November 22, 1989

I was running late that morning, so I took a cab to work instead of the streetcar. That's how I missed the phone call from my mother. At 10am, I had just finished my break and logged back onto the phone line in the information unit at Customs in Toronto. I worked the phones before voice boxes and automated messages, in the days when we averaged 250 calls per day...per officer. As soon as I heard my mom's voice on the phone, I knew something was wrong. First of all, it was 10am, and she should have been at work. Second, she never called during peak phone hours. Third, mom never called me at work.

"Lisa, it's your mother."

"What's wrong, mom..."

"It's your father."

"What's wrong?"

"Well...he's dead."

I have no idea what else she told that day, except that my cousin was on her way to get me and I had to come home. My poor cousin Pat, we were not friends then. We were still working our way through a bunch of leftover teenage crap. She had been hijacked halfway to Toronto for a business meeting by her older brother, and charged with the duty of telling her not-very-close cousin that her father had just died. She didn't know what to say; my mom had already said it. Thankfully, she made sure that I packed correctly for the days to come. I had grabbed sweats and pyjamas, my cat and my makeup and I was good to go. She made sure I had a slip, an extra blouse, pantyhose, underwear...everything I needed for the funeral ahead. I had to make a trip back for my jeans and my car later; the family wouldn't let me drive myself, which was probably a good thing.

Mom had found dad that morning when she went to wake him to drive her to work. She always felt guilty that she was sitting in the kitchen eating her breakfast, letting dad sleep, glad he was having a good sleep for a change, never realizing that sleep would no longer be an issue for him. It must have been awful. I took comfort in the fact that I had talked to dad the night before he died, and the last words I ever said to him were "I love you daddy, I'll talk to you later." There are many years when that would not have been the last words we'd said to each other, indeed if we'd said anything at all. I tend to end my conversations with people I love by telling them. I learned that you never know what you might never again get the chance to say.

The days that followed are surreal. My aunt Gerry and aunt Linda arrived by nightfall, armed to the teeth with food. Harveys eat when we're stressed, and other Harveys feed. It's what we do. I came down the next morning, and there was a ham in the oven, two pots of soup on the stove, chili in the crockpot, and Auntie Gerry was standing on a chair in the hallway washing walls in her nightgown...and I thought it was fine and normal. Mom and I were in a fog. The Aunts told us to eat; we ate. I handled the phone calls that started as news spread, shaking uncontrollably while calmly giving the details of the funeral. No, there would be no visitation. The funeral would be Saturday morning, to give the rest of our family time to get there. The Donovans were travelling in the US; Auntie Kay needed time to get home for her brother's funeral. No, there's nothing you can do. Of course you should still go on your trip to Jamaica. It's okay. We understand. And we did.

My dad and mom had a burial plot in St. Eugene, Ontario, in between Ottawa and Montreal, beside my mom's father and mother. They had bought it for $75, including perpetual care, after my grandfather Harvey died. This is rural Ontario; they dig the graves by hand down home. It was November; the ground was frozen. Internment would have to wait for the spring thaw. My dad's family tried very hard to convince mom to buy a plot in Waterloo. I had to leave the room while the family discussed the location for plunking my father in the ground like he was a pet or a tree...I wanted to scream "you're talking about my daddy..." but I didn't. I left. Dad's brother Norman got his way on one thing, though. The casket was open. I wanted it closed; the Cheesemans wanted it open. I caused a minor guffufle by refusing to go past the middle of the room, and I never went near the casket. The corpse did not look like my dad, and even though I'd ironed the shirt personally that he was dressed in, I wasn't going near it. I wanted to remember my dad as he was, not as a waxen, made up stranger.

I wondered why so many people felt that we needed to know that dad died the same day as John Kennedy...like that somehow made dad's death better because he shared the day with such an important and sad day in history. It didn't. I didn't need history to remember the day my dad died.

