The problem with hindsight is that by the time we have it, it may be too late for others to benefit.

I'm thinking a lot of my Omi these days. The youngest of several children, she grew up in an extremly invalidating environment. The hardships of her childhood were exacerbated by the social context of her youth: as she came of dating/marrying age, World War One broke out, and only weeks after her wedding, her husband was sent off to war in Germany. Left to raise a young family largely on her own (her husband left behind a baby each time he visited on leave), my Omi suffered further trauma at the hands of her Russian occupiers in Berlin, likely being sexually assaulted at least once. (We never spoke directly of this, but there were stories of unwelcome visitors to the apartment that carefully circled salient details without actually naming them.)

I didn't get to know my Omi until she was in her fifties, after she had been abandoned by my grandfather in a new country (Canada) that she had only come to reluctantly ("to keep the family together"), and after she had already faced the most unbearable pain any parent could experience, namely the loss of a child. My first uncle died when he was about three years old, during or shortly after the war, when doctors' visits were hard to come by. Another uncle was born; she named him after the lost son. He was brilliant, accepted to study math and physics at the University of Toronto, which he didn't end up doing, as he dropped out in first year to pursue a drug addiction and a descent into undiagnosed and -- for many years, untreated -- schizophrenia.

By the time I met my Omi, she become the somewhat problematic sun around which my mother's world revolved. Scorching my mother frequently with shame and guilt, she was my everything as a child. Being the daughter of a single parent, I spent a lot of time with my Omi; she loved me with wild abandon, and essentially raised me alongside my ambitious but tired mother, who worked her way into a management role in a male dominated field in the 1970s, upgrading her skills at night school, and trying her best to care for both an intellectually and emotionally intense child and an emotionally needy mother.

My grandmother suffered. She suffered a lot. We all heard about it. Her life was extremely difficult. Both actually, and in her mind.

By the time I was eight, the second uncle, who had been a bit of a father figure to me in the absence of my own dad who died quite early on, had completed suicide. His by-then diagnosed but poorly treated (it was the 80s) schizophrenia got the better of him, and given the choice between wild mental illness induced hallucinations on the one hand and medication-induced lethargy felt at the molecular level on the other, he chose "no thanks" and went into the water, swimming as far out into Lake Ontario as he could, until sheer exaustion and hypothermia pulled him to his watery grave.

Losing a second child, and to suicide, drove my grandmother's already-insufferable suffering to new levels. While I was still able to bring her some joy as the grandchild who loved and needed her, I was heading towards those horrid teenage years when one wants and liked nothing other than to explore oneself and find freedom, and so our hither-to fullfilling relationship grew more complicated as I was no longer able to satiate her desperate need for love and endless validation. And as I watched the complexities of her relationship with my mother unfold, and witnessed first hand the trauma that someone so emotionally disregulated can cause over and over and over again to a person they love, I grew resentful of my Omi.

Although her final year or two, living with dementia, made her more docile and loving towards me (my mother had already died of breast cancer by then, leaving a 21-year-old Vera as the sole caregiver), it took me many years to truly understand my Omi's lifelong pain. Only now that I myself am on an adult journey of self-discovery, far removed from those traumatic teenage years, and indcued by more recent trauma mostly of my own creation, can I appreciate the actual anguish my Omi endured for so long. Her pain -- while misunderstood and incredibly problematic for those around her -- was real. Legitimate. Valid. Omi DID suffer. The excutiating agony of her internal anguish not pretend. And unlike me, she didn't have the luxury of effective treatment methods (Dialectic behaviour therapy, or DBT for short, hadn't been discovered yet, and personality disorders like BPD were often misdiagnosed or at best, mistreated with ineffective medications poorly supported with therapy, if at all.)

There have been many moments over the past several months that I have wished I could wrap Omi in my arms and reassure her. Whisper to her that I love her very much, am so grateful for her parenting, and see the depth and complexity of her pain. I wish I could tell her there is a highly effective treatment for what she suffered from, not one that could bring back her sons, or eventually, my mother, but one that could help her recognize the validity of her feelings and learn to love, cherish and respect herself, as I am finally learning to do, and take accountability for her tortourous treatment of those nearest and dearest to her. I wish we could be partners in this journey towards healing, and comisserate over broken and possibly unsalvageable relationships with loved ones as we learn to forgive ourselves for the pain we've caused overs, even if they can't or won't forgive us.

