Seasons in the Sun
(Brel, Jacques Roman) Performed by Terry Jacks
Goodbye to you, my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and A B C's
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees
Goodbye, my friend, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons
Out of time
Goodbye Papa, please pray for me
I was the black sheep of the family
You tried to teach me right from wrong
Too much wine and too much song
Wonder how I got along
Goodbye Papa, its hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Little children everywhere
When you see them I'll be there
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons
Have all gone
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons
Have all gone
Goodbye Michelle, my little one
You gave me love and helped me find the sun
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground
Goodbye Michelle it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
With the flowers everywhere
I wish that we could both be there
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach
We had joy we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons
Have all gone
All our lives we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons
Out of time
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
Seasons in the Sun might be an odd choice for me to put up here because I always found it to be a bit annoying, and yet, it was always there in the background of my early years. As a matter of fact, I remember reading once that even Canadian DJs were annoyed by this song but they were obliged to play it in heavy rotation because it satisfied Canadian Content regulations. Being such a nostalgic guy, Dave, of course, loves Seasons in the Sun and will turn it up if it happens to come on the radio (blessedly seldom I should note...) And so, in the spirit of things that annoy me but represent an obligation; things that are happily nostalgic for others but grindingly monotonous for me; in the spirit of a "season in the sun", I bring you my summer vacation 2015:
As detailed at length, the final illness and death of our dog Libby occupied most of my attention this summer (I needed to mention that just in passing). At the end of July, my friend Delight sent me a facebook message saying that she was planning to leave her husband of 15 years, and although I had been looking forward to seeing her down east (where she has coincidentally lived near my parents for three years), she was letting me know that she would be heading back out to Alberta, stopping in Montreal along the way to meet up with her daughter Haley, as had been her initial summer plan. I hadn't seen Delight in two years so I offered to meet up with them in Montreal, and when she suggested I bring Kennedy along to hang with Haley, that sounded good. This was all done through facebook and I was totally annoyed when she mentioned, "Your mother thinks I'm being foolish". I was a bit stung and replied, "You told me mudder before you told me?" And she said, "Lol, I like yer mudder". I immediately regretted making anything about this situation be about me and I dropped that line of inquiry, but oh, how that annoys me!
Delight was not my childhood friend that my mother knew in the old days; she was my Krista-gone-wild partytime friend from Edmonton, and other than me, Delight and my Mum have nothing in common -- and I don't want them getting together to talk about me. I was so incredibly annoyed when my mother told me that she and Delight were going to a Mother's Day brunch together this year -- annoyed, hurt, confused -- my own mother has never been to a Mother's Day brunch with me, and she couldn't understand why my back got up when she told me about it. Whatever. Fine.
So, Kennedy and I drove to Montreal and met up with Delight. The first thing Delight let slip was that just before she left, my mother had taken her out for a goodbye lunch. Fine. We found Haley (who was staying with an old friend), had lunch, and for want of something better to do, we bought passes for a double decker bus tour and drove around for a couple of hours, looking at the sights.
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| Delight won't sit for a picture, Kennedy snuck this |
Three days later, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we drove down to my parents' house in the woods of Nova Scotia again this year. It was all the same old same old -- except that my brothers weren't there at the same time as us this year, and we brought Ella with us because my girls can't imagine being down there without her -- and there were ATV rides and swimming and boating and the Seadoo (which Mal was legally allowed to drive herself this year, even if she didn't take it out alone).
Nearly as soon as we got there, my mother was telling me that my Dad is slowing down, and with his bad knees, he's not going to be able to take care of their house and property much longer. She was warning me that they might need to sell the house sometime soon, maybe move into a condo in Bridgewater (how stupid would that be?), or Halifax (maybe better for them, at least the medical services would be better as they get ever older), or maybe even PEI (she claimed this was Dad's idea). When Ken was down, they had the same conversation and he tried to make the case for them moving up close to all of us, but I'm not holding my breath on that; people who care about being around their children and grandchildren don't move away in the first place.
Then, on our last day, the day of our lobster feast, Dad was talking to me out on the deck and it was the same story -- he's slowing down, his knees are giving him grief, and there's nothing he'd like more than to sell and move. I told him that Mum said the same thing -- that she's ready when he's ready, and that she told Ken the same thing -- and he said, "Then she's playing you all. Every time I bring up the idea of moving, she says they'll have to drag her out of here like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, with her fingernails clawing at the doorframe. She said once that she might like to move to PEI and I said 'Good, let's go', but she dropped that right away."
