The Wind Phone

Grief is a funny thing. It wants to come out and, like water, finds every little crack and crevice.  And we, strange creatures that we are, try to prevent it from coming out at "awkward" moments. At least I do. "Now is not a good time." "I need to be alone, when life has calmed down, when I have space and time to grieve."

Hah.

Grief will come out, no matter how much we may try to patch the cracks and crevices and redirect it into a more discreet pathway. It is, ultimately, a good thing, to let grief find expression, to give it free rein to say the things that we need to say. To cry the tears we never cried. To rage and roar against the stupidity of fate and death.

But it's still not an easy thing.

A few weeks ago, watching the news, I saw a little piece about phoning loved ones, from an old rotary phone mounted on a random telephone pole in Vancouver. Just pick up the receiver and dial their number, waiting for the dial to make its slow return to the starting position. Call them up to tell them that you love them. Or miss them. Or are thinking of them. Of course, the phone is not connected to anything. Rotary phones are now quaint, nostalgic items and, dare I say it, antiques. There is no one on the other end of the line, but that's not the point.

Sometimes, all we need to do is say what we need to say. Without any response. No interruptions. No fear of a reaction. No hurt feelings. Just say what needs to be said and then listen to the wind and the silence and know that you have been heard.

Kind of funky.

These types of phones have a name—wind phones. They started in Japan a decade or more ago, as a way for people to express their grief. We are all so good at bottling it up, containing it, hiding it. Don't let it show. Because after 3 months, shouldn't we be "over it"? After a year, or two, should we not have moved on from grieving? But grief is not a "One and Done" thing. Oh sure, there are the big ones like the death of a loved one, or the death of a beloved pet, or the loss of a job, or a serious health diagnosis. Sometimes those larger losses give all of the accumulated griefs a chance to find expression... the little day-to-day hurts that we keep letting go of, moving on from, pushing aside, or diminishing. We can feel them beneath the surface, searching for the crack that will give them expression.

I did a search for "wind phones" and there's a whole website that lists the location of these conduits, the nearest official one to me being on one of the Gulf Islands. But then... I saw a local news article and... we have our very own wind phone!! At the local cemetery, as part of an art installation.

I dithered for a day or so... and then early one morning, at 5 am, I drove to the cemetery. The wind phone is in a little carved wooden cubby that brings to mind waves and ripples. It's a wall-mounted rotary phone... and as I picked it up and dialed my Mom's old phone number, the tears welled up. And I cried and sobbed and told her how hard it's been, this past year. How I missed her. How I wished we could have talked more about the DNA surprise. I didn't have long, because the automated sprinklers came on and the tears were mingling with the water spray... but it was a relief.

To be able to "speak" to her... and though there was no response... I felt heard.

And I will go back... and time it for after the sprinklers...

Resources

Wind Phones website - https://www.mywindphone.com/

The Calm after the Storm

For the last year or so, I’ve been lamenting that I had “lost my mojo.”

I had no energy for many things. I worried that I had lost my edge—lost my drive to write or finish projects.

But looking back now, it’s obvious why.

Last year, 2025, was a shit year.

My 91-year-old mother ended up in the hospital and then moved into a palliative bed at the care home in January. My sister and I had to clear out her apartment and deal with all of her things. Mom died at the end of March, and then there was the estate. And grief. A lot of grief.

Then my aunt died in June. And in July I discovered that the biological father I had been tracking down for the last three years had actually died five years earlier.

Autumn brought more personal and relational stress and… well. It was a shit year.

But now the storm seems to be over, mostly.

I can poke my head up again and things are calmer. I have breathing space, finally. And I can start assessing the damage.

When you're just keeping your nose above water, a lot of things fall by the wayside. Tasks get pushed aside and postponed until things calm down. In the grand scheme of things, they simply weren’t important.

I didn’t have the time, nor the energy, to deal with many things.

But now… finally… I feel like I’m coming back online.

I’m no longer in survival mode, no longer just trying to get through each day. I can start planning again. I’m picking up tasks and projects that sat on the shelf for months. I have energy again. I’m interested in things again.

I’m building buffers in other areas—like social media posts for our Airbnb and blog posts for some of the other blogs I manage.