I've been lucky to encounter a supportive online and in-person community to help me with my present day journey, But oh, how I wish I could travel back in time and help lead my Omi out of the hell that held her captive for so many years!

​I was conceived on a summer camping trip, after my parents – who had been dating quite seriously for some time – had already broken up. I deduced this after my mother died, while reading one of the many, many love letters that my father had written her. 
 
 Xavier Pasteger, a Belgian immigrant, was a lover and a writer! He wrote my mother hundreds of letters, in florid handwriting, over the course of their courtship, and began many of them with “ma chère grenouille”, my dear frog. My mother kept them all, and along with a blurry black and white head shot she obtained for me from his former employer at Atomic Energy Canada for my 16th birthday, they are the only artifacts I have of my late father.
 
I never met Xavier. My grandmother tells a story of how, when she was wheeling me down the street in a stroller as a baby to take me to a nearby park, she saw my father walking towards us about a block or so away. When he recognized my grandmother from a distance, he crossed over to the other side of the street and continued walking, without making eye contact.

Before my third birthday, he had died from cancer.
 
It is through one of these letters that my mother saved that I realized how late in their relationship I came to be. In my youth, I had often asked my mother what happened to my dad, why they never married. (I knew he had died, but it wasn’t until I was a young teenager that I came to understand that I was truly a bastard, born out of wedlock, and that that choice had been almost exclusively my mother’s.)
 
My mother, Carola Teschow, was a German immigrant and the first feminist I ever knew. Her story is not for this blog post, but suffice it to say that by the time she became pregnant with me, she had an established career in a male-dominated field, owned a share in a decent house in a nice neighborhood, and had built a life in her adopted country of Canada. By her accounts, my father asked her many times to marry him. But his conditions were a life of tradition: he wanted my mother to stop working, and take care of the household and any children they might have together; this was the appropriate thing to do as a woman, he told her. She declined, and so the relationship ended.

From what I can gather through letters, the camping trip was supposed to be a friendly, pressure-free bit of fun weeks or possibly months after the initial break up. The steamy night in a shared tent that ultimately produced me was not the intended outcome of that adventure… at least not for my mother. His florid written apology post-camping quest must have fallen on deaf ears, as they did not reunite thereafter. Even once he found out that she was with child and asked her – again – to marry him. (Only after I was born to my single mother did she – probably at the suggestion of Child Services – reach out to my father one final time, to request some sort of financial support; he did not argue, and until my 21st birthday, a handsome monthly sum was deposited into my school savings account, first directly through his employer and after his death, an orphan's benefit payment via superannuation program through the government.)

Growing up with my mother and grandmother, I looked to them as my influencers, at least genetically. And yet, my mother’s genes are only part of the fabric of who I am. I know little of my father, and yet I recognize his crooked smile from the one faded photo in my son, and there are patterns in my own appearance and behaviour that very clearly do NOT come from my mother’s side of the family. As I grow older, I think occasionally about the bigger picture of who I am, outside of upbringing and environment.

 Xavier didn’t get the girl back, even after he put a baby in her! And it occurred to that baby this morning to examine why, beyond the simple “if we get married you have to stay home“ disqualifier. 

From his letters and the fact that they stayed together for more than a few months, I can infer that my mother loved the Belgian’s passion, was fascinated by the way his personality lit up a room, and was drawn to the way he love-bombed her. I recognize these traits within myself. And yet, she ultimately left him.

What was their communication style like as a couple in the early 70s? From her few stories and the tone of his letters, he was clearly thoughtful, but it seems he was also reckless. How did he show his respect (or lack thereof) for her female leadership skills, and how did she navigate their considerable height difference? (She was a good 11 inches taller than him – without heels!) How did they fight, and how did they recover from said arguments? Did he push her too hard, violate her boundaries? Did she withdraw when he pushed, and did he sulk when she did so? Why did she agree to an overnight trip with him after they had already broken up – and clearly didn’t want a continued physical relationship with him (as evidenced by several lines in his later apology letter… was he apologizing for essentially raping her that night?!) 

My mother is long dead and unable to tell her side of the story, and of course I never got his, other than what’s left of him in his writing.

As I navigate difficulties in my own personal relationship and reflect on previous associations, I’m left wondering how much of my father I inherited in my personality: I, too, am a lover and a writer. I’m also a boundary pusher – did I get that from him? Perhaps unlike my father, I am recognizing the problem with such a quality, and learning (albeit slowly and late) not to violate those I love the most. Like him too, I am thoughtful yet careless.
​
Unlike my father, though, I’m not dead yet, and I am educating myself. I am a very serious and committed student. Unlike Xavier, I hope to succeed in my quest to get the girl back.

What happened to their siblings and their mother remains a mystery, but Loki and Thor toughed it out together. They were survivors, and eventually a kind woman noticed them on her way to work each day and started to feed them regularly and bring them water. 

Extremely timid at first, they did not approach her, but hungrily devoured what she left them whenever she came.

Sometime in August, Loki and Thor sustained injuries to their hind legs. While it’s unclear whether they were kicked or beaten by a human, or run over by a car, they were clearly both suffering. The kind lady took them to a veterinary clinic, and then brought them to her workplace and kept them under her desk for a few weeks after checking with her boss. The kind lady continued to care for and feed the two grossing puppies, even doing physiotherapy with them to help them regain the use of their back limbs. She posted about them on Facebook, and in September or October, Loki and Thor arrived at a small animal shelter in Las Varas, run by a committed team of volunteers with extremely limited resources.

There were too many dogs and not enough homes, endless litters of puppies, but now these two little ones were physically safe. Loki and Thor didn’t like people much, but at least they had each other.

One day in March 2025, thanks to a partnership with another local animal rescue organization (JBAR), the Las Varas shelter put on a public event celebrating pets and inviting people to come out with their dogs for an afternoon of fun in the park. There was food, pet products for sale, music, games and contests. And, in one corner of the event, there was a large fenced off area with many, many dogs for adoption. Including Loki and Thor. 

​The event in March was when my wife and I first came into Loki‘s life, or rather, she into ours!

Sneakers, our existing rescue dog, is dog aggressive, and so although we love dogs, and have volunteered with various animal rescue organizations in the area, Including fostering, we knew we could never risk getting a second dog ourselves. 

Bearing this in mind, we went to the event nevertheless, “just to see”. 

In the chaotic jumble of dogs, cowering in a corner, sat Loki. Thor stood by, as if to “protect” her. Loki tugged at our heartstrings… we thought perhaps we could take this miserable creature home for a few days of peace and quiet, get her out of there and give her a break… and then find her a new home in our neighbourhood or with a visiting Canadian, who would take her back north of the border.

In our broken Spanish, we approached the organizer, and explained the situation with our existing dog, but that we were happy to take the little one home and do our best with her and see how things unfolded, but that if we had not found a home for her by the time we ourselves had to head back to Canada and a few weeks, That we would have to return her to the shelter.

This seemed agreeable to the organizer, and the little package was handed over to us, a photo requested for their social media page, and that was that!

It wasn’t until we got Loki home that we realized what a brave and courageous little character we had found.

She spent the first three days in a complete hunger strike. Ate nothing, cowered with her tail between her legs, and hardly even went to the bathroom.

In all my years of adopting dogs, I’ve never encountered such a terrified little thing.

Even Sneakers didn’t bother with her — as though she weren’t even a real dog, almost just not even worth it for Sneakers. 

The nice little reprieve we had planned for Loki while we searched for a permanent home for her seemed more to be a reign of terror for her. And it was hard to get photos, nice ones, that would entice people to adopt her. She just seemed so miserable and pathetic; as Mrs. Rachel-Lynde said of Anne whence first they met, she wasn't much to look at!

As our departure date drew closer, we started to panic. What were we to do with a little pup? We really didn’t want to return her to the animal shelter... So few are adopted from that context.

Interestingly, Sneakers, who is in general quite happy to engage in a bloodbath with any dog she encounters, seemed to be OK with Loki. Within a week, our new acquisition had started going potty in the garden if we took her downstairs, and she wandered timidly around in the back, off leash, with Sneakers, who — shockingly — left her alone.

We began to wonder whether maybe we should just take her back to Canada with us. 

