The Poor House

Does your community need to put its house in order?

Looking at current poverty statistics, anecdotal stories published every now and then in the media and face book groups where people lament about having to choose between paying the ever-increasing hydro rates or buying groceries, or knowing somebody who is not able to get their prescription medicine because there simply is no money in their bank account to do so, it is apparent that we, in Canada, need to look beyond our living rooms.

There are lots of people trapped in the basement. Children, a million of whom are living in poverty in this country. There is a terrible mess in our collective basements and the cries for help and justice are not being heard. These come from people who cannot afford to rent a home let alone buy one, disabled people who cannot get the medical transportation they need to take that upgraded highway to the medical care they need. It includes parents and students who had their community schools closed and who have been stuffed into overcrowded leftovers. It includes adults and children who cannot afford to eat nutritious food, who go to school and to their minimum wage workplaces hungry, tired, and with untreated dental problems. It includes people with renal failure, active liver disease, crippling arthritis, stroke, mental illnesses and head injuries, who cannot qualify for the disability assistance that, in B.C. gives them $906.00 a month to eat and pay rent. It includes children who live in unsafe housing and who cannot go to proper childcare facilities because the people upstairs in the house scrapped their commitment to funding universal daycare.
In the back corner of the basement are twice as many homeless as there were three years ago, 75 per cent of whom are not on welfare because they cannot get it, and they contribute to the 60 percent increase in food bank demand. With their backs against the wall are poor and disabled people who cannot access help for their human rights, their debt issues, their legal problems such as tenancy issues, elder abuse, or accessing a benefit they are entitled to.

Some of the people in the basement are out working, at ten dollars an hour, or at part time, temporary, contractual jobs. Some to try to save up so they can afford to take a few university classes, and many under adverse conditions, because changes to the Employment Standards Legislation gave some “flexibility” to employers and weakened safeguards to workers. Just like the Residential Tenancy Act changes ghettoized many tenants. It is quite crowded in the basement from those thousands of public sector employees who have lost their jobs. There are special needs students wandering around because they have no one-to-one support or supervision, and before and after-school program cuts have many children alone when they shouldn’t be. Some of the seniors in the basement are trying, and failing to take care of themselves or their elderly spouses because there are no beds for them in care facilities. The cuts to the Ministry of Children and Families has many frightened and needy children scrambling out of the cracks they have fallen into in the basement of this house.
The economy, as always prioritized by our legislators, applies to everyone in the “house” not just those upstairs. The wealth of this community has been out of reach to many, and the leaders who are elected to keep our house in order, don’t seem to realize, or care, that there is a basement.

It is their duty, as the head of our house, to do so.

In a Heartbeat

There is a lot of poverty in the world. I often talk about it, about how people should have enough money for basic needs, about offering dignity to those who are marginalized and vulnerable. I talk about equality, and justice, and being our brother’s keeper. These are things I believe in. We are all feeling the pains of poor economic times. We are facing job loss, higher costs, cutbacks to things we have taken for granted. We worry a lot. Mothers skip meals so their kids can eat, men try to find work with rotting teeth and a tent for a home, families struggle to pay for childcare so they can work for wages well below the poverty line. Addictions are overtaking our society at warped speed.

In the scheme of things, all of this is worrisome and should take a front seat to our concerns as a society. Having said that, let’s not forget what is most important of all. Loving one another. Saying what we should say before it is too late. Appreciating what we have. Comforting those who are lost and who are broken. Celebrating our youth and remembering there are a lot of great young people in our world. Thanking our lucky stars that the kids many of us struggle to support are at least at home with us every night.

Too many young people have died in our community in the past couple of months. One is too many. We are all shocked, saddened, we wonder how it happened, why it happened, and who’s to blame. Eventually, life goes on for most of us.

There is just cause, however, to remember that the young people who are no longer with us are much more than just one person. They are grandsons, nephews, big brothers, little brothers, students, employees, boyfriends, sons, and young men who will never be fathers themselves. With them a generation is lost. To many more people they were the kid who everyone got along with, the guy you could always count on to be there for you and made you feel good about yourself. The class comedian. The talented musician. The star athlete. The quiet helper. They were a best friend. To their co-workers, they were the youngest one on the crew, the one to tease and joke around with, the one with the goofy grin, the kid who would do anything that was asked of him. To a special few they were a role model, a confidante, a protector, someone to wrestle with, someone to wait up for, someone who gave rides in a cool car, someone to cheer you on at hockey game.They were and will always be all these things to a lot of people. They will be the one we tell others in our lives “I wish you could have known him.”

A lot of people are hurting right now and will never quite be the same. These people are vulnerable. They need our help.

Every now and then we will continue to hear of tragic losses and it hits us hardest when these are young people who have not had time to live yet. But they have lived, and stories like this don’t just happen to other families. They can happen to anyone. The golden rule comes in to play. Treat them as you would want to be treated.

At the end of the day, you or people you know of or hear about may not have enough to eat, may not have the right clothes, a furnished home, a home at all. But their hearts are beating. They will wake up tomorrow morning to start a new day with new possibilities. We can hope they have friends, family, and people who care about them. We must hope that they have their community. That spirit is often the difference between isolation and despair, or hope and recovery. We need to pay attention to that and not let all the other things that can be fixed, overshadow other things that cannot be fixed once it is too late.

Hug your children and tell them you love them. Then fix something by making a difference in the life of someone else.

She Flew Away

I recently made peace with my adult child¹s estrangement from me. After
hearing the false accusations, lies, delusions, blame, rumours, and heart
shattering silence on too many mothers days, birthdays, christmases, I left.

I left my hope.

I took it out of my heart and discarded it.

I know that I was being poisoned by each day that I hoped she would come
back to me. 

So with a heavy heart, I left my grief of three years, knowing that I had
already put it off too long.

For the first few weeks, my body seemed to reject this. 

For three years I had thought about what if's, waited for the phone to ring on 

special occasions, cried when something reminded me of her or my grandchildren,prayed for reconciliation. I didn't know who I was without my daughter and
grandchildren. Despite the kindness of friends and even strangers. I could
not help feeling utterly alone. Even though I have other children who are in
my life, it felt like I had a broken set. But it was this sense of aloneness
that set me free. Somewhere along the way, I let go. I released all of the
optimism that she would come back to me and the pessimism that she
wouldn't. The shards of her buried deep in my brain.

I stopped wondering if the things she had made me think about myself were
true. I began to see how extraordinary, breathtakingly beautiful life is. I
meditated, drank too much coffee, talked to strangers, laughed, and found
joy again. My children who have stayed by my side were reborn in my eyes, a
new, smaller set, richer, more precious, cherished, admired deeply.

Once I discovered that my happiness depends only on myself, nothing could
hurt me anymore. I have found and continue to find peace. Each day I am
closer to it than I was yesterday. I am a work in progress but I am full to
the brim with gratitude and joy. And so, since I have opened a new chapter
in my life, I want to peacefully part with the contents of the last chapter.
The end of my maternal bond with her was the catalyst for a wealth of
positive changes in my life. It was a symbol, most importantly, it was an
act of self-love. It was a realization that I deserved to be happy and I
could choose to be. I am moving forward with strength and grace and deep,
lasting peace. I am going to be who I was meant to be, and take those on the
journey who were meant to take that adventure with me.

I gave her life, she has flown away, I no longer have to look to the sky to
wonder what could have been because I what is happening now has 

grounded me on an exciting path to my destiny.

