John plays barrelhouse boogie

Here's young John Last, my 19=year old grandson, beating out barrelhouse boogie on David's (actually, Dorothyanne's) out-of-tune piano, on Christmas Day. He could make a living playing piano, improvising, in a bar, nightclub, or brothel (where these are legal). No doubt he's got game. It's not called barrelhouse nowadays I hear, but that's what we called it when I was John's age. What's more, he played some of the hit tunes from those days, including In The Mood.His playing made my day. Overall, the days around Christmas passed off pretty well - there were moments when I almost forgot that Wendy isn't here now. But the nights are terribly lonely without her. I've tried several antidotes: the Kobo reader with its downloaded library of classics (in which I noticed occasional subtle differences between Google's Gutenberg Project version and each of my two versions of Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics and Collins Classics); both the latter are edited, and the Gutenberg project version has some notes in the back matter that imply editing; but I was too tired to read these carefully by the time I reached them. (These notes are hard to read too, in rather faint 10-point courier; I'll enlarge and change the font before I try again). No doubt the back matter of the translated classics will tell me who's responsible for the translation. I like this ebook reader more each time I use it; but I still prefer the sensuous pleasure of holding and reading a real book, while acknowledging gratefully the usefulness of a device the size and weight of a slim paperback that currently holds over 100 of the world's great books (plus another fifty or so I'd classify as schlock or kitsch). I've added one more that I bought from the e-book store - but loaded and read in comfort on the desktop PC with its large screen, rather than the playing-card size screen on the Kobo. My only real negative comment on the Kobo is the time it takes to "turn the page" - switch to the next screen.If I use a comfortably large font so I can read without glasses, I take in a page at once in much less time than it takes to get to the next screen. Maybe that's a price I must pay for being a fast reader.

Festivities

My children and available grandchildren did their best to dispel the despondency that was inevitable, I suppose, just at the thought of celebrating Christmas without my beloved Wendy. Much of the time they succeeded, and overall, I managed though once or twice I teared up (but I haven't had a full-blooded sob-my-heart-out bout of crying yet; perhaps it's not in my nature). On Christmas Eve, Jonathan drove me to Kingston in his newly acquired Ford Explorer - a 2002 model that has just over 100,000 Km on the odometer and is in splendid condition. He took great pains to examine cars carefully and his patience was amply rewarded. He's got a winner, and at a very good price. David, assisted by Peter and intermittently by John when he wasn't working, turned on his usual excellent hospitality with us and another guest, Tony, his research manager, a very interesting Canadian-born young man who lived for 12-15 years in Germany as a child, youth and young adult, speaks German probably better than English; he hasn't been back in Canada long enough to flesh out his colloquial English vocabulary as fully as possible and a few times asked for help with this. He's very well qualified, with a PhD in studies of terrorism/weapons of mass destruction so he is ideally qualified to lead the research team under David's delegation. Desre arrived from Toronto early on Christmas afternoon after Peter had left to drive back to Ottawa to stay with his mother, Dorothyanne. The floor under David's tree was covered with many gaily wrapped parcels. I gave David and Desre the 40-Year Doonesbury retrospective, having pre-read some of it with many nostalgic pangs at seeing again some of these wonderfully penetrating cartoon strips. This is social history of a high order -- and a huge coffee table book, which I look forward to dipping into on future visits to whichever home gives it coffee table status, David's in Kingston or Desre's in Toronto. In return, I received a Kobo e-book reader, preloaded with a selection of some 180 classic works in the Gutenberg project. Last night I read once again (for perhaps about the 15th or 16th time) Pride and Prejudice, and found the Kobo screen very easy to read though it takes a slightly irritating length of time to move on to the next page. On Boxing Day morning Jonathan drove us back to Ottawa, and after an hour or two to unwind, came back to collect me to drive across town to Rebecca and Richard's home for a second seasonal feast. R&R provided beautifully cooked and seasoned lamb, balancing David's beef so we avoided turkey both days, thank goodness (in the vocabulary of face-book, I long ago unfriended turkey and I'm pleased to find it's not a favourite among other family members). R&R had a big live tree too, and a vast array of presents that were duly exchanged. I supplied some liquid refreshment from Maclaren Vale South Australia for both feasts, and some gorgonzola and camambert too. I should add that although it was bone-chilling cold last night, Boxing Day evening, that was a trifling price to pay for bright sunny days throughout, and another today, December 27. There's enough snow on the ground and on rooftops to give everything a suitably seasonal appearance, and a bonus to have bright sunny days withal. Sunshine even on the short days we have at this season, drives away the gloom that tends to descend on us when there's heavy cloud cover, so long may these sunny days continue!

"Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad".

It's an ancient Greek proverb that Euripides quoted in his tragedy, Medea. I think of Cassandra too: her fate was to be cursed by the gods to utter dire but true prophecies that would would be scorned, laughed at, never believed. I know how she felt. My 1968 prophecies about the future need for doctors weren't dire but too optimistic. I said that well-educated future generations would safeguard their own health, follow the precepts of public health and preventive medicine and stay healthy into extreme old age. In future, I said, we would need more home care specialists, more community nurses, better trained kindergarten and grade school teachers (there were a few hisses and boos when I said their importance would be recognized by higher salaries than the income of the average GP). I said all this with abundant facts to back it up, in the Great Hall of Sydney University before an audience of several thousand doctors and the press and TV cameras waiting to hear all about the first successful heart transplant from Christiaan Barnard who would be the first speaker after the coffee break. My fellow speakers in that panel discussion on "Future Community Demand for Doctors" were Lord Todd who had chaired the UK Royal Commission on Medical Education (for which I had directed most of the research from my base at the University of Edinburgh) and a gaggle of distinguished leaders of Australian medicine. I was reminded of all this recently when brother Peter sent me a framed photo I'd never seen or long forgotten, of all of us on the platform. All greeted my facts and arguments with sarcasm, derision, scorn or a mixture of all these. We were all wrong, they more wrong than I. (My text was published in the British Medical Journal in 1969); like everybody else on the panel, I failed to predict the explosive growth of medical technology, and the massive international migration of medical specialists that began in the 1970s.