We certainly had not planned on a second dog; it was not in the budget, nor was there space on our flight. (In the hold, an airline will typically take a maximum of 2 to 3 dogs, and with Sneakers already booked, and someone else with a dog booked for the same flight, there was no more room.)

Some animal rescue volunteers from another organization closer to Puerto Vallarta had heard of our plight, and decided they were going to find us a flight angel home. 

Instead of running in the streets,  she runs through meadows and along the beach now. She walks well on a leash, and confidently goes to "place" on command, and just this week, started consistently giving "paw" when asked, in exchange for cucumber slices, pieces of apple or other small treats from the kitchen.

Loki loves Sneakers now, and is very attached. Wants to be with her at all times, and even insists on riding in the same crate with her in the car – – and Sneakers obliges! (The latter is not cured; still pulls and growls and lunges like crazy towards other dogs… But seems to have accepted Loki as a late-in-life fur sibling!)​

When I see her curled up comfortably on the dog bed on the sun porch, or ensconced with various toys, shoes and other articles she has scavenged and brought to her “nest” in the bedroom, I marvel at  her courage in trusting us. I rejoice at how far this little creature has come, not just since her arrival in Canada or her adoption by us a few weeks earlier in Mexico, but really since she was born in the streets of a small town, unwanted, uncared for, until a stranger took pity on her, kept her alive and found her a safe place to stay until she happened to catch our eye in March 2025.

It’s a drop in the bucket in the larger problem of homeless and unwanted animals… But for this particular furry little drop, it’s been a life-changing.  For us, also. We love her.

Like many parents of older children, I have regrets.

I haven’t totally ruined my kids or anything like that. They were always clothed, fed and sheltered. They even had music/arts lessons over the years, and physical activities.

But they didn’t always have ME!
​
I was not a “natural” when it came to parenting newborn twins. I struggled a lot with the various minute to minute  challenges of parenting two babies, and while I made it my business to learn and know, by the time I became an “expert”, Alex and Simon where already well through school. 

I heard a parent once comment that “the days are long and the years are short”.

​So true!

Especially with multiples, the early years can be overwhelming, and for me, I didn’t even take the full year of parental leave, choosing instead to run back to the refuge of full time work, and leaving my 4 month old babies with their father for the remainder of that first year. I was a very successful instructional coach at the time, with a large urban school board, and the fulfillment I felt from my expertise in that role compared with the relative incompetence I felt parenting two screaming newborns with little/no consistent help was quite jarring!

Even once the boys were sleeping through the night and using “big boy toilets” rather than diapers, and we started to get our life back a little, I regret to admit that I spent summers facilitating and attending professional development for teachers rather than camping or hanging out at the beach with my littles. Our “summers in PEI” consisted of maybe two weeks at most.
​
And suddenly they were 17 and it was COVID and we were all locked up in a tiny apartment together.

After about two years of that, I decided I’d had enough. Throughout the pandemic, I’d been working overtime (by then I worked in a provincial leadership position in education, and was involved with teams that were working on COVID-related education policy with the government); many long hours at the dining room table, even in the evening, while my babies and my temporarily unemployed pilot wife lived their lives, neglected, in their respective bedrooms of our small Toronto apartment.
​
When they came out of their rooms and we shared a meal together, I marveled at how my little babies were growing into big, tall men. We even threw them a covid-themed 6-foot-party (which wasn’t much of a party, since we weren’t allowed to interact with anyone outside our circle at the time, resulting in a LOT of leftover six-foot-sub meals for us within two days!!!) 

It frightened me that the opportunity to connect with these not-so-tiny tenants was quickly waning.
​
I decided right then and there to make some significant changes in my life.

With the support of my partner, I quit my job, and over the next several years, with her support, have transitioned from full time work to semi-retired “housewife” and “Stay-at-home-mom”. (I put these in parenthesis because for our particular family and life arrangement, the terms look a little different than the main stream, largely because we don’t all live full time in one place together.)

It was the best decision I ever made.

While it’s not the same of course as being there for your baby’s first steps or Kindergarten graduation or school field trips to the museum, there is something quite satisfying about being able to fully support your teen while they learn to drive, or meet them on/near campus for lunch during the week, or even sit in on one of their university classes and ride the subway home together afterwards! There’s a special satisfaction in googling mental health and academic supports during the day while your 19-year-old is in class, making a suggestion to them later on, and getting a phone call a few weeks later thanking you for that suggestion because IT WORKED!! Or reading a draft of an assignment they’ve written for a course and offering descriptive feedback, or hearing about something they are learning about at college that excites them, or having breakfast out together on a weekday because they don’t have class and you don’t have to “work” that morning.

And with time to manage groceries, laundry and other household chores during the “workday”, my weekends are more flexible as well: We still don’t camp, but there are lots of beach visits and walks in the park, both individually with each “child” and together.

I’d had the opportunity to experience a taste of stay at home motherhood for a few months when the boys were ten, and we’d spent the school year in Argentina ... But parenting teenagers/young adults is different.

I get to be fully present when one of them calls to tell me he and his girlfriend broke up, or when one of them wanders into the living room and wants to talk about finances and investing. I can say “yes” when one of them decides university is not for him and wants to come live with me full time on PEI for several months while he decides what to do next (college with a possible career as a PI, it turns out, after a summer of chainsawing and sheet metal roofing!!) And I can support the other when he wants to do a full time placement but needs a ride because the bus is not convenient to our home and he doesn’t have his drivers license yet.

I don’t have to listen half-heartedly to their stories while the other half of my brain stresses about unwritten report cards or marking or lesson planning that still needs to get done… yes, it’s true there is lots to do as the primary household engineer, but without a full time paid job, I have considerable flexibility about when and how tasks are completed. And watching actively engaged as my boys turn into resilient, creative and thoughtful young men has been a great gift to me as a parent who missed out on the chance to be more fully present earlier on in their lives.

I know that not everyone has the luxury of being at home full-time. But if you haven’t had the pleasure and the privilege of parenting your children, even your semi-adult children, full time for an extended period of time, and the opportunity presents itself, I highly recommend you take advantage of it. I’m so glad I have!

Are you feeling lonely and abandoned this Christmas? You’re in good company! All over the world, culturally Christian spouses and families have been forsaken, and my kids and I are among said abandoned masses.
​
You see, I am married to an airline pilot. And while that all may seem glamourous and glorious, the sad reality is that with the exception of those very few with highly coveted top seniority numbers, most commercial pilots have to work over the holidays, leaving their families and friends alone at home, turkey dinner somewhat subdued with an empty seat at the table.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my wife and am grateful for everything she does for this family. Especially bringing home the bacon, because Lord knows, I spend it as fast as she makes it! And, as a result of her chosen career, my kids and I get to travel cheap all over the world (albeit on standby). Also, the cool factor (and yes, the uniform is hot).

But holidays suck. Especially Christmas, because unlike other pilot wives who may have their own parents or siblings who can stand in for their missing spouses on this big family holiday, I’m an only child and have been an orphan since my second year of university. So there’s that.
​
As a queer family, we’ve woven a pretty tight “chosen family” over the past decade or two, and so in recent years, our Christmas Eve table has been filled with the presence of the retired math professor we look after (our surrogate father) and a close family friend who has been a stand in uncle of sorts for the boys. And then when the kids head off to their dad’s the next morning, I usually make my way to the airport and join my wife for her overnight to whichever exciting destination she’s traveling to for work that day.

Alas, this year, I am truly abandoned!
​
Our old man is in Mexico (his lung issues necessitate him seeking warmer climates during the cold Canadian winter months) and our Uncle Vinx is in the hospital, recovering from a heart attack and subsequent brain injury. And my dear, sweet wife is flying to Timmins of all places tonight, where she will spend the full day tomorrow and a second night (an unheard of length for a layover at her regional airline… so why now? Why?!) before flying again on the 26th and eventually arriving back home late that afternoon!
​
Woe is me.

Historically, being an orphan wasn’t sooo bad… My father died when I was a baby, so I have no history with him, and therefore, nothing to “miss” per say. And the first Christmas after my mother died (she died on Dec 22, so that kind of sucked), I  was taken in by the family of my then-boyfriend, who were particularly well-equipped to do so.
​
The father of my university boyfriend was kind of a big deal at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at U of T, and accordingly, Christmas itself was kind of a big deal, since it was both a personal AND a professional interest in that family. In fact, their house always had at least two Christmas trees, including one fully decorated with an assortment of small wooden creches the professor had picked up at some Christmas market during one of his many research trips to Europe.