We got through it all, somehow. My aunt Betty came up, and stayed with us for a week after. I called the various places about the various bits of dad's life. I picked up the things from the funeral home, read the cards without comprehension, wrote my thank you notes, did what I was expected to do to support my mother in this horrible time...and marvelled in my occasional clear and lucid moments that no one was asking about me and how I was doing. I was always the "strong and capable one"; of course I was fine. Little did they know...I read the notes from people in my dad's life who seemed to know a different person than I did. My mom got rid of all the cards awhile ago in one of her "get rid of the junk" sweeps. I wished she'd asked me first, because I would have liked to keep them.

You find out who your real friends are in times of crisis. People I would have counted as friends were not. People I called chums or acquaintances drove from Toronto for the funeral, and held me up in the days to come. My close friends were there for me when it mattered. Wendy hunted me down in the basement of the church, and Janie fielded a hysterical phone call from me 2 weeks later when I was back in Toronto, and my mom was sick with pneumonia in Kitchener. The 20 something adult knew she was fine; the 10 year old child was terrified to lose her mom too. Janie talked me off the emotional ledge. They are still my close friends.

People can be callous. Someone I worked with, a seeming adult, commented that she didn't know why I was upset because it was not like I'd lost my "real" father since I was adopted. I came very close to throwing her out a window. Another clerk in a store demanded to see the death notification when I returned my father's already-purchased Christmas gifts. I pulled it out and slammed it on the counter and he processed the refund while a stranger, who I have since come to realize was probably an angel, held me tight in her arms as I shook. She disappeared before I got her name, but not before reporting the clerk's behaviour to the manager of the store. The clerk was fired on the spot, which made me feel worse rather than better.

Many of the things in my life that dad would have been most proud of have happened in the 19 years since he died. I completed my Masters in Political Science, I married, and I have an amazing little girl who would have run circles around her grandfather. She would have been charmed by the stub of his index finger; generations of kids were. My husband and my dad would have gotten along well; I married a card player.

I feel my dad's presence constantly. He hangs around to check up on us and watch his granddaughter. The morning after his sister, Kay died, two doves arrived on my deck in the middle of winter, and sat, watching Laura as she played in the kitchen. I've always associated doves with my father, since I started to notice them around after he died. I'm sure his sister brought her brother to see his granddaughter. Auntie Kay is the only one of his siblings who had seen her, after all.

So time passes. My mother and I still go to church together on November 22 to acknowledge dad's passing, and today will be no different. The tears are less frequent now, and sharp pain has faded to a dull ache. I found a box of pictures that had belonged to my father after my aunt died. My mom had forgotten they were there. I mourned dad all over through the loss of his sister, because she was my last link to the childhood he never spoke of, to the identity of the people in the pictures in the box that he never spoke of, to the haunted look in his eyes on Remembrance Day. The tears still come; just not as often or as acute. The love remains, and the misunderstandings and hurts of my youth have been balmed by maturity and adult insight. I love you daddy. I miss you...and I get it now.

Ghosts

I've been keeping company with ghosts this week. Saturday will mark the 19th anniversary of my father's death, and he's been hanging around quite a bit this week. We were never really close when he was alive but I feel his presence often now. He died before I ever got the chance to get to know the man, rather than the father. I blogged about it on Fathers' Day.
http://lisamaccoll.blogspot.com/2008/06/fathers-day.html

Three other ghosts kept me company this week. A few days ago, I attended the Christmas show of the Waterloo Potters' Guild. I love handmade things, and the potters in our area are a talented bunch. I was on a mission to pick up some Christmas gifts, and replace a couple of the pottery mugs that had been broken over the course of the year. As I wandered the aisles, my eyes grew teary because of the presence of a few people that I had lost to cancer...or their spiritual presence anyway.

I saw a dragonfly in pottery and immediately thought of my friend Andrea, who fought hard to the end. http://lisamaccoll.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html. I have a similar dragonfly hanging in my home, purchased the year Andrea died. It's a constant reminder of my feisty and courageous friend.