In the late 1970s my research focus shifted to environmental health problems, especially to the global environment, and the complex life-support systems, marine and terrestrial planetary ecosystems without which life as we know it would be unsustainable. This time I hope I'm a Cassandra because if I am not and my predictions are true, my grandchildren and their children face a grim future. Reflecting on this, and on the ancient Greek proverb Euripides quoted, I think our elected leaders are not just mad but criminally insane. They don't even have plans to cope with the mildest let along more severe kinds of climatic catastrophes that are now quite certain to strike with increasing ferocity and severity as each future decade unfolds. As the scientific evidence mounts, becomes overwhelming, so too does the defiant denial, the lies, the opposition to seeing, hearing, learning the truth. Our government in Canada is among the world's worst offenders. I wonder what kind of people they can be. Have they no children, grandchildren? Do they care nothing about the future? Willfully, knowingly, they eliminate funds for monitoring and surveillance in the Arctic, give tax breaks to the most environmentally destructive "development" - the Alberta Tar Sands - that the world has ever seen, suppress reports they themselves sponsored when these reports reveal the undeniable truth about harm to human as well as ecosystem health. That ancient Greek proverb assuredly applies to them.

Canadian peccadilloes pale to insignificance compared to the grosser misconduct south of our border. When we arrived in Vermont in 1964 Wendy and I were disgusted by the profligacy, greed and waste manifest all around us, as seen in the loaded plates of people at buffet tables (and the way they elbowed others aside, like bloated pigs at a trough); we were appalled at the wasted food, discarded appliances, good clothing, furniture, put out with the garbage -- not passed on to the needy. The "manifest destiny" concept was explained to us, along with the absolute necessity of belief in god (I asked "Which one?" Was Thor acceptable? Or Zeus?). That was in the middle 1960s; since then the American Empire has declined further, shows more visible evidence of crumbling away even more rapidly than the British Empire did from 1945 onward - and we were the better for that empire's dissolution. More than half a century later, the dysfunctional American political system has demonstrated its inability to cope with its glaring social and economic problems as well as its inability to pick which wars to wage, and to win them; its security can't and won't be guaranteed by the gaudy array of extremely costly high-tech weaponry on which the bulk of the nation's borrowed money is spent. That ancient Greek proverb applies with terrible truth to the American people. To the detached observer they show many signs of collective madness far more destructive than the Civil War, the idiocy of Prohibition, the paranoia of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the "War on Terror." The Tea Party reached the nadir of dissonant madness with its demand for lower taxes and less government, and the way things are going, it's not impossible to imagine them running the country in a few years. But enough already! Let's change the subject!

On a more cheerful note, today I roasted a chicken with all the trimmings, and without even a single glance at Wendy's notes. I should have tied its legs together to stop the stuffing oozing out, and I should have strained the fat off the gravy but I think my gallbladder can stand the slight overdose of fat. And the vegetables were cooked at the same time as the chicken was ready, so my timing is improving. All the same, I miss Wendy terribly. Her roast chicken was far better than mine.

Rebecca, David and Jonathan's Tributes

I am pleased that all three children wrote something for the Memorial Guestbook for their mother, my beloved Wendy. Jonathan wrote something almost as soon as the book went on line, and says now that he will add to it. David's eulogy appeared on December 4 and Rebecca's on December 5. Here they are in the order they appeared:

Jon: November 22, 2010
I will always miss my mothers humour. Driving around with her we could keep each other laughing all day long, as we did before she became too fragile to go out driving with me. While I was looking for land to buy she would point out places like a tiny island in a beaver swamp and comment on the solitude, the one rock to sit on, and the tiny tree to shade me. Even while joking she could make very wise comments about the properties I was looking at and always gave supportive and excellent suggestions. I'm glad that her sense of the bizarre and funny still carries on in the family.
~
Jon Last,
Ottawa

David took longer, gave careful thought to what he should say, and how:

David, December 4, 2010:

I will be very happy if my children and I can live our lives as well as my mother lived hers. She exemplified the fundamental virtues of human decency and care for others, the necessity for hard work and humility, and a constant desire to improve herself and to serve others.

At many points, her life was not easy but she was tremendously grateful for life’s blessings and took joy in friendships and little moments of beauty, particularly in gardens. My earliest memories of her are associated with a blue-tongued lizard in the garden in Sydney, vegemite sandwiches on sun-bleached wooden benches at a tennis court, being corralled on wet London buses, feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square on a misty day, a little garden with a pond behind a row house in London, and looking for stranded flying fish on a rolling ship’s deck. If the fish were alive, she would throw them back rather than let them be grilled for breakfast. The smell of diesel on metal still takes me back beyond armoured vehicles in Germany to being cared for on a pitching ship by a mother as sea-sick as us kids. In cold, damp Edinburgh, she sat up on many nights coaching me through breathing exercises to deal with coughing, hacking, and shortness of breath.

I associate my mother not just with tender maternal care, but also with mental and physical toughness, with self-denial, self-discipline and self-deprecation. We were not always good children, and we sometimes got what we deserved. We were urged by example to assume that we were not perfect, and needed work—lots of work. My mother exercised daily throughout her life, restrained her love of sweets, kept a journal, wrote letters prodigiously, forced us to do homework, and challenged us in ways we didn’t always understand at the time. It seemed odd that she could be unfailingly kind to others, yet often tough with us. When we arrived in snowy Edinburgh, I was sent to my first day at a rough public school in Colinton Green nattily attired in blue plaid long trousers, to be introduced by the head mistress as a “wee boy just arrived from AMERICA”. The ensuing experience toughened me up considerably! I think many aspects of my mother’s life were hard, and she understood well that life was more difficult for those who were not tough, and those who shrank from challenges. When I was twelve and a bit of a loner, she told me I was wasting my life and had to get out and do something with it. Discovering scouts, cadets, and the army opened up opportunities for service of which I thought she would approve.

The church in mum’s life is a bit of puzzle to me. She attended regularly for most of her life, despite being married to a devout atheist. In New Zealand, she had been raised in the Anglican Church. In Edinburgh, we lived a short walk from a Church of Scotland, whose dour minister’s hell-fire and brimstone sermons surely reinforced a self-defensive work ethic to justify our existence on this earth in light of eternal suffering awaiting those who fell short. She would put on the roast and drag us down to church every Sunday morning, but often did not seem to enjoy the proceedings much. In Canada, both my sister and I were dragged to St. Matthias Anglican Church, and forced to endure confirmation classes, because she had promised that we would be raised in the Christian faith. “Once you’re confirmed, you can make your own choice, but I made a promise.” We were confirmed, and for me it began a life-long spiritual search, sometimes desultory, which has been a source of richness in my life, for which I must thank her.

Although the Church of Scotland and the Anglican Church in the Antipodes and Canada are all very much part of the establishment, my mother’s sympathies were always with the poor and disadvantaged, and I think as she got on in years, she lost patience with the aspirations of faith and prayer, and focused more and more on the need for good works rather than fine words. She had no affinity for the comfortable hypocrisy of the moneyed middle-classes, lighting candles for the sick but supporting tax cuts. For many years she kept a prayer on her kitchen wall: Thank God for all you have, Ask God for all you need, Trust God for tomorrow. It disappeared after one of the moves, and I sometimes wonder if that marked a turning point, or if she continued to find God within. Like her, I get teary eyed at church services, with the beautiful language of the King James Bible and magnificent old hymns in battered blue hymnals, with tunes that remind me of polished wood and old stone, and generations past. Like her, I miss the lost community of the congregation, but perhaps she knew by the turn of the century that that old world could not be recaptured in churches, and she found it instead in the people of the Museum of Nature, of the Jack Purcell pool and in the communities of the old, the handicapped, and the poor to whom she tirelessly ministered. The “salt of the earth,” the “soul of the community,” and the very best of the “Anglican Church-women” are expressions that were made for Wendy Last.

There was a small service at St. Matthias, but there will be no funeral, and perhaps that is fitting. Mum gave her body to science, and medical students will have a chance to learn from that tiny, tough old body that seemed so much less than all that she had meant to us for so many years. Tin foil and plastic bags were never thrown out, but reused again and again in our house. Styrofoam meat trays became insoles for winter boots. Old wool was unravelled and re-knit as hats for the needy, and sheets or towels that wore out were sewn together to give them years of new life. We would sometimes mock this thrift, which she took in good humour. As I learned to say before I knew what it meant, and as I often said with some reservation of belief, I can say truthfully today that I believe in life everlasting, as she did. I know she lives on in the good works of her life, and in the good lives of those she has left behind. We will miss her, and remember her.
~
David Last,
Kingston and Toronto, Ontario

Finally, Rebecca's tribute appeared the next day, December 5:

December 5, 2010
We moved a lot when I was growing up. Until we arrived in Canada, I attended a different school every year. That meant adjusting to a lot of new neighbourhoods, sometimes whole new countries. Throughout this time, Mum was a fulltime home-maker – our personal “ice-breaker” and bridge-builder for each new location where my father’s itinerate career landed us. Bright spots in my memory fragments – I was 4 – of a grey, poverty-stricken year, living my Dad’s meagre scholarship in London, England, include our Christmas tree. Mum found a nicely-shaped branch, she painted it white and showed us kids how to decorate it, shaping the tinfoil caps off milk bottles into silver bells by pressing them onto a lemon-squeezer. That branch sat in a bucket of damp sand with its glittering bells for long enough that a minor miracle occurred; the branches started to sprout new, green leaves!

In Vermont, she signed me up for pottery classes and a summer workshop of Martha Graham-style dance, where I imagined my 6-year old self very graceful and glamorous, twirling brightly coloured chiffon scarves. My brother David and I had swimming lessons in Lake Champlain during the summer and learned to skate on its glassy surface that winter. Arriving in Edinburgh at age 7, Mum enrolled me in ballet class, which was quite fun the first year. I dropped out the second year when a strict ballet mistress took to rapping protruding body parts with her cane. Subsequently, I rejected Mum’s suggestions of piano lessons – I had no interest in practicing, and Brownies (I didn’t like the idea of having to make my bed regularly to earn a merit badge). Instead, Mum enabled possibly the best kind of childhood. David and I were allowed to wander alone or with friends along the banks of the Braid Burn, a little stream that ran through the sizable park that was, literally, over our back fence. The only provisos were that we stay within the park boundaries and come when we were called. Calling us involved Mum climbing to the top of the compost pile at the bottom of our garden and, summoning a deep breath, blowing an antique coach horn, which reverberated down the valley, sounding rather like a particularly sonorous fart.

Mum was endlessly patient with all our childhood enthusiasms. She lent her oven to an ill-fated attempt to make our own pottery from clay we found along one stretch the Braid Burn. She allowed me a small patch of garden and some radish seeds for my very own first experiment in gardening. She taught me how to sew, starting with dolls’ cloths and later graduating to make many of my own cloths. She dragged us off to Sunday school every week, where we made friends with kids in the neighbourhood. When we arrived in Ottawa, Mum insisted we learn how to ski and took us skating when the Rideau Canal opened for skating each winter. The winter we arrived in Ottawa, Mum signed me up for Girl Guides. Two of the girls I met there remain my close friends to this day.

Mother-daughter relations are often fractious and ours was no exception. If there were times that Mum despaired I would survive intact to adulthood, or become a productive member of society, she never let on. And she always found creative ways to teach me important lessons. I had a large bedroom as a teenager and was not very good at keeping it tidy. One day, I came home from school to find my belongings scattered on the driveway and Mum, fed up with nagging me, tossing more of the detritus from my bedroom floor out the upstairs window. When I got over being furious with her, I started laughing at what a clever way she had found to teach me the value of my possessions. After that I was at least slightly better about picking up after myself.

One day, as quite a young teenager, I remember asking Mum how she could stand to spend so much of her time cleaning house – a task I still dislike to this day. Her answer was that she used the time to day-dream. Her favourite fantasy, she said, was a great big funeral – her own, where everyone would be terribly sad because they missed her so much. Well, we do, Mum, we miss you terribly.
~
Rebecca Last,
Ottawa, Ontario


I can add a footnote about that prayer, carved into a battered piece of plywood with a faded biblical scene pasted along the top -- a scene so faded it was illegible for many years. When we were packing to move from our row house on Waverley Street to the cottage on Echo Drive, Wendy actually threw out this homily. I saw it, retrieved it, and tucked it end on where it wouldn't be seen, in the large wooden box we had acquired somewhere in our ramblings. a junk shop in the Scottish Borders I think. So far as I know, it's still there.