I am, for lack of a better phrase, getting my shit together.

But looking back now, it’s obvious.When you're in survival mode, of course the mojo disappears. All of that energy goes somewhere else—to grief, to paperwork, to estate work, to simply getting through the day.

It’s a nice feeling to realize that I’m once again firing on all cylinders.

I’m picking up the pieces of life and looking at the state of my to-do list. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I’m chipping away at things. Moving projects forward a little at a time. Getting quotes to replace a window where the seal has gone. Picking up small projects around the house. Looking ahead to the garden season.

I like this feeling.

But at the same time… I don’t entirely trust it.

After the last ten years—a decade with more upheaval than I would have preferred—I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. What’s the next thing that will hit out of the blue? What else could go wrong?

I’m a bit twitchy.

I don’t fully trust the calm.

And maybe that’s just how life works.

Storms come. Then there are stretches of calm. We rarely know when the storms will arrive, or how long they will last.

All we can really do is weather them when they come…

…and appreciate the calm when it finally returns.

The Year I Stopped Trying to Do It All

Sometimes I just need a reality check. It's odd though, to get it from an Artificial Intelligence, and somehow, harder to ignore.

2025 was a shit year. Mom died. Aunt died. Someone else died. Dealing with Mom's estate. Clearing out her apartment. Going to her funeral and then the laying of the headstone. Grieving (oh yeah, grieving). Along with some health issues. And the Airbnb. Working 12 hour shifts on some gig work for a few months (out of town for some of it). And I don't even know what else.

In the middle of that, I was beating myself up for not being able to stay on top of our Airbnb social media and newsletter campaigns. And lamenting the fact that the 3 or 4 blogs I work on were falling by the wayside.

Looking back, the problem wasn’t that I wasn’t trying hard enough. It was that I was treating everything in my life as if it all needed to run at full speed, all year long.

I took my inadequacy to ChatGPT who, after a pregnant pause, suggested, quite sweetly, that I was expecting WAY too much of myself. There was NO WAY anyone could keep up the pace I had presented. In essence... it suggested I was just a tad out of touch with reality.

This idea that I can do anything... but I can't do everything... all of the time. That's a hard lesson to grasp. In my skewed memory, I had done anything and everything, all of the time. To the point that my mother-in-law saying, "Everyone needs a Gigi", was a badge of honour. Not only could I do everything I wanted to do... but I could do everything that everyone else wanted me to do! And some things that they didn't even know that they wanted me to do...

Yeah. Well. This year jerked that rug out from under my feet. That explained why I felt like I was lying flat on the floor pinned down by a mountain of grief and expectations and demands, pretty much all of it self-imposed.

I thought I just needed some time to get caught up. Hah! I thought I just needed some good mornings at Starbucks with a hot chocolate. Nope. I thought I just needed life to stop for a few days or a few weeks. Yeah, right. Since when has that ever happened.

There was no pathway through this murky year. And I was carrying wayyyy too much. Not just emotionally — but logistically. Everything was expected to keep going, regardless of what the season actually was. Too many expectations and demands. Too many of these laments... "but I used to be able to do all of this!!"... My partner tried to give me a reality check but it didn't really stick.

Someone bringing all of this to ChatGPT, and it's electronic objectivity, hit me hard. And, honestly, when I laid it all out for it... I could see it a bit more objectively as well. It gently suggested that it was no wonder I was overwhelmed and flirting with burnout. No one could maintain that pace. On top of that... it actually had a most helpful suggestion.

Rather than trying to keep all of my balls in the air, all of the time... why not think of my projects as "seasonal".

Say what?

You know... seasonal... so rather than trying to do Airbnb social media posts 3 times a week, 52 weeks a year... and failing miserably and crashing out in July... why not plan for that? Why not do social media posts from Christmas to end of July? We usually have a longer term booking in the fall anyhow, and don't really "need" social media then. Why not just run it for a "season".

Huh. Why not, indeed? Good question and... well... huh. It's kind of what happens anyhow. Because even though I buffer and pre-post things a month in advance, by the time July and August hit, we are in full-blown garden and high- Airbnb-turnover mode. Plus, I'm usually sick of trying to drum of social media content ideas by that point.

