Missing folks who have gone beyond
Oh, not that I am actively missing anyone right at this moment. I am basking in The Landfill Kitchen cooking salmon piccata and friends. Back when we all had landlines, The Commander (my mother) and I enjoyed talking on the phone, gossiping about whatever was going on in our family(ies), the moominbeach, and Sault Ste. Siberia. My brother used to call The Comm “The Birch Point Beach Telegraph.”
The Comm never had any form of dementia but her speech processing developed some issues late in her life and it could be hard to talk to her. Part of this could have been hearing but a speech pathologist friend of a beach urchin put a diagnostic name to it that I can’t remember. At any rate, it was hard to talk to her via phone or even in person the last few years, although she could certainly text with me on her iPhone.
So although there are occasionally things I would like to tell my mom, I don’t ever really feel like grabbing the phone to talk to her.
Who I do actively miss and often want to talk to is my long-time coffee friend Sari who died pretty unexpectedly last fall. We started meeting for coffee (with other people) when our kids were in middle school. That’s a long time ago. She was a mensch, a word she taught me when she called me a mensch so many years ago. Me? An American/Canadian* citizen of mainly Scottish origin with no Jewish heritage whatsoever. I have said before that I probably don’t merit the term “mensch” but I felt honored. Sari WAS a mensch and I so miss her.
*Apparently I *am* already a Canadian citizen, according to newish Canadian law (dual citizenship with American). If I pursue this, I will have to send documentation to Canada to certify my citizenship there. I’m not doing it yet but think I will. Again, I have no plans to move to Canada. After all, I can see it from the moominbeach and it’s close enough to kayak to. If I have proof of my Canadian citizenship, maybe I can even land on Point Des Chenes Beach. If I don’t get hit by a lake freighter on the way over there.
May 30th, 2026 at 9:21 pm
I’m jealous of your path to Canadian citizenship. I wish! My mom was very easy to talk to on the phone and in person until her last few months. I think her kidneys started to fail and she got more forgetful than ever before. She had had a very sharp memory, better than mine, so it was painful to see it happen. Besides her, I really miss Patt and his easy-going and logical ways of dealing with issues that stress me out, especially ones that concern our daughters. No one else cares as much as we do/did.