A Drop of Rain (24 page)

to find the sensation of tenderness again.

You are how you are—

you, for whom the clouds and birds

sing.

I am

an awkward, crippled witch full of complex simplicity.

I climb the stairs to find my life

enclosed

in your hand.

I don't know why

but it is there.

My life

your life

password

of the magic square of——Avenue

by way of the fourth dimension

to the fifth

all equally important.

The little cat Mitsou

plays with the light.

The sun lingers beyond the window.

You tell me

“I don't need you.”

You gave me

even so

the most beautiful gift

important and difficult—

You.

It is difficult to live in emptiness.

It is difficult to live against the times,

against all the hostile forces.

But you know

I am going to try to do the impossible,

and I do not accept defeat.

And

so

accept

by kindness

my failures

which

wound you and set you

against me.

In searching for lost sense,

in searching for lost times,

at war against all absurdity

—all false evidence—

I take you

as clear light, as faint light,

as light

for the way

to I don't know where.

I should like to give something—

a drop of rain

that is not too acid

without any importance

which by chance

reflects the universe

—a home

for wanderers

and birds,

a refuge

for renewal.

After I picked up Mary's daughter at the airport and brought her to Eva's, Naomi hugged me and thanked me!

The semester is over. Eva needs to rest and grieve. I am holidaying with the boys.

I took the boys skiing for several days. I also took them to Toronto several times. We did the Ontario Science Centre and the Royal Ontario Museum. We
let Curtis get on with passing his exams, working at the store and courting Naomi.

Hanna has taught me, among other things, that life's too short to do what you don't believe in.

I will retire from teaching as soon as possible.

I will earn a living in a way that does not exhaust me.

I will allow myself to be directed from within.

Sunday, December 26, 1999

In Grandma's postcard from Hawaii, the water is blue, the palm fronds are green, and the sand is pinkish. In Mapleville today, the sky is grey, the tree trunks are black, and the snow is white. This afternoon, Mary wanted to sleep, so Joe, Mom, Anne and I went for a walk in the big nature park outside Mapleville. Curtis didn't come because he is in Windsor visiting his grandparents.

Anne loves wild animals almost as much as Curtis does. I'm glad I explored this park today, because now I will be able to talk with Curtis about something that interests him.

Mary still has some pain, and she is weak from her operation, but she is very happy to have Anne with her.

Anne spent all day every day at the hospital while Mary was there. I only went after school. Before and after the operation, Mary's dark-grey eyes kept locking on my eyes or Anne's. After the operation, as
Anne and I stood on either side of Mary's bed in Intensive Care, Mary held our hands—one hand of each of us. Mary was grateful to be alive. Anne and I were like chains holding her to life.

Anne and Mary spend a lot of time talking quietly in Mary's room. Mom and I try to give them as much privacy and space as possible, and they do the same for us.

When we got back from our walk in the nature park, Mom went to her room, Anne went to hers, and Joe went home. I went to my room too. I lay down to think about everything, and I almost fell asleep. Suddenly some music for “The Blind Man's Song” started to play in my semi-unconscious mind.

As the darkness outside deepened, the music got louder and clearer. I went upstairs to the living room to try out the chords quietly on the piano and scribble them down on paper. Soon the whole piece was finished.

Then I sat on the couch for a while looking at our tiny Christmas tree. Mom and I don't believe in chopping down live trees to make temporary decorations, so we haul out the same little plastic tree every year. This year, the tree is on top of the book shelf in the livingroom. Hanging on the wall beside the tree is the sad but lovely “Fallen Bird” picture that Curtis won a prize for. Curtis gave me the picture for Christmas. I was thrilled.

I gave Curtis a big box of oil paints. He likes my present a lot.

I felt peaceful. Although Hanna died so tragically and so recently, my life seemed beautiful.

Mom really likes Mary and Anne. She says helping them helps her feel “slightly less devastated” about Hanna.

Joe and Curtis moved Mary's stuff to our house in Joe's truck.

Mary lives farther from the Catholic church now, but a priest will come to our house once a week to give Mary communion and hear her confessions.

Anne has to help Mary a lot. For example, Anne often brings little meals to Mary on a tray, so Mary can eat in bed.

Anne brought lots of photos of Mary's grandchildren. Mary looks at the photos over and over again.

The doctors think they caught Mary's cancer early enough, so it won't come back. Mary has to take lots of pills, though. She also has to eat a special diet, rest and see the surgeon every few months for a check-up. She won't be able to walk to church for a long time yet. But eventually she will be able to live more or less normally, as long as she is careful.

Mary can't go back to working full time, however, because that would be too hard for her physically and psychologically.

Mary is going to sew clothes for Mom and me, as well as for her grandchildren. Already Mary is planning to turn our backyard into a magnificent vegetable garden. Our front yard will be a lovely flower garden.

Curtis is talented, intelligent, sincere and funny. Also handsome and sexy.

I'm doing really well in English so far. (Thanks, Mrs. H.) I got a “B” in biology and an “A” on my history project. Mr. Dunlop wrote that I had “organized my material well.”

Maybe I am going to be a doctor or a nurse, if I don't want to have a clothing boutique. Mom says my great-grandmother was studying to be a doctor when she dropped out of university to get married. She says I have other relatives who were doctors too. Actually, she says, I am becoming like one of them: Dr. Zosia.

Mom met Dr. Zosia in Poland twenty years ago, when Dr. Zosia was a very old lady. Mom says Dr. Zosia was a mentor for Mary. What a coincidence that I met Mary!

I sent a copy of my project to my father.

I noticed a young, red-tailed hawk on a leafless tree branch beside the highway as Mom and I were driving back from Windsor after visiting her family for a few days.

Mom's older sister, Aunt Edith, says Mom should forget Steve completely and find another man. Grandma says Mom should start going to church again, do good deeds, and forget about men. Gramp doesn't say much, except “Hmph.”

They all agree I did “real good” this term. They sincerely hope I “keep on learnin' and stay outta trubble.”

I spent most of the visit in Gramp's workshop, doing a painting of glaucous and Iceland gulls against the background of a lake freighter docked on the Detroit River. Naomi gave me a great set of oil paints for Christmas.

Aunt Edith and Grandma said the painting was “real nice”, almost as good as “wun-a-them-paint-by-numbers-pitchers”. Gramp said, “Hmph.”

Mom and I talked a lot during the drive back from Windsor. We laughed about the stuff her family said, but we also sort of agreed with them. They've got a lot of common sense.

I moved back in with Mom. She needs someone to shovel her snow this winter. Steve is definitely out of her life. I'll still visit Joe. We're good friends now.

Had a long talk with Dad on the phone. He's moved back to Edmonton, and he'll have more time now for our long-distance calls and summer visits.

Naomi and I can go out to Edmonton together next summer.

She will drag me to the West Edmonton Mall for shopping, and I will drag her to Elk Island National Park for sketching.

I made sketches of the caged timber wolves at the local wildlife park, and now I'm doing an oil painting of a big male wolf leading his pack through the primeval forest at dawn.

You can tell the leader is the strongest, the fastest and the smartest.

His mate is also strong, fast and smart.

She is alluring.

Woo-oo!

I had many years of experience in my own country as a doctor, a specialist. I even received awards for my work. But in Canada I could not find a respectable, paying job.

I stayed with my brother for two years, keeping house and caring for his sick wife. Then, after his wife died, I stayed with my brother for another year. Then I got my Landed Immigrant papers, took English lessons and looked for a paying job.

I could find nothing better than cleaning. I would not mind doing this job, if I were not highly educated, and if people treated me with respect.

Here in Canada, however, people often seem to think cleaners are not worthy of respect. They write with lipstick on the mirror. They spill pop on new rugs. They throw sticky garbage on the floor. They stuff paper towels in the toilet.

I am shocked by the casual vandalism and waste here in Canada. The director of the Recreation Centre, one of the places I worked, talked about saving money. But he did nothing about reducing the graffiti and garbage.

What a terrible waste of my talents, education and experience! Why couldn't someone have given me some little job related to medicine? I didn't need perfect English to be an assistant in a hospital.

If one of my children could have joined me, it wouldn't have been so bad. But the Canadian government wouldn't let even one of them
immigrate. The government felt that I did not have enough money to sponsor a single grown child.

My child and I would have worked together. We would have found a way to manage in Canada without taking handouts.

It's too bad I didn't have enough money to go to school in Canada and requalify in my profession. My brother ate stale buns and lived in an unheated room while he requalified for engineering. And he wasn't so young then either.

The old fellow who owned the house where I rented a room was always complaining about foreigners coming here and taking away jobs from Canadians. I've never yet met any Canadian who wanted the jobs I did. Evenings, weekends, holidays—scrubbing toilets, sinks, floors. Usually all by myself.

Look at my red, swollen hands! My bulging knuckles! Those big, industrial metal buckets must weigh fifteen kilograms when they're full of water. Some days, I couldn't believe I could lift them.

I myself weigh only fifty kilograms!

“You're as skinny as a beanpole!” the old fellow said where I rented a room.

“You look like a pregnant cow!” I said to him.

He was angry, but his wife and I laughed. They were not so bad, the old couple. They were kind. Certainly, I preferred to live with
them
rather than with drunkards in a rooming house.

When I first left my brother's home in the country, I lived in a rooming house in Mapleville. The owner of the house was well off, but he never cleaned the place. The hallways smelled of urine. Many of the
tenants drank. One of them came after me with a knife as I returned from work.

“Do you love me?” he asked, waving the knife. “Do you love me?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “I love you very much!”

Then I jumped inside my room, shut the door and locked it. The next day I phoned my brother and told him what had happened.