Here too is what I wrote, on November 17, two days after she had died:

Within minutes of meeting her on August 7 1955, I knew Janet Wendy was a very special person. I wanted to know her a lot better than a brief casual chat would permit. Her smile first attracted me, that lovely smile she maintained all her life. Her first remarks to me revealed her sense of fun, her spirit of adventure and her passionate concern for others, whose needs always came first, before her own. By the end of that lovely spring day I had almost made up my mind that she was the girl I wanted to marry and have by my side for as long as we both lived.
Our early courtship by correspondence was a wonderful way for two shy people to get to know each other’s minds before we began to explore each other’s bodies. We were fortunate to experience this reversal of the usual order of things. Perhaps it helped us to bond to each other so securely. We each described our shared journey through life several times; our story is available in several places so there is no need to repeat it here.
Wendy’s life touched many others through groups she belonged to and at an individual level. Her work as a volunteer led to the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award. Additionally she performed innumerable kindly and thoughtful acts. For instance she sent frequent postcards and short letters to little children because she knew what a thrill it is for a small child to get a letter addressed directly to them. The recipients included our three grandchildren, Sonia and Raman Kumar far away in the Himalayan foothills, some of the children in her New Zealand family, and others too numerous to mention. She visited sick and dying and housebound friends, bringing meals, books, words of comfort.
She described her childhood vividly in the collection of her selected works. I’m sad that despite much urging and encouragement from me and others, she never wrote a similar vivid and coherent account of her fascinating years as a nurse, which included heart-warming and hilarious experiences as a student nurse, a period of nurse-midwifery in a Maori community, hospital and private nursing in Scotland and in England, pediatric nursing in Perth, Western Australia, plastic surgery nursing in New Zealand, and finally while we were courting, more pediatric nursing at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. She never returned to nursing after we married, other than to nurse our children or me through episodes of sickness, but she described some nursing experiences in her diaries.
She kept a daily diary of the events in her life from before we met until her fingers were too weakened and clumsy for her to write. I have never read that diary – it is hers, her private record. I am looking forward to reading it now. She says it’s a humdrum, boring record of her daily life but I know it is more than that and I am sure I won’t find it boring.
Wendy and I were both children of the great depression of the 1930s. That conditioned us to be frugal, to make do with what we had and not fritter our money away on unnecessary trivia. She outdid me in this in our most impoverished year when she and I and our two small children survived in London for a year on a scholarship stipend intended for a single man. Every week she walked miles to a street market, taking our toddler and his 4-year old sister, often both of them in our rickety old stroller, coming home with the two kids perched atop the cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, mincemeat, and other cheap, nourishing food she had carefully selected.
My life will be lonely and empty without her, but innumerable happy memories of our 55 years together will sustain me for the rest of my life.

The gentlemanly thing

We reversed the usual order of things: female life expectancy is greater than male, so we two, Wendy and I, only a few months apart in age, defied actuarial statistics. But as I go painstakingly and with frequently teary eyes through the voluminous paperwork and her more important personal and intimate belongings, I reflect again and again on the chivalrous salute, "Ladies First." By dying before me, she has been spared all this. From time to time I said and did things she chided me for, deploring my uncouth conduct. "No gentleman would ever do that!" she would say. Well, I did the gentlemanly thing by out-living her. Now her spirit watches gratefully as I go about this sad but essential work. It's punctuated by the pleasure of dipping into her diaries. Every day from the beginning of 1950 until some time in the spring of this year when her fingers would no longer do her bidding, she kept a daily diary. Often seemingly a banal account of cleaning, washing, mending, it tells me about her tremendous energy; and it's enlivened by lyrical descriptions (sometimes with sketches) of our many travels. While she lived, I never looked at these diaries. They were hers, her private, personal thoughts. I have found most but not all of them yet; when I get them in order I have much pleasurable reading ahead of me. Then there are her scrap-books, album-sized volumes in which she pasted theatre programs, brochures, all sorts of reminders of places she had been, things she had done, performances she had attended, usually with me. These are a wonderful record that I look forward to reading at leisure in coming months.

Fiftyfive Years of Pictures of Janet Wendy

I'm no expert as I load photos of Wendy, mostly with others, extending over the fiftyfive years that we loved each other. I haven't arranged them in strict chronological order, but starting at the bottom and working upward, there's the fuzzy photo Janet Wendy's traveling companion Louise Zuhrer took of us on the day we met, then Wendy on the day we announced our engagement, a few wedding photos, and so on up to recent times when most images got misplaced. The top one was takem at Daly's Restaurant on Christmas Day 2009 when her illness had weakened her neck muscles but left her face (and her smile!) intact. The next two date from about 1985 then follow others more recent. I'll ask a child to help me get them in order and add captions, though some are self-evident...

A Memorial Ceremony

Perhaps this should be called a Memorial Service. It was held yesterday in a chapel that is part of St Mathias church, conducted by the lady vicar whose first name is Joan -- I don't know her family name but she is a sweet and kindly lady. She conducted a short memorial service honouring Wendy. Rebecca and Jonathan came with me. I think it was probably organized by Wendy's friend Shiela Carr and her husband Peter. There were some 20-25 women present, almost all, perhaps all, members of the Family Life group of which Wendy has been part ever since we came to live in Ottawa 41 years ago. By that time, 41 years ago, I had renounced my Christian faith -- I could not believe the basic tenets, the concept of the Trinity, rising from the dead, life everlasting, nor any of the rest of it -- and Wendy was in the process of following in my footsteps into atheism. But she remained a member of the family life group because of firm friendships with its members (and I venture to suggest, closer adherence to the values and behaviour expected of good Christians than some members of the group). It was a simple yet moving ceremony: a few readings, including the 23rd Psalm, no hymns, an opportunity for a few reminiscences, and for me to announce the Celebration of her life that we are planning for Friday February 11, 2011. After the ceremony we sat at tables for six to eat a sandwich and cake lunch, where I noticed that one variety of brownie looked and tasted very like the most popular of the cookies that Wendy used to make when our kids were young. It was the one that my father called "Compressed haggis" -- a name by which it's been known in our family ever since.

Today I was visited by Lianne Johnston from the ALS Society. She called at my request to collect leftover supplies that might well be useful to another person with ALS. I suppose this was in a way part of the process of letting-go. Last night there was another part of this process: Rebecca and I went through several boxes of winter gloves, hats, scarves, etc, selecting a few to keep, depositing most in a box to go to the Food Bank, which collects warm winter clothing as well as food items for the needy people of Ottawa. So that was Letting Go -- but the memories those warm winter gloves evoke haven't gone away, and never will. I'll have more to say about Letting Go when I've had more experience of it. One thing I won't let go, and will tell if other family members don't tell before I get a chance to say it at the Celebration on February 11, are a few anecdotes about Wendy's occasional oddities and eccentricities: the time she stormed out of our home on a freezing winter morning because each of us in turn had said we didn't want "again" or "yet again" our favourite Edinburgh winter Saturday lunch of pancakes; and the time, in our first Ottawa winter, we went blundering off into Lanark County looking for what must have been mythical snow sculptures (this was a year or two before the winter carnival was firmly established as an annual event in Ottawa). I think we will be able to muster half a dozen or more such anecdotes -- although one or two of them will require very careful use of words and expert phraseology to be suitable for use in mixed company. More of this topic anon.

A modest request

I miscalculated; it would be useful to have more copies of Wendy's death notice from the Globe & Mail or from the Ottawa Citizen. If any of my neighbours happen to read this post in the next day or two, just drop your used copy of Saturday's G&M or Citizen at my door on the 11th floor. And any department colleagues could just drop their used copy (or the relevant page) in my mailbox in the office, which I will be visiting later this week. I thank you in anticipation

Another point of view about Wendy

Here's Daughter-in-law Dorothyanne's perspective: (Ex-daughter-in-law to be precise, but she was married to David for well over 20 years, is the mother of our grandchildren and she is still my daughter-in-law whatever the technicalities say). I've left out one short paragraph but haven't corrected a small, irrelevant mistake: Wendy wasn't raised on a farm, but her sister married a farmer; and that farm might have resembled Cold Comfort Farm ever so slightly in some respects.


There was this wonderful woman, raised in the depths of New Zealand on a farm that could have stood in for Cold Comfort farm. She was tough and hardy and smart and funny and unafraid to be herself. She married an Australian, high risk for a New Zealand gal. I’ve watched Australians chase New Zealanders around a room with their conversations – Aussies are aggressive and Kiwis tend to seek compromise, and thus it was for some 50 years of marriage between these two people.

I only got to see in from the outside for a while when I was married to their son, another tough, hardy, funny, smart type, who had a perfect blend of Oz and Kiwi temperaments which made for an interesting life with him. His sister, ever so slightly older, constantly astonishes me with her wisdom and humour and I’m honoured to call her a friend; his younger brother is a character in his own right and much fun to know.

They all circled in their own orbits around this sun of a woman – she would pull them in with her love but, compared to my mother, rarely used guilt as the short leash. She made wonderful cakes, some heavy enough to support buildings, and lighter than air Pavlovas that swept across the tongue like a cool spring breeze. She worked tirelessly for those less advantaged than herself and made me ashamed of my own selfishnesses.

She and her husband supported each other through years of happy marriage – yes, lumps and bumps and a few muttered asides as occur in all happy marriages, but they rubbed along together well, even through her last challenge, ALS.

ALS is a horrible disease – it shrinks you and wastes you and for her, it was a huge challenge in that she had to let others do things for her. She fought this and strove to look after herself, walking on her own until her last week of life. One visit I made she was barely able to hold up her head, and yet she was offering me tea, and had to make it for me, hostess parfait til the end.

But, being the practical, wise, thoughtful sort of woman that she was, she’d also know that without her to pull the family together, they might just spiral outwards, get involved in their own lives, touch base infrequently. When she married, she left her family behind in New Zealand. She’d understand the need to focus on husbands, wives, friends, careers. And she’d be above using guilt to try to drag people together. Nope, she’d just be there, quietly or noisily supportive, making people want to come to her.

As we all did.

Much love to you, wherever you may be.

Janet Wendy's death

Janet Wendy Last, born 85 years ago in Christchurch New Zealand as Janet Margaret Wendelken, died peacefully on Monday November 15 at about 2 pm. Her death was gentle and calm: she had been slipping in and out of rather deep unconsciousness to a more wakeful state in which she could squeeze my fingers very gently and even from time to time open her eyes and look about her at her assembled family, Rebecca, David, Jonathan, Rebecca's husband Richard and David's first wife Dorothyanne and his second wife Desre. She tried to speak to me several times, I think to say 'Goodbye' which is more or less what I whispered to her. Almost everybody present, even the excellent nurse who gave her occasional medication, had tears in their eyes. I was too full of emotions and memories of our lives together to feel able to cry, and that's my loss I suppose - but I know the floodgates will burst sooner or later and I will release those pent-up signs of strong feelings.

Wendy's last few days went exactly as Louise Coulombe said they would, very quickly after the long, slow progress of the disease. About the middle of last week she said she felt too tired to be bothered getting up and dressed; by Thursday for the first time her legs were too weak for her to use the walker to get from our bedroom to the power wheelchair on the far side of our living-room, so we used the transfer wheelchair. Then when she sat in the power wheel chair, tilted far back so her eyes could focus on the TV screen where most evenings she watched an episode or two of one of her favorite BBC TV programs that we have on DVD (usually the long-running As Time Goes By) she dozed or slept, was not interested in the small domestic follies and pleasures of Lionel and Jean and the other characters whom she regards as old friends. By Saturday it was clear to me that she was dying, and we began 24/7 nursing. She remained comatose from then on, with brief spells when her eyes opened and once or twice she tried to say something but her powerless voice muscles frustrated those transient efforts. But as I sat by her bedside holding her hand there were responsive squeezes and I know she was communicating with me, as I was with her, signals of love and innumerable memories. Despite occasional misunderstandings about requests for suction, the fan, a rug over her knees or a mouth-moistening pad, she and I had over the years developed some sort of telepathic or extrasensory way to communicate important things.

All of us gathered here Monday morning: Rebecca, Richard, David, Desre, Dorothyanne, Jonathan,taking turns holding her hand, engaging intermittently in irrelevant and rather light-hearted conversations. By mid-morning her imminent death was obvious. She had Cheyne-Stokes respiration, alternating runs of shallow breaths and no breaths; her fingers were blue and ice-cold. The nurse kept her as comfortable as possible. Finally she slipped out of this life about 2 pm.

From the beginning it was a gentle, painless process. The saddest, most frustrating aspect was Wendy's loss of the power of speech. She was always such a warm-hearted lady, communicating her feelings for others so aptly, it was a cruel fate to have that power taken from her.

We have so many shared happy memories, so much to be thankful for, that the pain of losing her has been softened by these memories.

People we've met

Wendy's journey with motor neuron disease, or ALS, brought us into contact with some remarkable and wonderful people. Her personal support workers are the ones we know best. Several times I've mentioned Sharon Morrison, and her photo has appeared on this blog. Sara Kerrigan merits more than the passing mention I gave her. At first she seemed such a kid, only 22 years old, half way through her nursing degree at Ottawa U, working part time as a PSW, aspiring to specialize in palliative care nursing. In the months she has been coming here she has matured, become more proficient, more self-confident. She has an outstanding role model in Jodi Gannon, the visiting nurse who came every day. Jodi is the epitome of everything a good nurse should be: skillful, competent, compassionate, charismatic, a splendid professional. I would love to have had her on my team. Courtney Henderson, occupational therapist is another who went the extra mile on Wendy's behalf. There were others too, nutritionists, nurses, and above all of them, Louise Coulombe, MD, palliative care specialist physician, whose wisdom and experience and calm words of comfort sustained both of us through Wendy's journey. In a separate category each and every member of the entire team at the ALS Clinic gave Wendy their undivided attention whenever we went there. As her disease progressed and her needs changed, the focus shifted from one part of the team to another, but throughout the course of her illness, every one of them seemed to us to have the same compassionate approach that makes all the difference to the patient's level of comfort and confidence. I am profoundly grateful to them all, can't find adequate words to express my gratitude.

Another way fate has been kind to us

A few days ago I attended a meeting for family members caring for a person with ALS that was organized by Heather Allen, the social worker at the ALS Clinic. Listening to the wife of a young man who is afflicted I thought, "There but for the grace of god..." When Wendy and I were in that age group, the thought didn't haunt me, but did occasionally cross my mind, that she and our (then 2) small children would have been left destitute if I had been killed or incapacitated during those immensely happy and scientifically productive years. Our only security was a puny life insurance policy; our family support networks were fragile and far away on the other side of the world. We survived on a scholarship stipend intended for a single man with no dependents, then later on a salary not far above the minimum wage, and there were no fringe benefits. In this way as in so many others, fate or chance or whatever it is that determines life's course have treated us kindly. No such calamity ever struck us when we were most vulnerable. That's another blessing to count at this sad time as Wendy's life ebbs away. Today for the first time her legs are too weak to support her and I had a hard time holding her up on my own during the middle of the day when we have no personal support worker. We are closing in on the time I'll need more help...

* * *

As a compiler and editor of dictionaries I'm always interested in words. Today, reading the Guardian Weekly, I came across a word new to me, I suppose a rather new word from computer-speak, 'petafloppies' which from the context I infer to be a word signifying the speed at which a computer can process data (or the number of bits of data a computer can process simultaneously). I like the sound of it. The prefix 'peta' is a unit used to signify a very large number, 10 to the 13th power; and 'floppy' (as in floppy disk) means flexible or capable of being changed or transformed. I couldn't find the combined word 'petafloppies' in any of my shelves of print dictionaries. But I'm sure my grandson Peter will know what it means. And now David has told me that 'floppy' is an acronym, but I've forgotten the words so he will have to add them in a comment on this blog post. The word appeared in a news item: the Chinese have a super-computer that can process data and more bits of data, than anybody else ever has. It's yet another sign that China is becoming the top nation. I hope it won't require another war to establish that reality securely.

Support networks

Today Francine ("Frankie") Nadeau, occupational therapist in the speech language pathology section of the Rehabilitation Centre/ALS Clinic came to our apartment with a mechanic/technician (Rob?) to fit a bracket on Wendy's wheelchair, so the Dynavox can sit there all the time, or as long as she wants it to anyway, instead of having its heavy weight perched on a cushion on her lap while one of us stands there to hold the weight off her. This is a great step forward and she has been making good use of the machine since this bracket was fitted. We are profoundly grateful to Frankie and Rob for coming here rather than asking us to go out to the ALS Clinic. The personal care and attention to details that everyone is providing for Wendy is heart warming. All members of the professional team who care for her are cheerfully compassionate and competent; they lift my spirits as well as hers. I can't find adequate words to express my gratitude for all that everyone is doing to make her remaining time with us as comfortable as humanly possible. Words of comfort and support arrive almost daily also from distant places, some frequent and with photos of new additions to the family, like Dodie Ziemer's and brother Peter's, others like Stephanie Blackden's email today from Scotland, with interesting news updates. And of course Rebecca and Richard visit us, and David phones or Skypes, almost every day from Kingston or Toronto, friends and neighbors drop in just about every day, as do our visiting nurse, usually Jodi or Mark on her days off. Our living room is like a garden too, with all the flowers we receive. These multiple supporting networks are a tremendous comfort to both of us during this difficult journey that Wendy is embarked upon. We never feel alone. It is very comforting that Wendy, who all her life has done so much for so many other people, has so many tangible tokens of other people's concern for her. I suppose it's a demonstration of the truth of something I said and wrote not long ago: we humans are hard-wired to care for each other.

Miracles

It's been unusually cold in the past few days with drizzling rains and even threats of snow flurries - wintry by Adelaide standards, late autumnal by ours but bleaker than usual; and leaves still cling bravely to branches of many trees I can see from my window. Daylight saving ends today, so it will be dark an hour earlier tomorrow and we will know that winter isn't far away. Perhaps Wendy's condition is adapting to the season and she is preparing to hibernate. She is sleeping more of the time, drowsy and dozing off after each meal. Her oxygen saturation readings have been lower lately too, in the low 90s rather than the high 90s which probably explains her drowsiness. I offer to read to her from Bill Bryson's latest book, or Alexander McCall Smith's, but she isn't interested: it requires concentration and she doesn't have any to spare. So I put on a CD of one of the Dave and Morley stories from the Vinyl Cafe, the one in which Dave finds a little sprout of green leaves of a plant growing in the mess that has accumulated on the floor of his car, nurtures it, and it grows into a tree. Morley thinks it's a sumac, but it's an ailanthus, the Tree of Heaven, and when Dave and Morley carefully transplant it to a corner of their back garden it could and probably will ultimately grow to a height of 60 feet. I want to say this is one of my favorite Vinyl Cafe Dave and Morley stories but I have so many favorites the list is longer than the handful that leave me cold. Stuart McLean is indeed worthy of the accolades he's beginning to accumulate; his latest book, just out, isn't more of the stories but a haphazard collection of remarks (many from the opening moments of his weekly radio show); and some of these are wise, funny, even occasionally profound. I thought Wendy had dozed off towards the end of the story about the tiny green leaves on the floor of his car that grew into a Tree of Heaven, but she didn't, she was listening with her eyes closed. I'm happy about that, because this story is a rather lovely celebration of the miracle of life. Even though her life is approaching it end, Wendy and I can still celebrate the miracle of life, and the miracle that brought us together 55 years ago.

O tempora! O mores!

Some of my American friends have described me as an honorary American and at times I've thought of myself this way too. My remarks today will offend and alienate some, perhaps most or all of these friends.

In 1964-65 Wendy and I decided after a few months in the lovely little New England university city of Burlington, Vermont, that beautiful though it was and with many delightful people who became our friends, nothing would induce us to settle permanently there or indeed anywhere in the USA. Even then it was clear that the nation was headed in the wrong direction. Despite its vast wealth, squandering it on pointless foreign wars fomented by paranoid fantasies would lead ultimately to economic ruin. I don't recall ever meeting an American who recognized the war in Vietnam as the war of liberation from foreign domination that the Vietnamese and fair-minded Europeans and others perceived it to be. (The same must be said of the war in Afghanistan). I've discussed before in this blog other, more important, factors related to culture and values that led us to choose the University of Edinburgh rather than Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore. The Iraq war, launched on another paranoid fantasy (or on lies) plunged the nation deeper into debt. Americans have squandered their riches, spilled much blood, wasted the natural wealth and despoiled much of the natural beauty of their country with total disregard for future generations. But it's the immature political system, its corruption by "lobbyists" and its total subservience to money that unnerves me most. The bizarre and juvenile "Tea Party" movement spent over $1 billion on a campaign based on its fantasy that lower taxes and "less" government would solve their problems; and of course they won massively because the ill-informed and poorly educated American masses believed this claptrap. But the USA's trouble is older and deeper than the little turbulence of the latest elections (parenthetically, part of the trouble with the USA is frequency of elections: planning with a time horizon of decades is an impossible dream in a nation that plays musical chairs with elected policy-makers every 2 years!). Greedy stockholders seeking instant wealth and conniving boards of directors who dismantled thriving American industries, exported jobs to countries with lax or non-existent labour and environmental laws in order to boost quarterly dividends, and corrupt incompetent banks eager for quick profits today with no thought for tomorrow, have combined to ruin the USA. Its industries have been dismantled and exported to China and elsewhere; its skilled workforce has to make do with poorly paid part-time McJobs and no benefits. Meantime legislators were bribed by lobbyists to dismantle safeguards against irresponsible home loans and several million who lost their jobs have lost their homes too. So of course they are angry, but instead of blaming the corrupt and incompetent politicians who created these fiascoes, the incumbent president and his party get the blame. An evil subtext, never spoken aloud, is the colour of this president's skin. (The far right wing Tea Party is overwhelmingly white. And it is covertly racist as well as against gays, freedom of choice for women and other progressive causes). I hope enough Canadians are savvy enough so Canadian politics can't be dragged down to the gutter level of the Tea Party.

winter is a- comin' in

The last few days have been a little rough, mainly because of broken sleep and colder weather. We used to think nothing of slipping out of bed to have a quick pee, but now it takes two of us to accomplish this solitary function: I have to transfer Wendy from a semi-horizontal to a momentarily vertical position while I dance with her a step or two from bed to commode then back again under sheet, eiderdown and blankets. She's light as a feather now, 70 pounds if that, so easy to dance with; but her shrunk shanks have very little muscle strength and it saddens me to behold when I recall her plump thighs and shapely calves of former times. And once back in bed she rapidly goes to sleep again, thanks to a bolus of her sedative tranquilizer; but I don't, perforce I must sleep lightly in case she needs me again, so no sedative-tranquilizer for me. Last night we had our first skiffs of snow, just a few flurries really but enough to cover rooftops. This morning it feels colder because it looks colder, although a glance at our indoor thermometers shows it's actually not any colder in our apartment, steady at 20-21 C - it's not quite all in the mind though because I can actually feel the icy blast of the wind as it whistles though the crack by the balcony door which still has its summer screen. It's time to put the storm door on, yet another sign that winter will soon be here. But the sun is shining, there's still plenty of colour in the trees. They will keep their leaves again this year until well after November 9, the anniversary of my arrival in Ottawa in 1969. That year there wasn't a leaf left on any tree anywhere and I remember feeling depressed at the thought of the long winter ahead, worried too that I'd made a big mistake uprooting Wendy and our three children from Edinburgh where we were so happy and life was so good in so many ways. Happily, time soon showed that coming to Ottawa was no mistake, far from it, indeed it was the best decision we ever made. This feeling is reinforced whenever I observe or reflect on the excellence of the team that cares for Wendy with such competence and compassion. What good fortune it is, to live in a city where such superb care is provided when she needs it!

John's first political campaign

I'm sure it won't be his last, he really seems to have the fire of politics in his blood. In the contest for the position of mayor of the city of Kingston, he ran fourth, with 377 votes, far behind the three high-profile well-known candidates but well ahead of the other two 'fringe' candidates. I am pleased and proud of this youngest of our grandchildren. He got valuable political experience, conducted a smart and almost cost-free campaign, and perhaps more important, was noticed by more experienced politicians, which could be a useful attribute in a few years if he stays with his career aim and becomes a political journalist. I hope I will stay alive and sentient long enough to see what becomes of this young man.

Our grandson the political star

Young John Last, our grandson (age 19) is making ripples, rather than waves, in his campaign to be elected mayor of Kingston (pop 135,000) a university city about 250Km
southwest of Ottawa. Kingston is home to the venerable and prestigious Queen's University, the Royal Military College, miscellaneous light industries; tourism, farming etc also contribute to its economic base. John's campaign is mainly internet-based (he can't afford lawn signs, hire of assembly halls, etc), and hasn't got a team for door-to-door campaigning: he has no moneyed special interest backers. If I've got the right URL, you can see his picture and an article about him at
http://www.ktw.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2780352 (I tried unsuccessfully to upload a very good photo of John that heads this article, but the file format would not upload; however you can see it- and read the article - if you copy and paste the URL above into your browser).

There are various other links and a website, http://www.runthistown.ca/
There were originally four of them involved in this but it seems to have
narrowed down now to John. It would be a hoot if he were to win, which in this time of political volatility isn't entirely impossible.It's valuable experience for his future career, no matter what the outcome.

He has lived in Kingston about half of his life. His campaign got a big boost this week when he was endorsed by the Queen's University student newspaper. Their editorial staff interviewed all the candidates, asked each of them three leading questions, said his responses were the best, most impressive of all the candidates. You can see this editorial at http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2010-10-22/editorials/last-doesnt-lack-lustre/ where it appears with a cartoon that is quite a good likeness.

The election is on Monday October 25. We will be awaiting the outcome with keen interest

How to spot good writing

Today I did what I suggested in the last note I posted: I read aloud to Wendy the Introduction and part of Chapter 1 of Bill Bryson's new book, At Home. Out loud, his words read mellifluously, proof if proof were needed, that he writes extremely well. This experiment will continue for as long as Wendy wants it to continue. I haven't read aloud since we lived in Edinburgh in the 1960s: I had a commodious chair in which I sat with Rebecca and David beside me, each perched on a low, broad arm of the chair, and skinny little runt Jonathan beside me. Whatever happened to that chair? Why didn't we bring it to Canada with us, in the same way we brought our piano, the breakfront bookcase and several other living room chairs? I missed that chair for years; I suppose someone made an offer for it that we couldn't refuse. But I digress. I was writing about reading aloud. I treasure the memory of those reading aloud evening experiences because they were so pleasurable; and what made them so was only partly that in this way I bonded more closely to all three children. Another part of the experience was that we read some of the greatest works in the English language -- children's books to be sure, but great literature nevertheless. Reading Bill Bryson aloud is as pleasurable because he is such a fine writer.

Serendipity, or Finding lost treasures

In each of our last two homes before we moved to our apartment at 300 Queen Elizabeth Drive, I had over 70 meters of book shelves - 76 meters at 34 Waverly Street, 72 meters at 685 Echo Drive; here I have 24 meters. So several shelves hold rows of books behind other books and many hold books untidily stacked in front of or on top of more or less neat rows of books. The long column of Hakluyt's Voyages, the Everyman Encyclopedia, and several other sets are sturdy enough, and leave enough space above them and the bottom of the shelf above, to hold a pile or a few books for which otherwise there would be no space anywhere. What's more, when we moved in here I didn't take the time and trouble I'd taken previously to organize and arrange my books. So that's why I often hunt long and fruitlessly for a book I know I still have, that I didn't pass on to one of our children or grandchildren, or dispose of to a dealer or in a garage sale. (There is also the John Last Collection of over 700 rare and antiquarian books on medicine, public health and related sciences that is safely stowed in the Roddick Room of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons). Hunting is fun though, even when there's only 24 meters to hunt through. I've remarked before in this blog about the unexpected delight of coming upon a lost treasure when hunting for something else altogether. This afternoon in this way I found Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. I'm a great admirer of Bill Bryson, and mine is a treasured copy I bought in London many years ago, almost an identical twin of one I saw last week on the shelves in the corridor between the tower and the garage; but not quite a twin because mine is the original UK published version, the one in our condo's library was published in Canada, with the subtle changes in wording and style that publishers make presumably in the belief that readers are insular idiots. I should compare the UK and Canadian versions, but the latter quickly disappeared from the condo's little collection so the opportunity was lost. Why do I admire Bill Bryson? An American from the middle of Middle America, he's married to an Englishwoman and has lived most of his adult life in England. He has written one of the best books extant on the English language (The Mother Tongue) and several of the best, certainly the funniest, travel books of modern times. Notes from a Small Island exposes mercilessly some of the flaws and fault lines of modern Britain and British life and times, but it's written with love and affection unequalled in any other travel book. Most of his other travel books are like this, often with rich patches of laugh-out-loud rollicking wit. I read Notes from a Small Island on a train trip from London to Edinburgh and it's as well that most of the time I had the carriage to myself (it was one of those modern long carriages, not cut up into compartments) so my guffaws of unrestrained mirth didn't disturb fellow-travellers. For her birthday last week, I got Wendy several books, one of which is Bill Bryson's latest, At Home. It looks full of interesting, quirky, odd, offbeat information and ideas. It may be hard to resist the temptation of having first dibs -- or maybe this is one I could read aloud to her...

birthday celebrations

Yesterday, October 14, was Wendy's birthday, her 85th. We celebrated in a low-key way, 'we' being Rebecca, Richard, David, Jonathan, Sharon Morrison, Wendy's charismatic personal care worker, and I. Throughout the day, various friends and neighbours popped in briefly (just about everyone now is aware that brief visits are better than long ones).

Wendy got some splendid presents, practical things like large handkerchiefs and a useful device from David to help her lift herself off a chair, books by Stuart McLean and Bill Bryson among others, a new wrist watch (an el cheapo one from Zellers, not a multi-mega-buck watch by Cartier or Rolex); gloves and mittens, and a lovely fur 'scarf' that doubles as a muff, from Suzy and Elfie Juneau. The most original present is a fancy printed and bound copy of Richard's menu; having been associated for many years with the restaurant business, Richard knows where to go to have fancy menus produced. The result appears in the two pictures at the top, the cover, and the specialty dishes he has prepared. Most people can eat these with knife and fork. For Wendy's special consumption, Richard blends each of these, and freezes them in ice-block sized nuggets. Our freezer is full of rows of labeled plastic bags full of nuggets of each dish, which we thaw and heat as required. This began as an experiment that has been so highly successful that we have encouraged Richard to consider making a commercial venture of his creations. I have a hunch that this venture would be successful enough for us all to retire on the proceeds.

Thanksgiving Parade of Lasts - a photo album

Three perfect days: cold, frosty mornings than warm sunshine all day, lighting the brilliant Fall colours. Accompanied by Wendy's personal care worker Sharon Morrison, our three kids and I took Wendy out in her power wheelchair. Jonathan,in his role as the official family photographer, took many photos. Here is a selection, including one of him when he entrusted the camera to Sharon. I tried unsuccessfully to arrange them in rows but this elderly computer is moody, crotchety, has the sulks or for some other reason best known to itself it won't do what I tell it to do. Also, the photos aren't arranged in the order that things actually happened.