This time last year, I ran into my friend Julianne's mom Edelgard at the show. She loved pottery, and their home was filled with it. She was looking healthy and was laughing with friends over a shared joke. She had had a hard battle with breast cancer, and seemed to be on the other side of it...or so we thought. She was keeping a secret at the time; she'd already received the news that the cancer had returned and it was terminal. She didn't want to burden her family with that news at Christmas. We lost her in June this year. A warm, no nonsense person, a passionate reader, a teacher and a loving woman, I felt her presence acutely. I miss our chats on the phone when I phone to talk to Julianne. I would often stand visiting with her in the hall as I was leaving after visiting Julianne. I half expected to see her amongst the pots and platters, laughing and chatting with her friends. I miss her.

And finally, the presence of one person brought the tears to my eyes. Marguerite Szozda was a master potter, a true craftsperson, a generous spirit and someone I was glad to call my friend. Last year, she was in the final stages of cancer, but still had a booth at the show. She had mentored many of the younger potters, and they had promised her that they would tend her booth for her. They were as good as their word; her booth was immaculate, well displayed and never left unattended. The other potters told people about the remarkable woman whose hands had formed the bowls, pots and snowman tealight holders. I couldn't afford to buy one of her snowmen the previous year; last year, I couldn't afford not to. When I took the snowman to the cash, the person ringing through the order told me to "take special care of the snowman, because it was made by a very special person who was much loved." I confirmed her assessment, advising that I know Marguerite well. We lost her a couple of weeks before Christmas last year.

This year, Marguerite's husband, John, was working alone behind the scenes. He was putting boxes together, tidying displays, and helping out where he was needed...just like always. He and Marguerite were a team and it broke my heart to see him there alone. Marguerite would have approved. The other potters were joking and laughing with him, and I'm sure he took comfort being where he and Marguerite had spent so much time together. It gave him comfort; it broke my heart. He spotted me at the cash and came to say hello, and it was all I could do to keep the tears at bay. The ache in my heart was nothing to what his must have been.

And so I walk with my ghosts. I believe that the people who matter most to us don't leave us when they die, and we can feel their presence around us, and they continue to love, support and guide us. It might not jive with traditional Christian teachings, but I simply cannot believe that love dies when the body does. So I walk with my ghosts, I welcome their presence and although I miss their earthly presence, I continue to feel their love. The body will die; the love will live forever.

A kid's eye view

Sometimes, a child can put everything in perspective for you. My husband always takes my daughter out for Halloween, and I stay home and hand out the candy. Last night, when they stopped in midway through the scavenge, my daughter seemed upset, which she confirmed by wrapping herself around me and holding on tight. Seems there was a particularly scary house that my husband thought would be fine to take our 3 year old to, and it scared her witless.

I picked her up and hugged her for a few minutes, and when I put her back down, she asked me to take her out for the rest of the night "because mommy isn't afraid of anything."

To say I was gobsmacked is an gross understatement. You see, mommy is afraid of many things. In fact, mommy is afraid of almost everything. Spiders, bees, wasps, thunderstorms, being without work, (these days) the number on the scale, snowstorms, scary movies, what's living in the back of the fridge, singing the wrong note, acceptance of my writing, cellulite, grey hair, idiots who drive while talking on cell phones, cancer stealing someone ELSE I love...mommy is afraid of many things. I guess I've just become better at hiding my fear than I thought.

My mother is afraid of many things too. My earliest memories were of being dragged to the basement in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm. I grew up terrified of thunderstorms (and being caught in the woods during a particularly gnarly one didn't help things.) My husband LOVES thunderstorms, so I told him from the beginning that if Vampira woke up in the middle of the night in a storm, that he would have to go to her, because I didn't want to make her afraid just because I was. So far, she's never wakened in a thunderstorm and doesn't seem to mind them. So far, so good.

I grew up being taught to worry about what people think-that people's opinions, especially the family's, matter. It took me until 40 to realize that while it is true that how you are perceived in the world matters to a certain extent, going against what you believe matters more. I'm a bit of an enigma in my family, but that's okay. I decided that I was not going to live the second part of my life the way I lived the first half, and I'm trying to be more true to myself and my beliefs now. I'm happier. Some of the family don't get it, but it doesn't matter anyway. I get it, and I can live with myself. I'm trying to live without fear. Some days go better than others.