The boyfriend also had several siblings, all older than him, and very nurturing when needed. On Christmas Eve following my mother’s death, I stumbled into their home, and a large stuffed bear was thrust into my arms by one of the sisters. This was followed by an enveloping of arms, and then I was ushered into the living room, past the first Christmas tree, and onto a chair at the dining room table in the adjoining room. I was fed, and encouraged to drink a glass of something.

I’m fifty now, not a child anymore. But the thirty-year-old memory still brings tears to my eyes. ​It was exactly what I needed during that tumultuous time.The ritual of the dinner, followed by the opening of gifts and our annual visit to midnight mass at the local high Anglican church, overstuffed with “CEOs” (Christmas and Easter only) brought some semblance of normalcy after what had been a very stilted and definitely NOT normal Christmas eve gathering in the living room at my mother’s (now my) house a few hours earlier with my poor Omi and my mother’s boyfriend, both of whom were still reeling at her untimely death!

After those years came the family of my children’s father. Somewhat boring, but very dependable, and always welcoming without question.

​Even when I finally came crawling out of the closet several years later, they STILL insisted that there would always be a spot for me at their table. (My ex’s new girlfriend put a stop to that in short order, but still, it’s the thought that counts, and that thought still warms my heart.)

And now I am married to the pilot. Exciting and glamourous, but with a pretty much solid guarantee of never being home for the holidays.

Confession time, though: It’s not my wife’s airline that stole Christmas from me, it’s her culture!!!

​Yep, that’s right. Even if my dear wife were NOT a commercial pilot, I would still have to name this blog post as I did, because as it turns out, my assumption that “everyone” in Canada just celebrates Christmas is… well… wrong.

For the first few years, before she was snapped up by the airlines, my Russian wife just went along with our holiday celebrations, with a minimal amount of grumbling. In part because she loved me, and in part because she just wasn’t sure how to approach the idea that the whole tree, angel and pile of gifts thing was overwhelming and uncomfortable for her in a way that wouldn't hurt me. It was just such a big part of my culture, and initially, she didn’t feel “entitled” to share her discomfort in any productive manner. (Newsflash, the minimal grumbling was already hurtful, lol!)

Since my wife is not a practicing Jew, Muslim or other non-Christian adherent, and since she’d been living in a country that commercially and culturally embraces the holiday season for well over a decade when I met her, it never even occurred to me that the traditions to which I had clung since losing my mother would be a problem for her.

But they were.

And that became a problem for me.
​
We eventually got past this hurdle, but not before the underlying implications of our unresolved disconnect nearly broke us up a dozen times or more. 

Now, after many tears and open ears and adoptions of emotions that are foreign to each of us respectively, we have reached a truce of sorts about Christmas.

I buy my own advent calendar (Body Shop had a nice one this year!), there is no more St Nicolas Day, she and the boys take care of getting a real tree and hauling the box of Christmas stuff up from the storage locker in the basement, and I decorate the tree and try not to complain too much if it's crooked or somewhat sparce. (To her credit, she usually picks a nice one.)

We no longer do Christmas gifts. She commits to a brief “in transit” celebration where the boys and I visit her during a short break at the airport.

And she sends me selfies of herself on the road in festive professional attire and allows me to post them on social media so that everyone knows how cool I am being married to a pilot and all... even if I've been abandoned for the holidays!

The trade-off is a love and support for one another deeper and more fulsome than I have ever experienced, even with my own mother and Omi when they were still alive. My wife knows me almost as well as I know myself in many areas… sometimes better than I know myself! She has learned to hold me accountable in ways that are loving, and is learning to hear me and accept with an increasingly open mind when I share concerns that run counter to her default. And we have developed our own Christmas traditions, like me getting getting decked out in festive gear and joining her wherever she happens to be flying on Christmas Day. (Well, unless it’s a dull day layover in Timmins, like this year. Ugh!)
​
We’ve also co-created some unique holidays that are far more numerous than Christmas, special days of private celebration that are regularly acknowledged between us with delightful little secrets and traditions unique to our family or to us as a couple.

Is Christmas still lonely for me, as an orphan who lost her everything just days before the western world's most high-pressure family event?

I would say it’s more a time of inner reflection. And in those moments, after the kids leave for their dad’s on the morning of the 25th after their stockings have been emptied (Santa insisted on filling the boys’ stockings, even after my wife canceled the rest of our Christmas traditions, haha), when I am alone in the apartment with no one to share a tea with while sitting around the Christmas tree with all its twinkly lights, I do feel a little bit sorry for myself, yes. But also, I feel grateful.

A reduced Christmas in an overly consumerist world is a small price to pay for the many strange and wonderful blessings my strange and wonderful wife bestows on me and on our family throughout the year. Christmas, as I am continuing to learn, is more a frame of mind than a particular day or time of year. And giving up the obsession of the season for the woman I love, and instead adopting a more long-term mindset of grace, generosity and love is a greater gift than any!

Never once as I sent my 18-year-old monozygotic twins off to commuter orientation at the University of Toronto last August did I think I would be spending this August celebrating a set of achievements for one of them that was completely unrelated to the history degree he had begun pursuing a year ago. 

And yet here we are. August 2023, Prince Edward Island. A year later, in a completely different province.

As the summer draws to a close, I am prompted to reflect on what has been an intensely rich season for both me and the manchild through which I have been learning vicariously over the past several months!

Although both boys started strong at the Faculty of Arts and Science of my alma mater last fall, Twin B soon found himself uninspired by the various tenets of the somewhat nebulous degree he was pursuing. By midwinter, it was clear that his enthusiasm was continuing to wane, and so we were somewhat alarmed but not really surprised when — with summer just around the corner — there was no clear plan about what was to come next.

The situation seemed particularly dire framed in the stark contrast of his brother’s summer which was shaping up to be a hectic smorgasbord of various jobs. From local and international tour guiding, to running a summer camp at a board game café, to teaching chess part-time to elementary school kids across the city, to jumping on the bandwagon with my wife’s bike lesson side hustle, Twin A applied for an endless string of jobs, was offered most of them, and seemed to accept almost all of the jobs he was offered!

We therefore threatened Twin B that if he did not apply for more jobs and become gainfully employed for the summer soon, we would haul his ass to PEI (where I've been living for the past few years), register him for a multi-day chainsaw training course, and put him to work cleaning up Fiona damage on our property and those of other islanders.

The little bugger called our bluff: “OK, great”, he calmly replied. 

And boy, am I ever glad he did! Thanks for the generosity of time and spirit of several friends and others across the island who took him on, and a very generous partnership program between the federal government, a private nonprofit and the local college, the child has learned basic sheet metal roofing skills, knows how to safely fell a tree, can tie seven kinds of knots and climb up a wind turbine, and is excited about getting his first “man kit“ as he calls it, the toolbox gifted it to him by the program he is about to complete as I write this! Not only that, but he’s finally on the road to getting his driver’s license, and has even made some friends here on the island.

The personal emotional growth both individually and in our mother-son relationship is in itself something to be celebrated. And from an Education perspective, Twin B has turned from an uninspired, at-risk university dropout into an interested, optimistic and engaged young man and who is looking forward to continued learning and exploration of potential career path both related to his summer endeavours and in other areas. In addition to the possibility of applying to a follow-up course for the wind turbine training he’s completed, the boy has also sought out and registered for an Investigative Security college program to begin in January. 

As an educator, it is an important reminder of how valuable hands-on learning and multiple pathways are.

Although in theory I always supported college or other non-university post secondary pathways for my former students and my own children, I realize now there was an implicit bias on my part. Although I was first in my family to do so, I had gone to university, and in addition to my undergraduate degree, I hold two post-graduate degrees. So I guess I just sort of assumed my kids would do that as well. I see now that for at least one of my boys, having continued blindly into second year university would have robbed him of a wealth of experiences that are shaping him into the interesting an interested young man he is becoming. 

If you are a parent of a young person fretting about their future, realize that they really are a multitude of ways to move from school to under school, and all of them are valid. The exciting challenge for you as a parent (and for your child) is finding and/or designing the pathway or pathways that will best develop and engage the skill set and affinities of the young person in question. ​

After a bit of a hiatus from formal teaching life to move part time to another province and take on a job as a post-secondary curriculum and instructional consultant, I find myself preparing to return to the classroom.  It will be my second sojourn into teaching post-secondary, and my first time teaching in the college context.  It’s also my first time teaching primarily online. 