The seasonal idea is all about pacing... it's all about times of productivity and times of rest. It's about taking a break and coming back later with fresh ideas and new energy. 

And so we sat down and mapped out seasons for my various projects. The Airbnb social media season was mapped out. My espionage blog, which is insanely research heavy and can suck hours out of a day... that one got a season from August to December. I had had similar expectations with it... that I should be posting 1 blog a week for 52 weeks. Yeah. In reality, not happening. But for 6 months? Definitely doable.

One of the things I am a firm believer in is building buffers into things... or parking downhill. If can have one or two months of blog posts pre-scheduled... I have breathing room for when life throws a monkey wrench or a boomerang... or it just goes sideways. And with a gap of 4 or 5 months... it's easier to build in a buffer.

There were other projects, that only need output once a month, and those... we agreed... were better to keep going throughout the year. Like a monthly newsletter for our Airbnb. 

All a sudden, it all looked a bit more manageable. There was less self-imposed pressure. Less expectations of myself. Less shoulda/coulda/woulda. More breathing space. More rest space.

I was able to lay down some projects and say “not now”. I was able to look at my overwhelming to-do list and kick a number of things down the road and say “not this month”.

There were days in my calendar with nothing scheduled. I could sit back and read a book, or get up and go for a hike, without projects calling my name.

The Ring never Lies

For the last 8 years, I've worn a commitment ring on my left-hand ring finger. Last year, my partner and I were married and we exchanged the rings in a formal ceremony. The ring slipped off and on again, no problem.

A few months ago, I noticed that the ring was harder to get off. I play with it on occasion, twist it around my finger and then slide it up and down my knuckle. Just an idle toying-with when I'm watching TV.

But then... slowly, over time, I noticed that I couldn't get the ring over that knuckle. And it was a tight twist on my finger. What the heck?

Did the ring shrink? Did my finger swell? Was I perhaps retaining water? Did I have early arthritis starting in my knuckle? Or had I gained weight?

It's not been an easy year, 2025. It's actually been a brute of a year. My Mom died, my aunt died, and there was another death. On top of work. And running an Airbnb. And other stuff.

Looking back... I see how I turned to Starbucks hot chocolate for comfort. It was a well-trodden, comforting routine that made me feel cared for and soothed. I turned to chocolate, because... why not!? 

Add to that, my feet have been bothering me this past year. And the advice was to ease up on the walking and hiking. So I have been more sedentary this past year, waiting for the feet to feel better.

That might explain why my belt is now in a different hole... and why I've had to wear the stretchy jeans rather than my regular ones. Ugh.

So... when I gathered my courage in my hands this morning and stepped on the scale, I wasn't shocked to find myself a good 10 lbs over my stable, standard weight. Bugger.

The clouds have been brewing for a while... emotionally turbulent year... belt holes... stretchy jeans... shrinking ring... less walking... more chocolate. It's a perfect recipe for weight gain. But I've been here before and I've turned the ship around. 

It's almost the end of the year... a perfect time to take stock, assess priorities and directions and choose a different path. I don't have to wait for January 1. I can start now. Today. Which is 12/12/25...

Faithful readers of this blog will know that I have gone on various sugar detoxes multiple times. Sometimes they work. For a while.

On a positive note... 15 December (tomorrow) marks 150 days with no hot chocolate. Which is a major win. Now I need to work on the chocolate cravings that pop up elsewhere. It's kind of like whack-a-mole. Sit on the hot chocolate mole and some other chocolate mole pops up... Lindt 85% dark chocolate squares (far too many in one day) or Ritter Sport dark chocolate with hazelnut... also too many in one day...

I guess mindfulness is the key. It's been too easy to ignore the belt holes... and the tight jeans (they're always tight after being washed)... but the ring thing... it's in my face, in my view... all the time. And it's not comfortable. There's no way to make it bigger either. No stretchies... no extra hole to make it expand. It's firm and immovable. There's only one option... shrink the finger!

It's time to turn this ship around. To pivot and make different choices. 

Weeks 1 to 3 - Diary of a Grieving Ailurophile (Cat Lover)

Day 4

Evenings are the hardest. Minnie used to come and sit on the couch and demand tummy-time from us. She was such a cuddle bug. Now we sit on the couch alone. No little cat sauntering around the corner with her tail in the air and a chirp/coo for us.