So what am I supposed to do with that? They both tell us that they're ready to move but they don't talk that way to each other? We're too far away to be any help to them as they get older, but as they have both been "playing" me my entire life, I don't even know which one of them wants what (and I can't help but feel whatever.) They won't pose for pictures, but as Mum and Dad let my cousin have his wedding at their house the day before we arrived, they were caught here:
And let me insert this: The first night we were in Nova Scotia, as were all sitting watching TV, my Mum said, "Pat, you heard that they lost Libby last week?"
"Oh, yes, I heard old Libby bit the dust."
"Pat! You remember how bad you felt when you lost Simba..."
"Yes, well, the difference is that it was a surprise with Simba. He was only 6 and we should have had him for many more years."
None of us said anything: it had been a week and losing Libby had been a surprise to us and we had expected many more years...and as mock-aghast as my mother acted, when she called me two days after Libby was put to sleep, and didn't mention her, I said, "Did anyone tell you that we lost Libby the other day?"
"Oh yeah. But my gawd, we got her from a pet store. She was probably from a puppy mill. Who knows what diseases she may have had."
That was the extent of her compassion and it stung me (it's making me cry right now to remember, dangit) and when I wasn't very engaged for the rest of the phone call, Mum said, "You sound quiet, is anything bothering you?"
"Other than killing my dog two days ago?"
"Oh Krista, you didn't kill her. That's just the way it goes."
And that's it. That's who my parents are.
So back to the day of the conversation with my Dad on the deck. After complaining about wanting to move and not being able to, Dad complained about the nonstop visitors they have in the summer (including us, I need to assume) and he said that when he tells people down at the Post Office that he would have people there from July 17th to September 12th this year, they laugh at him. I did have sympathy with this part though: The woman who cleans for them -- a local, but definitely not a friend -- was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed to have a mastectomy. At some point, she called my parents up and explained that as part of her "recovery plan", she wanted to spend a weekend as a guest in their house and have Dad take her on a nice boat ride. They obviously couldn't say no, but how nervy is that? This woman, as I said, is not their friend, and that's a line-crossing imposition. Dad said that even if she felt up to house-cleaning again, there's no way he'd have her back in -- and I totally agreed with that.
After the talk, Dad went for a nap and Mum and the girls -- who had been shopping and picking up the lobsters -- came back, and as the dinner was also meant to be a belated 20th birthday celebration for Kennedy, Ella decorated the cake she had baked for her, and Mallory blew up balloons and filled the pinata she had bought. And then we waited for when my parents would green light the feast. And waited.
Dad woke up in a terrible mood and went into the family room, put on the Blue Jays game (when did he start watching sports?), and said that he would make a fire for the lobster shells when the game was over (a ritual he insists on to prevent lobster stink in the yard; fair enough; his house, his rules). We waited past 5 and past 6, and the game was still on, and Dad was watching it silently, with a "don't talk to me" vibe, and it was going on 7 and no dinner. Mum came out on the deck and said, "We went out for lunch today so no one's hungry anyway."
Kennedy said, "I knew it was lobster night so I only had a bowl of soup..."
I said, "It's almost 7. People are starting to chew their own arms off..."
Mum said, looking into the house over her shoulder, "Well, we can't do anything until your Dad..."
Soon enough, the fire was made, the lobsters brought out, and despite neither Mum or Dad eating with us, we tried to make it feel festive (but why do I feel like such a little kid at these times? Uncomplainingly waiting for my supper while my own family is going hungry?) Kennedy got her cake (thanks to an 11 year old cousin) and pinata, but the second they knocked it to the ground, Dad was making a big show of picking up the loose bits of papier mache -- groaning as he bent his sore knees -- and throwing them in the fire. Fine. As it turns out, he decided the fire wasn't big enough to burn lobster shells -- and he wasn't willing to make it bigger -- so we waited all that time for nothing. Fine. My mother asked me if I had heard from Delight, and when I said no, she said, "She sent me a nice long message. She got to Edmonton safely and she's staying with Cara, who it turns out is a bit of a slob, and..." Fine. Fine. Fine. Don't care if I ever go back.
Our time at the beach was the same old same old -- swimming, reading in the sun shelter, making sand castles and walking down to Main Street for ice cream -- but it was staying in this house that gladdened the hearts of those who had stayed there before. Dave's sister was only able to come up for one day, but after she posted about the experience on facebook, even their cousins (whose mother was the one who sneakily sold off the family cottage) waxed nostalgic about the old days. We tend to stay in little cottagey type places, so it was a whole new experience to enjoy some luxury.