I‘m excited, and have been preparing to practise what I preach in terms of using and sharing clear learning goals and success criteria, triangulating (and diversifying!) assessment, and offering variety and choice in learning activities. My first sessional at Holland College will — I hope — be as engaging and practical for my students as it is for me to prepare for it!

As I work to bring to life my syllabus for Communication and Technology in the Arts, the blended course I’ll be facilitating for first-year college students in the Fundamental Arts program this September, I am struck by an interesting realization:  Once again, I‘ll be teaching the same „grade“ as my own children! 

This will actually mark the third time in my career that I‘ll be working with students who are the same age as Alex and Simon. The first time I played this game was the year I taught a Grade 3 class: At the time, my own babies were in Grade 3, too (albeit at a different school), and I often compared mental notes to see how aligned my classroom was with theirs, developmentally.  The edu-stars aligned again a few years later, when I moved from a Grade 7 & 8 Math and Science gig to Grade 6 Core… the same year Simon and Alex moved into Grade 6! And once again, I followed with interest what their respective teachers were up to and compared it to my own teaching and learning journey that year. (The boys even came to visit my students one day, as their school board and mine had different PD day schedules.)

I must be getting old. Either that, or I’m suffering from low grade depression or something. When my partner invited me to join her on a layover in New York for New Year’s Eve 2019, all I could think about was how awesome it would be to instead get home from work, change into my jammies and lounge around on the couch.

If Seinfeld had the summer of George, I’m having the NYE of Vera... and so far, it’s awesome!

After a horrible week spent mostly in bed with fever and a resultant loss of appetite on account of having an awful cold/sinus infection, I found my tastebuds slowly regaining their passion this afternoon. Consequently, I elected to order in through Uber Eats, and tried out a new Indian restaurant.

With my partner away at work and my kids away at a party, I had a whole quiet evening to myself. And after getting ripped off with Christmas, being sick and all, I was looking forward to some quality downtime with myself!

Unlike George’s summer, this evening did not disappoint: In addition to devouring my tasty Indian dinner, I reviewed a little math, studied some flight stuff, and started a new music app to learn to play blues chords on the piano.

Afterwards, I spend some time prepping a handout for one of my Airbnb Experiences, “Learn German and Eat Potato Salad”, for which I have a booking tomorrow.

In an effort to add value but reduce paper, I’ve been creating and providing electronic “handouts” for some of my experiences, which I use during the experience itself. Last week I made a plane spotting “bingo card” for my “Discover the Secret World of Aviation” experience, and tonight I made a visual language reference for the “Kartoffelsalat” which we’ll be making and eating tomorrow.

Since it’s new year’s, I’m all alone, and I don’t really drink, I decided to splurge on a bubble tea, delivered directly to my door through Uber Eats. What with the delivery charge, small order surcharge and tip, it was ridiculously expensive, but kind of fun in a naughty sort of way - not the type of thing I would normally do! But, I haven’t had a bubble tea in SO. LONG. And besides, I would have spent way more had I actually hopped on the plane with my partner to New York. So I thought, hey, why not?!

The poor delivery guy got lost of course, as do all folks who trust in Google to get them to our secret, off the beaten path hideout, with with a few custom directions from the convenience of my couch, I soon had my bubble tea in hand.

If I were really on my own, I’d probably wrap up the NYE of Vera shortly, walk the dog, and then head to bed. But being a responsible parent of independent, young teenagers who are attending their first “real” party (their words, not mine), I feel somewhat compelled to stay up and ensure they actually arrive home at the appointed hour. (My colleagues with older kids warned of this stage years ago, when Alex and Simon were babies screaming all the time and wouldn’t sleep, and I was complaining of being tired - they wisely shared that the tired part wouldn’t end when the kids got older, since I would then/now be awake worrying about whether they were okay, and whether they’d get home safely. I guess we’ve finally entered that stage!)

Also I want to talk to my honey when the clock strikes 12 and she calls me in a drunken stupor from her dinner out with the crew at the hotel restaurant in Newark.

So it’s off to the next item on agenda of the Boring Old Person’s Stay-at-Home Guide to NYE: A little Netflix and dog snuggling... still in my jammies!

Good night, y’all, and in case I fall asleep on the couch before midnight, happy new year 2020!