Sapphire Anniversary

August 31st, 2013 saw the milestone of 45 years of marriage for Mr. Robert Andrew Barclay and Mrs. Mary Douglas Barclay.

I salute both of these survivors for their courage, tenacity, and love for one another. Neither alone could have managed the trials of recent years.

I hope one day to look back on a relationship of decades myself.

Remain Calm and Carry On

 

On January 9th, 2013, Mary Douglas Barclay turned 78 years of age. Age and infirmity may be her lot (and a bitterly painful lot at that), but she continues to try to maintain a positive demeanor and to give the world back at least as good as she gets.

I have to especially note that I am happy to have her with Dad and I (we've been very fortunate to all make it so long together having such a small family). Whenever I need an inspiration and an example of courage, endurance, and basic decency, I need look no further than my Mother.

In these later days of my life, my family has been incredibly supportive during my troubled times and for that I am and will remain eternally grateful. To them, no blame or fault attaches for the troubles I face now - they did their best with what they knew at the time and whatever became of me was the sum of my particular genetics, my particular experience, and a lifetime of things of which their contribution was an important but hardly the only component. Their support has been unstinting and generally compassionate if somewhat perplexed at times. When the chips have been really down, their support has never wavered. That is beyond price to me.

I wish I could ease some of Mother's suffering and pain, but the best I can do is distract her occasionally. I'd love to allay her worries about me; I am still slogging through deep, challenging places, but I just feel like things are going to end well.

Thanks, Mom. Thanks for all you've done, for all you've given me, for the traits you transmitted to me of compassion, of strength of character, of intelligence, of decency and integrity, and of the courage to have my own opinions and mind and to speak it, even when it disagreed with our own most dearly held opinions. These are gifts that have helped make me who I am and for which no repayment would be adequate. But you have my everlasting gratitude in any event....

 
 

Belated Anniversary Celebration

My cousin Alan from Missouri (well, Scotland, but living in Missouri), me old Mum and me old Dad, and a couple of family friends (a lovely Irish couple who are my second family and very dear to me) joined me for a belated celebration of my parent's 41st anniversary.

It was an imperfect meal - I ran out of time to create the rosemary potatos and the waldorf salad with pear. But what was left went down well. The menu was:

• Phylo pastry filled with goat cheese and cranberries (tasty!).
• Phylo mini-quiches with smoked Gouda and ham (ditto).
• Round of drinks: Waterloo Dark, the Gerwurtztraminer wine, a Waterloo Dark, a Steam Whistle, a Rye and Ginger Ale, a Laphroig Quarter-Cask (cut with a small bit of Evian) and me drinking a Ginger Ale.
  
• A spinach salad (spinach and field greens, some orange bell pepper, some radish and alfalfa sprouts, tomato, some poppy seed, and a dressing of the users choice - creamy dijon, raspberry vinagrette, or zesty italian (made a separate salad with iceberg lettuce instead for Dad as he's no fan of spinach).
• Wine with Dinner: Pinot Noir and the Gerwurtztraminer.
• Main course was Beef - two outer eye of round roasts (no bones, trimmed of fat, each about 2-2.5 pounds) done in beef stock and Guinness, with Worcestershire, Browing Fluid, a hint of Tobasco, Montreal Steak Spice, powdered Garlic (lazy!), a touch of Cumin, fresh ground pepper, a touch of sea salt, and with half of a purple onion for the roasts to rest on in crock pot. Also made a lovely gravy from the juice.
  
• Long grain wild rice (microwave sort... but it was pretty good).
• Steamed carrots and broccoli.
  
• Irish Soda Bread and Becel (thanks Toni!)
• Pre-Dessert Course Drinks: More Laphroid and a nip of Evian, some Irish Breakfast Tea, more wine.
• Some date squares to hold the diners over until dessert was ready (from the Antrim Truck Stop bakery - good!)
  
• Dessert, about fifteen minutes later: Black forest cake (with candles notionally arranged to look like the number 41, although allegations of them looking like a 9 were made by certain cheeky cousins) and home-made Coconut Ice Cream (500 ml 18% table cream, 1.5 cups unsweetened coconut, one can (400mL) coconut milk, 250 ml of 3.25% homo milk, 3/4 cup of sugar (and 35-40 minutes in the new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker).
  

It was generally agreed the home made ice cream was a success and that coconut was another worthy flavour (the first batch was vanilla with raspberries).

The clean up will take probably 3-4 dishwasher loads in my dinky little apartment dishwasher and there will be leftovers to recycle into new salads and other meals, but the result was overall a smashing success. Setting the Crock Pot probe cook mode to 140F was a good choice - it left the roast a bit pinkish with a wee bit of blood inside (I think it got a bit overcooked last time).

Over all, a good night. My cousin met my second family and vice versa. I got to hang out with some good people and the work was worth it since everyone seemed replete when they tottered out.

And then I took the weight off of my feet and killed some Zombies on Left 4 Dead for a couple of hours and had a beer myself. A good day.

41 Years of Marriage

 

Here's me raising a glass of awe to my parents.

Monday the 31st of August, 2009, was the forty-first anniversary of their marriage. 41 years, not all of which have been trouble free. Some were hard years, some were very hard years. But they've weathered thick and thin and stuck by one another. And here we are, 41 years and counting.

Looking at my own slow pace (if stopped can be considered a pace) towards a married life, 41 years from tomorrow would still see me 80 years old. I don't imagine I'll ever get to see that event.

As I've aged, I've appreciated the people they've been more. I've seen more of their flaws, foibles, and human limitations, but rather than make them less wonderful, that has endowed them with a deep humanity and a depth of character in my eyes. Sure, I don't agree with one or other of them on some subjects, but one way or another, I've been very blessed to have them.

If forty-one years of marriage has produced naught else, I'm one outcome. Whether that's a good one, I'll leave to the reader to decide, but certainly my parents should get credit for most of my positive aspects and no blame should afix to them for my flaws (for they are surely mine own).

I know that I wouldn't be the man I am (whatever that is exactly) without them. Any character, integrity, or honour is a byproduct of the upbringing I received in their house. Any courage, compassion, or curiosity about the world and how it works and how to improve it also can be credited to them.

I've been very lucky. I hope they have a few more decent years left in them as I really enjoy their company (except for some of Dad's rambling stories, but let's be honest - I'm not known for terse either...).

Here's to you, Mister and Missus B. As the old Scots saying goes

Wha's like us?
Damn few, and they're aw Deed!

 
 

Hope In Everyday Life

Sometimes, just getting by day to day can be an act of hope. My father has had a bad heart for years and that isn't generally something that improves as you age.

Dad has a problem with chronic ulceration on his lower leg as a consequence of poor circulation from a long-ago sports injury and from the venous removal for a prior heart bypass and as a consequence of a heart powering at maybe 40%. Due to the aforesaid sports injury, he also had a collapsed lung and one of his lungs has never been very good since, so he has maybe 60% of normal lung capacity.

Add all that together, along with the nerve regrowth pain from having a continuous, seeping, frequently infected, open wound of very large size on his leg and you have a life that comes with brutal pain in the leg, chest pain, chest heaviness, headaches, flushing and chilling, light headedness and unsteadiness from variable blood pressure, and challenges from getting fluid build up in the bottom of the lungs (shortness of breath, difficulty sleeping lying down).

Anyone having to deal with all of that on a daily basis could not be blamed for losing hope, temporarily or permanently. And there are very bad days. There's nothing quite like having a relative ask you to go get a gun and shoot him to offer him surcease from the pain (except of course being the sufferer of such pain).

And yet, he keeps going. Part of that might be a natural human survival instinct. Part of this might be that he knows Mom, gradually decaying from the reconstructive surgery from her run-in with a dump truck and from advanced osteoporosis brought on in part by prior run-ins with cancer earlier in life, needs him to help her maintain an independent life. Part of it might be that he clings to the faint hope that I'll straighten out my life and get settled down and be happy and give him and Mom some grandkids.

Whatever is behind it, he keeps going. Some days his spirits are really down (whose would not be?). But he keeps going.

Somedays, just getting through ends up (intentionally or otherwise) being a testament to hope and courage. I think a lot of days are like that for both of my parents, two of the most courageous and enduring people I know. The fact that they manage to worry about me and our many family friends while in the midst of their own challenges, instead of becoming totally introspective about those challenges, is amazing.

I've been very lucky to have two wonderful role models. Their courage in the face of adversity gives me an enduring sense of hope. I have always loved my parents and thought myself fortunate to have had the two fo them as my parents (even in my worst moments). As I age, I see even more clearly how blessed I was by random circumstance of where and when I was born and to whom.

I guess this post is just my way of acknowledging their quality as parents. They inspire me to keep on fighting the good fight and to endure. They show me that, when I think I'm having a bad day, it really isn't anywhere near as bad as others are having. They help grant me a perspective on my own challenges which seem meagre in comparison. All in all, they give me the gift of hope.

Thanks for that, Mom and Dad.

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. -- Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), the Shawshank Redemption