And it was nice to have a place that was big enough for the girls to bring friends with them.
And, of course, the inlaws too.
Bev here, whose father built the original cottage, was pretty confused a lot of the time. Sometimes, she would sit and point out the cottages of the people her family used to know, and sometimes she would talk like she had never known any of them. One day as they were walking past the place we were renting on the way to visit an old friend, my father-in-law needed to pop in to use the washroom, and when he came out, Bev had disappeared. He was in a panic and started looking everywhere for her, and when she turned up, it would seem that she had gotten completely lost looking for a cottage just around the corner. I guess we should be expecting more of this in the future, but it's still very upsetting.
One day, another old friend of Bev's dropped by with her husband, and after a lovely visit, Mary asked if she could speak with me in private. We went out on the deck and Mary said, "Don't worry, this isn't about Bev", which was what I was obviously expecting and thought that if she wanted a private conversation, this was an unsubtle way to go about it. She then went on to ask me what I knew about essential oils and told me about these "gifts of the earth" and explained that even Bev could benefit from their miraculous properties...
Me: Oh, you're talking about selling oils. Like at home parties, like Tupperware?
Mary: I'm talking about growing a business opportunity.
This went on and made me quite ticked off. During the visit, Mary had spoken to me as though she was interested in what my plans were for the future, but as Kennedy said later, "It was like she was sounding you out for the trigger words that she had been trained to look for to grow her pyramid scheme". Exactly. In the end, Mary concluded with, "So, if you ever decide that you'd like to start helping people, we can be in touch". At least I didn't need to commit to anything or stop her with, "If your oils come with proof of effectiveness from controlled studies in peer-reviewed journals, I'd be happy to take a look." Okay, I didn't think of that 'til later, but I've got it in my pocket for next time.
One last story about Mary: Jim was showing her some pictures on his camera, and when he got to one of Dave in his Elvis costume, Mary said, "Did he rent that just for the party?"
"Actually, I made that," I said.
"And you'll never guess what she made it out of!" Bev exclaimed.
I looked at her quizzically as Mary asked, "Out of a tablecloth?"
"No," I said, "I bought the fabric."
"But someone told me you made that out of your wedding dress," said Bev, looking confused.
That knocked me for a loop. "That sounds like someone was joking you. That sounds like Dan actually. Did he tease you with that story at the party?"
Bev just looked really confused and said, "But I thought it was made out of your wedding dress..."
When I remembered to tell that story to Dave later, he didn't think it was a funny example of Dan pulling a fast one: he thought it was another upsetting example of his Mom going downhill.
So, in the end, our summer vacation was divided into two halves: In the first, we made an obligatory trip to Nova Scotia; to stay with my parents who act like they don't want to be around us (swimming in the lake with my parents nowhere nearby, Kennedy apparently asked Dave, "Why do they hate us? Why wouldn't they want to be down here with us when we're only here for a few days?"); where I'm made to feel like a child again who must quietly accept whatever conditions arise. In the second half, we made a nostalgic trip to the site of Dave's happiest childhood memories; with my inlaws (who drive Dave crazy by sticking around us every minute and talking with us nonstop); where we get to be the grownups who pay the rent and set the tone and provide food at acceptable mealtimes. Dave loved this split-vacation arrangement (especially having a long weekend left over at the end to rest up for work), and if it gives us an excuse to cut short trips to Nova Scotia, I could embrace it as the new routine.
Speaking of the long weekend and getting back for Fan Expo, this is why Mallory needed to go:
And a last coda: While we were at Sauble Beach I was looking at pictures on my phone and realised that I had shown these pictures to my older brother, but not my younger:
Our parents were so poor when we were little that they didn't own a camera and there are very few pictures of us. I don't know where Mum dug these up from (Dad said he didn't remember ever seeing them before either) and when I sent them to Kyler, he was fascinated with them too. After chatting back and forth, he said, "I'm looking at us here and we're dressed nicely and obviously clean and well fed. Mum and Dad were in their early twenties when these were taken and they had nothing but we look okay, like someone was taking good care of us."
I replied, "You're right. We're freshly bathed and jammied up and someone obviously knew how to make us laugh. It's really easy to remember the bad times but I'm so happy that we have some proof of the good times too."
And Kyler replied: Truth.
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach
