Forever Tainted

In the middle of writing last night’s blog entry, my sister Kelly gave me a call. She has a whole pile of bullshit to deal with, with her ex-husband and a few court dates coming up. She will be in my thoughts over the next little while, as will my niece’s and nephew.

I wasn’t able to finish with all I had to say. I got a letter from the lawyer acting as executor of my mom’s estate, in the mail yesterday. It was a copy of what was sent to our lawyer in town. Here’s what it said:

Dear Sir:

Re: Estate of ******* **** ********

Further to our recent discussions, please find enclosed copy of the Administrator’s Accounting along with copies of the Consents and Releases signed by your clients.

Pursuant to the Irrevocable Direction to Pay, we also enclose our trust cheque in the sum of $**,***.**, payable to you in trust. This amount represents your clients’ collective share of the residue of the Estate of ******* **** *****.

We confirm we are holding Sheila Fouchier’s share as we await receipt of her signed Consent and Release and/or instructions. We hope to receive those instructions in the near future, and will be in contact with you at that time.

If you require anything further, please do not hesitate to contact my assistant, Pat.

Yours truly,
******* ****** *******

This was brilliant news to start the day! Sheila is no longer given the upper hand on this whole situation and now, she’s only hurting herself with her own stupidity. The rest of us will be forwarded cheques for the residue of the estate. We will conceivably be able to pick up our files from the law offices and finally get closure to it all. Perhaps, we will now be able to put my mom to rest for real.

I sure do miss her.

Anyway, it’s about time for me to go and do my daily meditation. It’s working.

I finally got a response from the lawyer today. It didn’t come without pulling teeth though. Here’s how the conversation goes:

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“Hello ***,
This is my 4th email to you about the status of my mother’s estate and whether or not Sheila’s refusal has had an effect on the same. There are two other beneficiaries here that are interested in the outcome who are looking to me for an answer. Are we going to get a cheque soon from my mom’s estate?
Martin and I are now questioning whether or not we wish to use you as legal counsel in the future as you are simply ignoring my request for an update. This is not what we look for in a lawyer at all.
As the legal executor of my mom’s estate, you have the right to charge us, but legally we question whether or not you have the right to ignore us when we have been as cooperative as we can about the entire situation.
If you could please update us as soon as possible on the same, we would appreciate the same much. We understand how frustrating it can be to deal with Sheila, but it is still not our fault.
Thanking you in advance for a response,
***”

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“Hi ***, I sincerely apologize for not getting back to you. I spoke with (insert name of nasty former fireman who is fucking my sister and thus thinks it’s his business to get involved) last month and he indicated that Sheila is not prepared to waive a formal accounting of the estate, as they feel I acted inappropriately in selling the trailers to Martin. I have given a lot of thought to how to proceed. A formal application to the court to approve the estate administration may be inevitable given Sheila’s refusal. However, I will be speaking to (insert name of very expensive lawyer) on Monday about this to see if there are any alternatives and will report back to you after our call.
***”

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“Thanks for the reply ***,
Is it safe for me to assume (and to tell others) that we are not going to get any money from my mom's estate, due to Sheila's refusal?”

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“Hi ***, we will try to have the cost of the court application paid out of Sheila’s share, but it is possible that everyone’s share will be reduced.
***”
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That fucking bitch and that dirty fat old bastard that’s fucking her, has issues with the executor selling my father the trailers for a thousand dollars after the appraisal came back and literally said they were worth nothing and should be recycled at the nearest dump. Do they really think they are going to get anywhere with this?

They’re not. Nope.

Just one more way that bitch can piss away any bits of remaining cash from my mom’s estate. It’s not bad enough she’s single-handedly forced us to spends thousands upon thousands of dollars on lawyers we would not otherwise need or want. But now, she has to deplete the little bit that’s less with an illogical refusal to end it all.

Some people truly are a waste of fucking air and should not have been born in the first place. This fucking cunt is the reason abortion should not only be legalized but FORCED upon some people. If my mom knew upon conception what Sheila would turn out to be and to do, there’s not a doubt in my mind she’d have aborted that fetus herself with a fucking hanger had she no other choice.

Sheila Fouchier (and all those dirty bastards who Google her name from time to time, know all you need to know about her is said in the next 7 words) you are a waste of human life.

It translates to:

my mother my heart
every sun must rise and set
(her signature)
July 23, 1954 – July 23, 2011

It hurt a fuck of a lot. But Lars let me squeeze his hand throughout – teasing me a little along the way. I smiled a whole lot too – being half naked in a public place was weird for me!

He’s scheduled for the 30th of November to have his sleeve done. While my little tattoo there took around 2 hours, what he has designed is estimated at 20 hours. I’ll only be able to pick on him for part of it, as I work late on the 30th.

I have mixed feelings about the way mine turned out. Jim is a very talented artist, but I feel the Arabic writing needs some work. In my eyes, it looks a little like an unlearned hand has written it – which is only natural as Jim of course, does not speak or write Arabic. I don’t think that he’ll have a problem thickening up the lines a bit. But I need time to heal first. He touched up the superiority stamp on my wrist and that looks a thousand times better than it did when dickhead finished it. Lars will have his touched up too by Jim.

We’ve had company all weekend, not a lot of time to rest or spend together. My father’s fucked his back up pretty bad and hasn’t gotten out of bed for a few days now. Pretty soon here, we’ll have to have the paramedics come round and get him, if the pain doesn’t let up. Lars has been tending to the birds, and I’ve been on alert – running up the stairs to help every time he screams out, or thumps loudly. I had to put the painkillers in his mouth and hold his drink up while he drank and swallowed them today. I’ve never had to tend to him like this before. Between the oddness of the situation, and my sincere fear for his pain, I shook as I assisted him in drinking and ended up pouring liquid all down his front – that he insisted I leave alone, even though he can’t move well enough to wipe himself up even.

I’m worried about him. Only once do I ever recall he’s been like this before in Dubai. He spent 3 or 4 days in bed and I remember hearing his screams as he tried to move. I hope he’s better soon.

Lars has come back from the pens. We’ve cleaned the kitchen and now we’re about to cuddle up with a drink and watch some crappy TV, play some video games. I suppose this is all for now.

I’m not really sure how I’m best to react to your Facebook friend request. I don’t know where it has come from or why you’ve decided you’d finally like to be a part of my life. We haven’t spoken in 17 years. I am very angry at you – more so since my mom died. I’m a grown enough person that I know I can let go of my anger eventually. What concerns me more is whether or not you’ll ever be able to accept how justified my anger towards you is. It really doesn’t matter whether you do or don’t; it’s more that I don’t have room in my life for negativity of any sort – and don’t have the energy even bother if you won’t be able to accept me for all that I am including my feelings towards you. I don’t want to bother, if being me will be met with negativity from you.

I am a grown woman. I’m pretty content with my life the way it is. But that really hasn’t always been the case – and I blame you for a lot of it. I have a father. His name is Martin. He has supported me emotionally for the majority of my life. He is the only person I have ever and will ever know as a father.

I don’t know you. And you don’t know me. To be blunt, I can be a fucking bitch and I’ve said some really nasty things about you because I feel some really nasty things towards you. I won’t ever take them back. I won’t ever be sorry for the way I feel or the things I have said. As far as I’m concerned you deserved them.

What I can do is leave the past, the person you were to my mother and the person you weren’t to me, in the past. And if you’re willing to accept me for who and what I am today – even if that hasn’t always been the most flattering person for you, I can try to accept you for who and what you are today. I will welcome your entrance in my life as I would any long lost relative. If you’re not willing to accept me and my feelings towards you, I have no interest in being your friend – not on Facebook or elsewhere, and I would appreciate it much if you didn’t even bother to reply to this email.

~*~

In a month and a half, I’ll be turning 30 - or what I tend to answer when people ask: 25 for the 6th time. I’m not sure why people want to interpret that for twenty-five times six, when I really mean, when I turned 25 it was the 1st time, the following year it was the 2nd time, so on, and so on. Perhaps it says a lot about people’s psyche. Perhaps it says a lot about my own. I don’t know. I just know that as per usual, what seems commonsense for me… isn’t so much for the majority.

I don’t really have an issue with being 30. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to embrace getting older. I’ve spent a lot of time letting go of a childhood and a youth many argue I never really got to have. As I get older, I get a greater understanding. I got to have both a childhood and a youth. Mine was just so very varied from others; I got the chance to have a different perspective, a different view of the world and my life as well as others.

I had a great childhood, full of alcoholism and poverty. I had brilliant youth, full of learning to love and lose, and all else that is great in the world. And now… now I’m having a great adulthood. The only thing that is really lacking is my eagerness to be a child again.

And no… I don’t mean be a child in the sense that most would. I mean be a child when it was easy to stay in touch with those you love: when making time, space and putting effort in to be with those who meant the world to you was effortless. My regret is not making a better effort.

Tonight, I spoke to an old friend. Or rather, he feels a lot like an old friend though, I really haven’t known him long enough to call him that: maybe a year or two. The point, I love him with all my heart – yet I don’t talk to him daily, weekly, or even monthly. Today after we spoke, I sent him a text wishing we both make a better effort to stay in touch in the future. I’ve made that request before of other friends… it’s just that tonight I realized how important it might really be to follow through.

I’ve lost the one person I love and admire most on this planet. In light of that, I realize how important it is to keep those you truly love close to you. Know, that if I’m pointing this at you (and even for some of you I haven’t because it hasn’t occurred to me you read my blog or didn’t know it already even), I love you. I want to thank you for being a part of my life.

I love shiny things, which is one reason I adored Leah S’s nickname for Lars, ‘Shiny Lars’ – the implication being, I help make him shiny. In return, he sure helps keep me shiny too: both literally and metaphorically.

As the legal proceedings for my mom’s estate slowly come to an end, I was recently called into the law office to collect the necklace my mom had left me, the bracelet she left to my sister Kelly and the large Ruby and diamond ring she left to my brother Jesse. Each piece is stunning, though I certainly was left the prize of the lot. The 18k specialty gold chain was appraised more than 15 years ago for over $7500, the matching bracelet left to Kell, more than $2000. More importantly, the necklace was purchased by the one of the Sheikhs in Dubai in 1993, of my father’s choice to bring home to my mom as a gift, with hopes she’d agree to go to visit them the following year. It was all partially about helping her make up her mind about moving us all out there eventually. The following year, when my mother did go with my father to visit, they bought the matching bracelet and my mom made up her mind. We were moving to Dubai. My mother wore the set up until it was believed the weight of it was causing her nerve damage in her arms. So in 2005 when they returned to Canada from Dubai to visit, it went from her neck to the safety deposit box. It was her all-time favourite piece of jewellery, with family history that helped mould the rest of our lives together and I am honoured to wear it now. I am thankful my beautiful sister Kelly will have the matching bracelet.

The ruby ring is almost iconic of my mom, the design so traditionally hers. The quality is perfect excepting the damage created in her last years when she started soldering rings together to make room, or free up fingers, for new additions to her collection. This ring in particular was soldered to the diamond engagement ring my father gave her, that she willed to Sheila, that disgrace of a human being; I hate to refer to as my sister. We expect that ring will be pawned in no time.

My brother, in financial hardship has offered to sell me the ruby ring for a few hundred dollars. I have agreed to purchase it (believing it’s probably worth less), wanting to keep this icon in our family and not trusting that it will last long with him, as he has a very transient lifestyle and very few possessions he holds on to; excepting his computer. Since I don’t have the cash at this moment, I’m so very thankful for Lars to be there, to help make me shinier than he has already.

Still wearing the very first bracelet my father gave my mom, and in possession of the $5 cheap Abalone ring – the very first piece of jewellery he ever bought her, I’m starting to feel a lot like her. My hands resemble hers (you’d be quick to call me a gypsy with all these rings – as many teased her); my neck and wrists also decorated as hers were, I feel heavily shiny and a heavy presence of my mom with me. For some reason, I also feel a lot of guilt. I feel like the jewellery is not mine, but hers. I feel like it should still be decorating her lively self. I feel like my mom should still be alive to wear her own precious pieces.

I wonder if those feelings will ever change…

When I came back to Canada three years ago, I allowed myself to somewhat join in on the Christmas festivities. Christmas was after all, my, like every other child’s, favorite holiday. Religiously, no longer a celebrator, I still worked my full eight hours last year and the year before, and I took the most undesirable shift possible (so someone who celebrates didn’t have to).

Last year was a bit different though, as it was the first Christmas without my mom. Everyone was set in his or her thoughts that Christmas would be terribly glum. I did everything in my power to make that impossible. I did everything I could to create a brilliant Christmas for my loved ones. I thought maybe, it could offer us all hope.

I brought home a tree and I decorated it. I bought countless gifts for my family, and Sam (who was at that time staying at my house) and her daughter (who I would pick up from her father’s house to join us on Christmas morning). I knew there would be very little under the tree for me as my family here consisted of my brother, who can’t seem to hold onto a job and my father, who though generous all year round, has never been good at gifts on demand. Sam was financially inept and totally selfish, so it came as no surprise that she spent what little money she had saved by not paying rent on herself, her daughter and her new boyfriend.

I didn’t want a single person to feel bad on Christmas morning. And I figured they would, if they opened gifts while I sat empty-handed. So, while I stuffed stockings for others, I also stuffed one for myself. I bought myself small gifts and wrapped them. I failed to sign my name to any single gift under the tree, so it wasn’t obvious to anyone, not even Sam’s daughter, that I had purchased 99% of them.

And Christmas last year was a hit. Everyone had a great time, and my heart was filled with absolute joy. The only thing that was missing was my mom. I know if she were looking down, she’d be proud of the Christmas I single-handedly created, despite my personal religious convictions.

This year, I have way less money than last, but I cannot help feel the festivities in the air.

We bought a live tree instead of cut, feeling it is more environmentally friendly and convenient to do so. Live trees don’t drop as many needles and we can put it outside after the holiday’s, watch it grow till next year when we’ll bring it in and decorate it again.

I have been shopping since mid-October, to make up for any financial loss and ensure that everyone is again spoiled. And this year, thanks to Lars, I too will be sincerely spoiled; He’s stuffed my stocking and bought me gifts and I won’t know what they are until I open them on Christmas morning. My father has thrown money at the both of us either by shopping with us or refusing rent payments, to help purchase necessities and gifts on his behalf.

The closets and nooks in the house are already filled with beautifully wrapped boxes, contents unknown. The excitement reminds me of when I was a little girl. And there are still 18 days left!

The days shall go by quickly, as I head to Squamish again on the 14th for a few days. I am not necessarily looking forward to it. It’s colder there and they’ve got snow, I’ve been told. I really don’t have the choice though… On the 9th I have legal documents to sign, and who knows what else will happen in between.

Religiously, I’m not meant to celebrate this favorite holiday of mine. But these days I can feel the importance of taking part in what your family celebrates and it by no means changes my religious convictions. Besides, I can still remember one Christmas in Dubai, my refusal to celebrate Christmas brought my mother to tears... It was simply wrong, offensive, and selfish of me. I feel the same may very well be true today.

I laughed though it really wasn’t funny. It was a nervous laughter, as I sincerely didn’t know how to answer the question, “do you consider a permanent coma, paralysis from the neck down, or any condition that would require permanent life support and intolerable (unacceptable) condition?”

I was in the Notaries Public office and having just signed off on my Last Will (created for the purpose of keeping two unscrupulous people, I have the misfortune of being related to, away from my estate and personal remains). I had already signed Power of Attorney over to my father and was in the process of signing my “Health and Personal Care Instructions for Representative(s) or Family And Friends, in accordance with Act, s9 Representation Agreement Act, s.16”: a stepping stone before actually signing away my sanity under the Ulysses act. Ulysses act is something serious though. It must be signed in the presence of an attorney, in order for it to be legal. Here’s what is says:

The adult authorizes her Representative to:

(a) physically restrain, move, or manage the adult, or have the adult physically retrained, moved, or managed, when necessary despite the objections of the adult;
(b) give consent, in the circumstances specified in the agreement, to specified kinds of heath care, even though the adult is refusing to give consent at the time health care is provided;
(c) refuse consent to specified kinds of health care, including life-supporting care or treatment;
(d) give consent to specified kinds of health care, including one or more of the kinds of health care prescribed under section 34 (2) (f) of the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act;
(e) accept facility care proposal under the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act for the adult’s admission to any kind of care facility;
(f) make arrangements for th temporary care, education and financial support of
i. the adult’s minor children, and
ii. any other persons who are cared for or supported by the adult;
(g) do, on the adult’s behalf, any thing that can be done by an attorney and that is not mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (f) or in section 7 (1);
(h & i) Repealed 2001-2-30

Tomorrow, I call to make an appointment with the attorney to literally sign away my sanity in accordance with that act. My mother lost her mind. My worst fear is that I will too. What I’m doing now is being prepared.

It scares the fuck out of me. It makes my death a reality. But it has to be done.

Mom...


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She won’t let me work. She’s on my lap, demanding attention. The more I try to push her away, the more demanding she gets. So I finally let her up. She’s not content to just sit on my lap, she needs me to be cuddling and caressing her between calls. She purrs and licks my chin until I pet her, and then she purrs some more. The cat’s tongue feels like sandpaper – must be nature’s way of helping her clean herself?

Her name is Diablo, but we call her SnowPus because when we had that really bad winter a few years back, we discovered she adores the snow. She was my mom’s ‘vacation cat’. As in, my mother came back to Canada for a two-month vacation from Dubai one year, and couldn’t stand living without a cat so bought this pure white kitten, and trusted my brother to look after her when mom went home. My brother did take care of her, and my mom moved back to Canada a year or so later, bringing a zoo of animals including 7 cats with her.

When mom died, she left behind SnowPus, and 4 of the 7 cats she’d come back from Dubai with (the other three died before mom did – and my mom cried her eyes out every time). She also left us Max, the rat-like Chihuahua. At this very moment, Max is cuddled in bed with Lars who is getting some much-needed rest; SnowPus is on my lap purring away and the other 4 cats are up stairs or out in the yard doing what cats do.

Exactly a year ago today, or rather midnight tonight, is the exact time my brother called me to tell me mom was on her way to the hospital again, by ambulance. Less than 5 hours later, around 4:30am on July 23rd, she suffered the last of 7 heart attacks she’d had that night and died. On July 23rd, just after 3pm, I sat next to the hospital bed that my mom’s body was laying on – and through my tears, wished her a happy 55th birthday.

We later learned that the cause of her heart attacks, the cause of her death was Septicaemia (otherwise known as blood poisoning). A week or so earlier, she was diagnosed with blood poisoning, caused by a cat-bite she’d gotten while trying to save SnowPus’s life from the grips of Wrinky; the three-legged cat that came home from Dubai with her. Wrinky bit into my mother hard. It’s safe to assume through my mother’s binge drinking, blacking out, and pure lack of self-concern, she didn’t take any prescribed medicines and if she did, she didn’t take them correctly.

My mom lived her whole life catering to cats. She collected cats – both live and those created artistically. Every ornament she ever bought had a cat on it, every shirt she ever wore, and every set of dishes the ever purchased with glee. She was so obsessive about cats; she used to joke about whom she was going to leave her cat collection to when she passed. We contemplated opening a cat museum, or a cattery for people to board cats in her care.

Wrinky bit into my mom, while my mom tried to save another of her cats from her. Wrinky herself, coincidently, had been saved by my mother’s pure heart years before, when my mom asked for her birthday gift only to be that Wrinky get the surgery that cost thousand’s of dollars and left her a leg short, after being hit by a car. The three-legged cat still lives with us today, but she’s kept separate from SnowPus at all times. And when in err the two do cross paths in the yard, they immediately start off where they left off - trying to kill each other.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a greater irony. The very creature she’d spent the majority of her life trying to save helped induce my mom’s death...

If every month could be July, and every day be the 23rd, I’d wish that true so that everyone remember you… always. I miss you mom.

This month has been hard. Thoughts of you haunt me at night, when I go to bed. And I never see you healthy. I always seem to see the sick, disturbed, even deranged you. It keeps me awake. So I take pill… then another… and another. I’m certain Lars thinks I have a problem. Maybe he’s right. But I was disturbed before you died. And then I found your bottle. You’d recently been prescribed the same meds as I. I knew all along mom. If only your cunt of a mother hadn’t taught you shame… we’d have lived through this together. You’d not be dead.

So many things killed you. So many things to blame... So many little things that would have saved you… If just one of them wasn’t the way they were…

But time and time again, I blame another portion. The Canadian system, alcohol, your mother, the doctors, those who watched you die… Deep down I know, blame does no one any good. It was your time.

But it’s not mine. I’m not ready to mourn you. And it hurts today if it was yesterday. And I don’t care if today is not the 23rd. I miss you and am mourning you now damn it!

You should not be gone so soon. Lars and I are throwing around the idea of having a baby one day. How can I do that without you?