paper it was written on. 

Apparently the clerk responded by asking whether that dog might have any puppies -- the implication being that their regular vicar might also benefit from having his sermons cut short (or rather, chewed short) by a dog!

It's always tempting to look around for an excuse when something has gone wrong. I suppose humans have been doing that ever since the dawn of time, when Adam blamed his disobedience on Eve and she blamed hers on the serpent.

Sometimes we make excuses to try to avoid facing the consequences that we know, deep down, we deserve.

Or we make excuses because it's just too painful to admit that we've failed.

One of my favourite quotes is from author Henry Cloud: "The truth is always your friend." It's such a simple (almost simplistic) statement, but I think it has a lot of hidden depth and maybe that's why I find myself pondering it so often.

If the truth is really my friend, then I should stop making excuses for myself ... for other people ... even for God ... and embrace the truth and what it has to teach me.

Five Minute Friday: WORK (for my son, who is 15 today)

I'm linking up again with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. Today's word: WORK.

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Fifteen years ago today, at about 5:30 in the morning, I gave birth to Jonathan.

It was hard work.

I'd had a caesarean with Allison four years earlier but decided to try a normal delivery with our second. Jonathan was BIG --  nearly 9-1/2 pounds -- but I had a successful, hard-but-fast delivery with no meds other than a few puffs of laughing gas.

I was so proud of myself when I delivered him. It wasn't so much that I hadn't used meds: I have no judgment about that because every baby, every mother, every delivery is different and requires different approaches. But I felt as if giving birth to this big butterball was the hardest work I would ever do.

Fifteen years later, I realize that there are a lot harder things than giving birth to a large baby. One of them is parenting a boy who is on the autism spectrum, who has had seizures intermittently since 10 months of age, who is developmentally disabled. 

But I don't feel proud of myself anymore. I feel very, very humbled and inadequate and a little in awe of this now-fifteen-year-old who gets so excited about the simple things like the recycling truck and seagulls and clotheslines full of laundry, who is so funny and silly and so very exasperating. 

I guess I feel proud of him because he is so good at LIVING and never for one moment thinks that he's been shortchanged in any way. 

Happy birthday, Jonathan.

Five Minute Friday: WEAK

I'm linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday;  today's word is WEAK.

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As I mentioned last time, I teach an online course in essay-writing at Queen's University. A couple of weeks ago I was checking email on a Sunday afternoon and saw a message from a student who wanted me to look at her plans for the assignment she was working on, due the next day. It quickly became clear that this student needed some help to get on the right track. I made a few suggestions that I hoped would help her clarify her ideas so that she'd ultimately do much better on the assignment.

A little while later I received this reply:

"Thank you for taking time out of your Sunday afternoon to point out these flaws of mine."

She wasn't just grateful that I'd gone out of my way to accommodate her on a weekend ... she was grateful to have her flaws pointed out. 

And not only that: she asked for it! 

I don't make a point of asking others to comment on my weaknesses, at least not often. I do share my writing with my writers' group, and I try to welcome critical comments as well as praise -- but in general I find criticism painful, so I don't go around inviting others to "point out these flaws of mine."

Maybe I should, though. The Bible says that God's strength is perfected in weakness (II Cor. 12:9) and that God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong (I Cor. 1:27). 

So maybe I should be more open to recognizing my own weaknesses so that I can be more aware of the exact places in my life that God is showing his strength and power.

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Five Minute Friday: SAFE

Today I'm linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. Today's prompt word is "SAFE."

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I teach an online course in essay-writing at Queen's University here in Kingston. When I checked my email first thing this morning, there was the weekly electronic newsletter from the university -- and the first words that appeared at the top were "Providing a Safe Haven."

This is how the article with that headline began:

Queen’s announced today a number of additional measures to assist students and academics impacted by changes in entry and transit policies announced two weeks ago by the United States.

“As a university, it is our collective responsibility to do what we can to assist those in need,” says Principal Daniel Woolf. “By offering a safe haven for those impacted by this policy to continue their studies or their research, we are reaffirming the values of inclusion, diversity and equality that are central to our mission as a modern institute of higher education.”

I got thinking about what I do as an instructor to make my course a safe haven -- not only for those affected by the travel policies, but for all students.

One thing I have been doing this term is revising our course policy on gendered pronouns. Up to this point, I would have told students (and instructed my TAs to tell students) that a sentence like "A student must do their work" is wrong, because "student" is singular and "their" is plural. And I would advise revisions like "A student must do his or her work" to include both sexes.

*** (here's where the 5 minutes ended, but I had a bit more to say) ***

However, times are changing. Some students do not self-identify as male or female, so they don't consider "his or her" a helpful or accurate alternative. Usage in this area is undergoing a shift in the culture in general; the university has an express policy statement on this very matter.

So I'm changing our course material to reflect this shift, and I'm encouraging students to write in a way that acknowledges it as well. I want them to know that grammar is not more important than people, and that learning to write well is more than just knowing the rules.

I realize this is a hot-button issue for a lot of people, particularly Christians. And I don't see a direct commandment in the Bible about how I should handle a situation like this. There isn't much there about grammar, usage, or noun-pronoun agreement.

But when I rewrite this material, I feel as if I'm serving my students -- treating them the way I'd want to be treated. Maybe I'm making just one student feel a little safer.