Bedtime is even harder. No little cat jumping on the bed. I wake up in the middle of the night and there is no warm furry body tucked between my legs, or snuggled against the back of my knees or hogging my partner's pillow. Theoretically, we should be sleeping better because we don't have to maneuver around a little cat. But in reality, we are both sleeping poorly.

Mornings are hard... oh heck... every time of day is hard! But mornings... for me... in particular. I get up early and Minnie would get up with me. We would play toilet-paper balls... I would wad up a piece of TP and toss it towards her. And she would leap and jump and then bat it around. But no more. Our chair time is gone too... those 10-15 minutes where I would sit in the reclining chair in my office and she would join me for cuddles. I would scroll the news and she would lie there and purr while I rubbed her tummy. Yes, I know... she loved to have her tummy held and rubbed... not your typical cat.

So there is a gaping hole... multiple holes... in our day to day life. We keep expecting her to arrive in a room demanding attention. We hear a random noise and think it's her. But it's not.

We worked in the garden yesterday on a warm, sunny spring day. In the past, Minnie would have been out there with us, dressed in her uber-fashionable harness and dragging her bright blue leash behind her (so we could find her, even when she hid under a bush). She would patrol the perimeter of the back yard, surveying her queendom. Chewing grass. Watching the humming birds. Chasing bugs. Sunning herself. But there was no little cat yesterday. We don't have to worry about leaving the back gate ajar a bit while we go in and out. There is no cat to escape. We no longer have to stand up suddenly and go... "Where's Minnie? Have you seen Minnie? She was right there... and now she's not!" And then we would scamper around the yard calling her name, searching for her, terrified that she had jumped a fence or... something. And we would find her, sitting in some obvious place but blending into the scenery so well. We could almost hear her little voice: "I'm right here? Hello? Right here!"

Such a big presence... leaves such a big hole. And nature abhors a vacuum... but we are not getting another pet. Not for a while. It's a hard decision but we are both adults... we should be able to make these hard decisions. Doesn't mean they aren't still hard.

Day 5

This was the hardest day. I went to the vet with all of the leftover cans of prescription cat food, the meds she never used, the unopened bag of renal kibble. As I walked in the door, holding a stiff upper lip, the three receptionists all looked up and compassion flooded their faces. They all knew who I was and what had happened. And I burst into tears. The receptionist on the left, I know a bit better, because she comes into Starbucks every Saturday morning and we have chatted in recent months. I sobbed out why I was there and took the stuff and told me to go home. She would look over the stuff and calculate the refund. No need for me to stand around waiting. Which was very kind.

And so I drove home through a veil of tears. It's only food and meds. But to walk through those same doors... when the last time we had been there... we had left without our little cat. It was hard. So very hard.

Day 8

We went back to the vet... to pick up her ashes. There were more people and we stood to the side. Waiting. She came out in a little paper bag and we took her back to the car and cried. Not as hard as bringing her food back. But still hard.

Now we have to bury her ashes. One of these days. But we aren't ready yet. Not yet.

Day 25

Yes, a bit of a gap. Not because we don't miss her but because I was working 12 hour shifts and then was out of town. The house is still empty. And it all feels so unreal. We STILL expect her to jump up on the couch, or see her snoozing in a patch of sunshine.

Today, it is Saturday and I am at Starbucks. The receptionist from the vet came over to chat for a bit. Have we thought about getting another cat? Oh, that's a hard question! Of course we have. And yes, I am the weak link. I see posts go by in my Facebook feed for the local SPCA... cats needing a loving home. We could offer that. And yet... we have been cat parents for 23 years... with a brief gap between Spooky and Minnie. What does life look like without a pet. We don't know. The receptionist gets it too... she asked if we had kids, and I said no and she nodded sagely... "she was your kid". Yes, she was. And she won't be easily replaced. 

Here's another interesting tidbit. We received one condolence card in the last 3 weeks. Acknowledging the loss of Minnie. From family? No. From close friends? No. From a blogger pen pal that I have never met. Interesting. We message on WhatsApp. They don't have kids either. Perhaps that's why. They get the potent impact of losing a pet who was so much more than a "pet".

So we grieve. Still. Yes. Still. 

Tender Vigil: A Journey into Being Present for Life's Profound Transition

Image by Parentingupstream from Pixabay

These may seem completely weird, but at the age of 50-something... I recently had my first experience of sitting by the bedside of someone who was dying.

All of our relatives are in the Old Country. I've had relatives pass away - grandparents, aunts, uncles, second cousins. But they were always at a distance.

We would receive a telegram (back in the day) or a phone call or a Whatsapp or an email. We never went back for the funeral - too far, too expensive, too long. 

It has always seemed a bit unreal to me. I could almost semi-convince myself that they were still there, still as I remember them.

I've also never attended the funeral of someone near and dear. Heck, I think I've only ever attended one funeral - for the grandmother of a friend of mine. That's it. When my Dad passed, we just held a tiny gathering of close friends and family at home. No funeral. No public grief.

I have been present to hold the paws of two cats as they passed. Cuddling and holding them as the vet slid the needle in and watching the life fade from their eyes. Sobbing with grief. There's a reason why our vet office has a separate exit door for the "euthanasia room". You don't have to walk through the lobby in your grief.

"It's 'just' a cat!" - I will sob later at home, taken aback at the amount of grief that has washed over me. But my partner tells me that these moments tap into the deeper well of grief that resides within each of us. All of those aunts, uncles, grandparents that passed away at a distance... with no funeral to attend... there is unexpressed grief there. And the passing of a cat can tap that. So, no, not "just" a cat. So much more than that.

When my Dad passed away, 5 years ago, almost to the day (February 3), I was out of town on a business trip. The nurse had phoned our home the evening before and suggested that it might be a good time to come visit. My partner, unable to drive the 30 minutes to the care home in another community (due to an injury) talked to my Dad on the phone and let him know that we loved him, that I would be home the next day and we would see him soon.

The next morning, at 7:00 am, my partner got the phone call that he had passed half an hour earlier. She phoned me and I sobbed. I was stuck in a fogged-in community (no float planes could fly), and needed to wait for a series of ferry sailings to align before I could make it home. We drove to the care home and touched his cold forehead. He was gone.

Although everyone told me not to blame myself for not being there. I did. And I blamed the work trip. I wasn't there when he needed me most. He died alone.

Back in early October, I learned that an elderly friend, Craig, was in the hospital. He had been in and out of the hospital for a couple of weeks but never stayed overnight - UTIs, MRIs - his kidneys were not in good shape. It was another friend of Craig's who messaged us on Facebook and said that Craig had been actually admitted to the hospital on Sunday. Some of Craig's were visiting him on Monday and Tuesday and so I decided to visit on Wednesday.

On Tuesday evening at 7:13 pm, the friend message to say the nurse had just phoned him. Craig didn't have long. I should come if I could. I broke down in tears, dropped everything, grabbed a jacket and shoes and drove to the hospital.

I was the first one there. Craig had chosen to stop all treatment on Sunday and was no longer responsive. He had been OK that morning, but had developed congestion in the lungs as the day wore on. As I entered the room, Craig took a series of five shuddering breaths. And then nothing. Was he dead?!! No. Twenty seconds passed and he took another series of five shuddering breaths.

I drew up a chair and sat next to him holding his hand. After 20 minutes, two more friends of Craig showed up, including the one who had messaged me. They too were a bit taken aback by the long interval between breaths. At that point, it was 30 seconds. And the gap got longer and longer.

We told stories about our friend and laughed. We told him it was OK to let go. That we were there. We thanked him for his friendship. We cried. We held his hands. It was clear the breathing was becoming harder. The gap was now a minute. And suddenly, we realized, while laughing over some story that... there wasn't another series of breaths. Two minutes passed. He was gone. Less than an hour after I had received the message.

As I drove home, I cried. Even as I had driven to the hospital I had been dragged back to my Dad's death. This is what it would have been like. And I thanked Craig... for going in the way that he did. That I could be there. That I could drop everything, heed the call of the nurse and go. 

Craig's death completed something for me around my father's death. I couldn't be there for my Dad's passing. But Craig did not die alone. His partner had died years ago. He was estranged from his one brother who lived elsewhere. Most of his friends were on an island and couldn't make it in time. But we were there and that made all the difference.

It still strikes me as slightly unreal that Craig is gone. But then I remember holding his hand, listening to his shuddering breaths and the final silence that stretched on and on. Nope. He is definitely gone.

And I've learned this too. When the nurses phone. Drop everything and go. The nurses always know. Heed their call. Drop everything. Just go.

Grieving the Old Normal

Küble-Ross Grief Cycle

Grief is messy. I learned that when my Dad passed away last year. I always thought grief was like... you know... sadness and crying. But it's way more than that. And it's freaking messy.

Oh sure, I knew about Kübler-Ross and her five stages of grief, so nice and neat and compartmentalized:

• Denial
• Anger
• Depression
• Bargaining
• Acceptance

This cute little diagram makes it look sooo tidy.

• Denial - when I got the phone call while out of town - "No, he can't be dead!"
• Anger - at my job for taking me out of town, at the care home for not saying "We think he is dying when they phoned the day before"
• Depression - really blah feeling for weeks/months
• Bargaining - digging myself out of the hole
• Acceptance - moving on (whatever that means)

Messy Stages of Grief

 Yeah... not so much... or rather... waves and waves of grief, the cycle just repeating itself week after week... although the amplitude did lessen over time... But, I really think that this diagram is a far better representation of what happens...

It at least shows the messiness of it! I didn't make the diagram so "My Experience" is not my experience... and yet it is... All over the map. Back and forth, up and down. Some good moments, some bad moments...

All of this is just a prelude to this: the entire world is grieving right now. Grieving what we have lost. Our normal world. Whatever that looked like. So many things we have lost:

• family time
• jobs
• security
• stability
• routine
• haircuts
• massages
• stress-free grocery shopping
• trips - short and long
• camping
• going out when we want to
• dining out
• money
• Starbucks time

I put that last one in there, because every time I wake up in the morning, I am sad that I can't go to Starbucks. It was my routine every morning. I'd get up before my partner, get myself ready, trot out the door and happily spend several hours at Starbucks basking in the white noise of espresso machines and customer chatter and write. But those days are gone... for six weeks now. And I miss it.

I am trying to work from home but it can be more challenging to carve out that time. I tend to get up later now and that throws my whole schedule out of whack. I am having to make adjustments and that makes me angry... Then I get sad again. And this is just losing Starbucks time! But really... it's just the tip of the iceberg. Everyday we come face-to-face with everything that we have lost... and the horrible thing is... we don't know when... or IF... we will get it back. We have no idea what a New Normal will look like. Or if we will like it.

Several provinces are easing restrictions in the coming weeks but... people... until we have an effective vaccine... this is NOT going away anytime soon. There will be more peaks and there will be more lock-downs. Normal life is not resuming. It is gone. Like... gone... In the past. And it can't be hauled back into the future. Whatever the New Normal will look like... it's not going to be the old normal. And... we're back to grieving.

Seven Stages of Grief

All those protesters demanding an end to the lockdown... denial and anger. All those people whose mental health is tanking into anxiety and... depression. Not to mention bargaining... Not sure we're at Acceptance yet... Cause acceptance is always a tricky one. I don't want to accept what has happened! But... there's a nuance... accepting that I can't change what has happened. It is what it is. Nothing we do now can change the past. It's gone. The virus is here and we are left to handle it. One step at a time.

This all helps me to have some compassion for myself and for others. We're obviously not all at the same stages of grief... and if we're bouncing around like a pinball between sadness and anger and denial... well... there's a lot of room for misunderstanding. Sooo... one step at a time. For me, I am trying to create a new routine, one that keeps me anchored in the present, something to cling to when the world is going sideways. Something to bring with me into a future that looks really uncertain. No one knows what the future is going to look like... only that it ain't gonna look like the past. That means jobs aren't going to look the same. Or schools. Or even the economy. The not-knowing is not nice... and we generally don't handle uncertainty all that well. At least I don't....

And so... I write... and I garden and build things like fences (to keep the deer out) and new vegetable beds. Small steps in making a difference...