Namaste

Letter to Santa; Don’t bring gifts this year

Dear Santa
I hope this letter reaches you before you head out on Christmas Eve and use your magic and head-of-the-curve technology to visit over 150 million houses overnight, delivering presents to over 2.1 billion children, knowing exactly who is on your naughty and nice list.
This letter might seem strange, shocking, even un-Christmas-like, but I want you to think about it.
Please do not deliver presents this year. Not the kind that are found in stockings and under the tree, to be played with, built, ridden on, viewed, eaten, smelled, or collected.
What we need this year, the world, is something that will require all your infinite magic and all your miracles and most importantly, all your love for the children in our world.
I really think everyone will opt out of receiving individual gifts this year in favour of the following list.
For all the sick children in the world, those whose lives will be cut short by illness, accident, crime, nature, please make sure that the North Pole exists in Heaven, so their souls can come to you and spend the day, where they will have a sense of the divine, a hint of the beyond, a whiff of the transcendent, where everything they imagined is real, enchanting, sacred, and wondrous. Where the joy felt by little boys and little girls on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is felt in their hearts for eternity.
That the joy and innocence and wonder find again those whose goals have become to terrorize our world, and that their lives are rewound to their infancy or childhood where they found security and happiness from their mother’s touch, where they played and sang and laughed, felt hope and playfulness and always, love, never hate, and ensure their lives go in a direction where they are not corrupted by evil and violence in the name of religion or culture or race or Holy Wars.
And while you are using your magic to rewind lives to do-overs, give that gift to ensure the addicted do not take the first drink, hit, snort, or shoot up and if it’s too late, that we embrace them in their pain and trauma and treat them for their sickness and not their criminality.
And finally, before you return to a forward motion, rewind the cycles of child abuse that impact too many, so that innocence is preserved and the cycle is no more.
That the world understands perversity and molestation, rape and pedophilia are not acts that remain isolated to one time and that those afflicted with the desire to harm and hurt and behave towards others only to satisfy themselves cannot be rehabilitated and should not be released back into our communities.
That the rich embrace giving, benevolence, and value relationships over acquisitions and simplicity over excess.
That people understand we are all the same no matter what color we are, no matter what our vocation is, whether we wear blue collars, white collars, or no collars, whether we have a home or not, whether we are fat or thin, disfigured or beautiful, and it doesn’t matter what gender we are, what gender we choose to be, who we choose to love, or, who we choose to worship, all that matters is we all practice the Golden Rule and hold that as most precious in defining how we live.
That Bibles are not thumped and every scripture or sacred text is not used to promote intolerance and hate.
That everyone finds something to have faith in, and even atheists feel the possibilities of the eternal, and sceptics and agnostics hear the music of ‘Silent Night’ or ‘Alleluia’ know there is something greater for them to rely on.
That we understand all animals are sentient beings, who have intrinsic value in their existence, life and beauty, and that they feel hurt, they love, they grieve, they feel sadness, fear, and joy, and they don’t want to fight nor should they be made to for sport and money. They do not want their babies to be taken away or to be butchered nor should they experience the terror of a kill floor or the trauma of abuse.
That minimum wage doesn’t mean minimum respect.
That we know, we believe, that when we talk to our loved ones in Heaven, they hear us.
That we take the politics out of leadership, the worship away from celebrities, and the sides out of marriage and those vows, our covenants to one another are cherished and remembered especially when life together gets difficult. And if they must be broken, that is done with dignity, sacrifice and respect.
That every person has four walls and a roof to call their own and if not , we who do help them get theirs without delay.
That every person has access to clean water, nutrition, and medicine.
That we all practice forgiveness.
That veterans are honoured at all times and we strive to send no one in their place.
That sons and daughters honour their mothers and fathers and hold sacred their family unit, the one they came from, and that they try on the shoes walked in by their parents, and are humble for it. That people realize estrangement breaks hearts and crushes souls and the collateral damage robs children of their heritage. Love and forgiveness trumps hate and grudges, every time.
That fathers be fathers mothers be mothers and both know your children need each one of you and remember, in times of conflict, the love that brought you together and created those who depend on your love and care.
That in the middle of the ‘I need’s’, ‘I want’s’, ‘Can I have’s’ are little boys washed ashore, dead, when all they were looking for was the life most of us have. That there are no borders for those little boys nor should there ever be.
That we live our lives free of road rage, bullying, pettiness, violence, gossip, back stabbing, avarice, ego, and replace those with compassion and empathy.
That we understand laughter is the best medicine.
That we protect our air, trees and water.
That we have faith in humanity, in human potential, and most of all, in the power of our imaginations.

And finally, for my Christian friends, many of us have lost the miracle of the birth of a baby boy in Bethlehem amid the crowded store aisles, in the tinsel and wrapping paper, in the baking and decorating, and we forget that it all started in a tiny little town, and the simple cries of a newborn baby, in a manger, in a stable, with our Messiah. And He brought some miracles to us from the Kingdom of God.

That we all have hope and courage despite the evil in the world and good will come one day, hope for redemption, justice and true happiness.

Please Santa, if you can grant these wishes, we can skip the rest and be grateful for it.

Signed: Sian Thomson on behalf of all the mothers who worry for our children and their future.