For my daughter to think that mommy is fearless was a boost for me. My daughter and I headed out hand in hand to complete the trick or treat circuit. We had to go by the scary house. I told her that we were going to sing "la la la la, you can't scare me." while we walked past. We did. It worked. When we passed the scary house on the way back, my daughter roared at it. She's learning not to be scared. She still clung to my hand, but she walked a little taller.

There are many things in life that will be scary for her. The trick is knowing how to roar at the fear. My daughter taught me some things last night. I have some roaring of my own to do-at building my website-ROAR. At going back to finish the YA novel I started and then let the opinions of others scare me off-ROAR. At making a real effort to market myself to find new business-ROAR. And to all the of the petty insecurities that have plagued me my whole life I say "La, La LA LA. YOU CAN'T SCARE ME." If it worked for scary houses, it should work for taking advantage of new opportunities. so ROAR ROAR ROAR...and I should trust my daughter. She's a smart kid.

"Real"

I've been pondering the meaning of the word "real" the last few days, after a conversation with my cousin Sandi. What does a "real" family mean?

I'm adopted, and I've been confronted with the "real" family question since I was a child. I have always known I was adopted. It's just part of who I am. My parents always told me I was "chosen". I had a wonderful image when I was younger that my parents went to a supermarket to get me. Instead of shopping carts, they used baby buggies. Instead of freezer compartments, there were bassinets and they rolled their buggy down the aisle until they found me, put me in the baby buggy and wheeled through the checkout. I didn't really know what happened at checkout, but I was their "choice" and I went home with them.

I've lost count of the number of times that people over the years have asked if I wanted to find my "real" parents. My "real" parents were at home, or sitting by my side when I was sick, or sitting up in a gas station at 9pm reading a book because I was 15 and my mom didn't want me sitting in a gas station by myself at that hour. My "real" father would sit up waiting for me, even after I had moved out and was home for the weekend. His light was a beacon in the night over the driveway...and his room was always dark when I reached the top of the stairs. He would fake snore, and I would pop my head in his room and call good night to him. There would be silence, and then he would respond, embarrassed that he'd been caught waiting for his 2o something daughter. My real father would phone me in Toronto when I was sick "because my mother was worried about me", oblivious to the fact that I had talked to my mom earlier in the day. My real father is lying in the graveyard in St. Eugene, Ontario. My "real" parents are my mom and dad. I may not have their DNA, but I knew who my parents are.

I have never been curious about my biological parents, although I'd like to know the health information that is swimming in my gene pool. I was adopted at a time when the records in Quebec were sealed, and although there have been a number of legal challenges, to date they remain sealed. I know when and where I was born, and that's it. I have nothing to search with, and no real inclination to do so. It makes for a bunch of medical tests when I go to a new doctor because I have no medical history, but other than that, I know who I am.

I have a massive extended family, and I am closer to my mother's side of the family, the Harveys. It's not that there's anything wrong with the Cheeseman side, far from it. My cousin Pat is my daughter's Godmother, and one of my closest friends. I didn't really get to know the Cheeseman family until I was in my teens and we moved to Kitchener. I grew UP with the Harvey clan, especially the Allison family. The four Allison boys are the closest I have to brothers, and our families were inseparable when I was a child. They lost their mother and father a few years apart, and my mom and dad acted as surrogate parents. It was a conversation that I had with Glenn and Sandi Allison (and Sandi is like a sister because she lived with the Allisons when she was a teenager, and I thought she was the coolest ever with her go-go boots...I still think she's pretty cool, and now I could her as a close friend) at my kitchen table that has me mulling and a bit hurt.

I'm an adopted child and an adoptive parent. My family is my family, my cousins are my cousins, my aunts and uncles are my aunts and uncles, and my child is unequivocally, absolutely my daughter. I've never cared a fig about DNA. Apparently, not everyone in my family shares that belief, because one of my other cousins had made a comment that someone was not a "real" cousin because they were adopted.

I don't know the source of the opinion, although I have my suspicions. I have to admit the comment caught me off guard, because if adopted members are not "real" family...then neither am I nor is my daughter. I'm hurt and puzzled by that. It's beyond my realm of comprehension.

So what makes a "real" family? Is it only DNA? I am certainly closer to some members of my family than others, but I don't think DNA has anything to do with that. I know lots of blood siblings who don't speak, or seem to have come from different universes. I know siblings who are close in age and as different as chalk and cheese.

To me, "real" family is made from love, shared tradition and shared experiences. I have 21 cousins on my mom's side of the family, and when my aunt and uncle celebrated their 50th anniversary, every single one of us was together for the first time since we were kids. We all gathered at the Lefaivre farm, where many family gatherings, and any number of massive cousin hide and go seek games took place in the old barn. My husband listened with fascination at some of the stories of my childhood...and DNA played no part in the childhood raids to get fresh peas from the garden, or the hours of cross country skiing we did out the back fields. DNA played no part in the family chocolate chip cookies, or Auntie Beryl's oatmeal cookies...or the family ghosts. Our shared experience made the family, not the blood in our veins.

Nature or nurture; any adoptive parent is familiar with the debate. What shapes a child? Is it environment or DNA. Is an adopted child not a "real" member of the family? I don't think so, and it makes me sad that others disagree. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree; family does that.

So what do you think? What makes a "real" family member?

Confessions of a Political Junkie

My name is Lisa...and I am a political junkie. Actually, I'm a third generation political junkie...and with imminent elections in Canada and the United States, I am a happy political junkie.

From the time I was a child, I followed politics. I am an only child, and if I wanted to have anything to say over dinner, I had to. Our family talked politics, local, provincial, federal and international, over dinner. I once won a trivia contest at Wilder Penfield Elementary School in Dollard des Ormeaux because I was the only one in the school who could successfully identify a picture of Mayor Jean Drapeau... (and I was probably only in grade 3 at the time...) once a geek...

My parents followed politics closely, although they were not active in a party. My father was a Liberal. His family was Liberal. His family continues to vote Liberal. It didn't matter who was the leader of the party, or who the local representative was. The Cheeseman family vote Liberal.

My mother tended to vote Liberal as well, but was more concerned with who was leading the party and who the local candidate was. Her father always advised her to "vote for the man rather than the party" and she tended to follow that. My mother is passionate about caring for the poor, the homeless and the hungry. No matter how little she had, she always found some money to give to others. As she's aged, she's become far more concerned with which party will best take care of the least in society. She is on a fixed income and has little, and is still passionate about people who have even less than she has. It's a lesson I learned at home and one that I practice and continue to teach my daughter.

I'm an enigma. As my family will gleefully remind me from time to time, I was a card carrying member of the Conservative party for years, and there are pictures of me, dressed head to toe in Larry Grossman garb at a leadership convention circa 1984. One of my most treasured possessions is an autograph from Joe Clark. I joined the Conservative party because of Joe Clark-I was always to the left of centre in my thinking and Joe appealed to my teenaged idealism. I was in tears the night his government was defeated, and wrote a very impassioned, full of idealism letter of support to him. I was 17 and really upset that I couldn't vote. I still have the letter I received in response. My grade 12 history teacher, Tom DelaFreniere, fanned the spark of interest into a flame by engaging in a spirited debate about issues during the election that followed and demanded that we debate intelligently, and not just "I like the party". He expected us to defend our position...and was not smug the morning after the election returned the Liberals to power. I went on to complete 2 degrees in Political Science. My specialty and passion has always been Canadian politics, and since I grew up in Quebec during the 1970s, I spent a great deal of time trying to understand why the Quebecois feel as they do. I don't think I completely understand, but at least I've made the effort to see another point of view.

I actively worked in both Larry Grossman leadership campaigns, canvassed for candidates until my feet fell off...and then received a hard lesson in political party reality. It was 1985, and I had passed up an opportunity to be a delegate from the Kitchener riding to the second Ontario Conservative leadership convention (which Grossman eventually won) because I had been promised a delegate position because I'd worked on staff for the Grossman campaign (sometimes going 24 hours at the headquarters-Larry Grossman's father was an insomniac, and it was not uncommon for him to arrive in the wee small hours of the morning with food for those of us silly enough to be there over night. Computer technology was in its infancy...we did a lot of things manually...and I became very good at running the autopen and signing Larry's name to the letters...) On the night of the speeches, I was eager to hear them in person, and my section head kept stalling, saying we'd all go together...I finally got fed up and headed down there alone, and walked up to delegate registration, only to find out that they had nothing for me...I had moved to Toronto by then, and I was three-quarters of the way out the door, heading for home when I was stopped by one of the senior team, who explained that there had been some "confusion" about me...and there was no delegate for me, but they hadn't wanted to "upset" me by telling me ahead of time. Yeah, cause it was much less upsetting to be turned away at the door...I cut my ties with the party not long after...literally. I cut up my membership cards, I cut up my PC Canada Fund card...and I haven't voted Conservative since.

I share my mother's passion about the poor, the homeless, the marginalized, the hungry and the less fortunate. I have added a concern for the environment, and our family does our best to mitigate our impact on the environment. I believe that we all have a personal responsibility to take care of each other, and that the people we elect as representatives and lawmakers have a higher responsibility. I will never be an economist. People matter to me far more than the bottom line or the boardroom profit margins. I was always the one who asked how a policy decision would impact the employees...I don't do "mean". I understand that tough decisions need to be made in business, and in politics, but I have never been able to make those decisions without agonizing about the impact on the people behind the decision. I will vote for the party that I think can balance the concerns of the bottom line with the concerns for the people impacted BY the bottom line.

I confess that I have been far more interested in the politics south of the border than our current federal election. With the exception of the Green Party, the differences among the mainstream parties are not that significant. In the United States, however, the McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden tickets are worlds apart. The president of the United States has a worldwide impact and with the current economic crisis needs a firm and prudent steward. How I feel about US politics is a blog in itself...but suffice to say that McCain, and especially Palin scare me witless. It's unfortunate that Ms. Palin will become the anti-poster child for women in politics. There are so many better choices for VP than the gun-toting, g-dropping Governor from Alaska. If I were voting...I'd vote Democrat.

I will be glued to the television on Tuesday night...and I will be talking back and forth with my mother all evening. We will similarly be glued to the television on November 4. After 10 years of marriage, my husband has come over ot the dark side (we have cookies...) and has joined the political junkie side of the family. If he's stuck watching the debates and the returns, he might as well join in the conversation as well! Meet the Press is our Sunday morning with coffee ritual, although we miss Tim Russert. I'd love to see what he would do with Sarah Palin...

It's an important time in our history and that of our neighbours to the south. I will always exercise my right to vote because I don't believe you have a right to bitch if you haven't been part of the process! Whatever your opinion, whatever your inclination...exercise your right to vote...be a part of the decision-making.

Channelling Helen Reddy

"If I have to, I can do anything. I am strong. I am invincible. I am Woman." From the song, "I am Woman" lyrics by Helen Reddy, released in 1972.

This song was released when I was 9 years old. I always liked the song, but I don't think I had a real appreciation of the meaning of the lyrics until recently. The last couple of weeks, I've been singing the song out loud to motivate myself. You see, for the last few weeks, I've been in home reno hell in preparation for a visit from my cousins on October 7th.

My husband is a procrastinator. He has big plans...lots of them...they are still plans. Any home reno project we've undertaken has happened because I start them. I changed our master bedroom by reaching about his head one morning and starting to peel the wallpaper off the walls. We painted the living room when I started pulling the furniture into the middle of the floor, spreading newspaper and then carrying the all-ready purchased paint from the basement. When I get the project in motion, he pitches in full force.

We had been talking about replacing the wallpaper in the hallways and stairwells for 10 years. It was old. It was formal. It was falling off the wall on the landing. We had a couple of challenges. The landing is 1.5 stories, and I'm afraid of heights. We also didn't have a ladder tall enough to reach the ceiling. More daunting, the people who had the house before us were wallpaper morons. They didn't prep the walls properly, they lapped the wallpaper from one room UNDER the wallpaper to another and since we'd already stripped a number of the rooms ,we knew what we were in for. We were cowards...but now we were cowards with a deadline because I wanted it fixed before my cousins come. There's nothing like out of town guests to motivate home reno projects.

Our daughter had already pulled bits off the wall. On a rainy day when I was at a loss about how to entertain our fractious and bored 3 year old, I decided it was time. I got my wall patch thingie, told Vampira we were going to make a big mess...and started to pull the wallpaper off the walls. I pulled the wallpaper off as far as I could, and then let Vampira do the bottom part. She had a ball and we got quite a bit done. We were taking a break mid-afternoon when I heard the front door open and my husband calling "hello" and then there was dead silence...I had forgotten it was his split shift. Vampira and I stripped all of the wallpaper that we could reach, and then we let my husband and father in law do the top bits. A couple of days later, I armed Vampira with a spray bottle full of fabric softener and water and we attacked the backing. (it really works! We've tried everything in this house to get the wallpaper off without destroying the walls and this concoction does the best job.) She sprayed the low bits and I worked on the high bits and we stripped the walls and then turned it over to the men for the unreachable places.

That same weekend, I headed upstairs with a prybar, a garbage bag and my wall patch thingie. My husband followed me, a nervous and quizzical expression on his face. When I started attacking the floor in the bathroom, all his questions were answered. We had butt ugly peel and stick tile that was not sticking anymore. We'd bought a replacement; I was replacing it. When I discovered that my husband and father in law had peeled and stuck over an existing floor, the job doubled in size, and the first chorus of Helen Reddy sprang to my lips. As I pulled at the floor, I kept singing "I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman." My husband pitched in and we got the old floors up in record time. Later, my daughter sat on my lap peeling the backing off the new floor as my father in law measured and laid it. After all, floor tile are much bigger than stickers and easier to pull off.

When my husband went back to work, I was left with the task of continuing to patch the walls. The men had done quite a bit, but there was a great deal more to do. I couldn't get to the good stuff until the patching and sanding was done...and time was ticking. I swallowed my fear and climbed the newly purchased ladder, patcher thingie and bucket of patch in hand. I did all but the last foot nearest the ceiling because I simply could not climb another rung up the ladder, and, as some people had pointed out, climbing a ladder that high with only Vampira in the house was not the safest thing I've done in my life. I also sprained my foot 15 feet up in the air and had to gingerly ease my way back down. The patching got done around Vampira, but it got done.

I'm now into priming the walls, and I've been humming Helen again. My daughter now goes to pre-school two mornings a week, and I paint like a madwoman while she's there. My foot still hurts, so I've been staying lower down the ladder, but the ceilings haven't lowered. I was a fan of McGyver, and the edging at the ceiling had to be done. I taped a paintbrush to a stick, climbed a little way up the ladder, put the roller on a long pole and primed the wall from Hades.

I can't do the paint colour with a paint brush on a stick, so my husband will have to run the paint gauntlet at the ceiling. I can do the rest.

Moms find out fast that our job doesn't end if we're sick or tired. I've taken Vampira to the park when I had bronchitis so severe I could barely walk. I've been stripping wallpaper and priming walls around my daughter. I know how to work with her. I've got some medical things going on right now that might mean a hysterectomy down the road. Right now, I'm anemic. I'm tired...really tired but I keep going. (a healthy dose of stubborn doesn't hurt!) I have to keep going or things don't get done.

So I finally understand all the words to Helen Reddy's song. "I am strong. I am invincible. I am Woman." I will make it happen. It's what women do.

Guest blogging about breast cancer.

I was guest blogging about the Pink Ribbon Sorority.
Check it out