Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Rockingham

And then there is where I live now, as if I'm a world traveller. Ha! Hay! I' ve lived a lot of small places in my time and Love where I am in life why just today I was at the post box down the street and while on my way I met May we talked for about 20 minutes on just this topic.
She came here in 1957 a young war bride from Ontario, the wife of a United minister. She remembered when the road was gravel and children would play by the road till all hours of the day and evening. Running after hockey sticks here and there, car pool. Why she even enlightened me about a Yacht Club over by the Old Chinatown Restaurant in her day, and a brook ran through the ravine behind our house, the kids were always being chased out of there, she said. No bus service back then, all woods and housing lots.
Last year she said they feed 17 deer I hope I have a chance to be part of this wondrous place for many years to come.
Hope I meet up with May on my travels again.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Missing your whistle Les

They say those who pass away into the Spirit world are  15 degrees in Spirit from this physical reality. Sometimes I so agree.Today and for a few days now I've been missing my brother in law Leslie.
No one on the face of the earth could make me laugh harder than he could.He had developed on the spot impersonations of a few people.he and Bernard steeves got us into a lot of trouble with snotty teachers in grade school at times.He was the defender of a lot of ids too, some teachers back then were violent towards us, not when he was around.Les had spunk!Les had a handsome face, deep character in his brown eyes, curly dark brown hair, stout figure, and happy lights in his smile,every girl I ever knew said him, handsome. He loved to make fun and enjoy the beautiful and the silly side of life. Easy going in temperament .He was a soft kind of guy with a veneer finish. Looked tough, engaged in all the guy stuff sports, cars, three wheelers, skidoo, and smoked a little hooch once in awhile. Loved his life his wife and his kid. I think he was 30 degrees from being a Rednick.He was far to intelligent to make fun of, but he loved to make fun of things.
I met him at age 12 we both showed up at the same pond to go skating .So we sat and talked for a bit.He walked me home and and six years later married my sweet sister.
He had a real love for nature, dogs and cats. One year I moved in with them for a few months. It was Christmas eve.We had had a few drinks and headed off to bed. Around 12 midnight I heard SMASH!!! the tree fell down. Most people would be having a time of it with all that in the middle of the night.Les comes out to the hall,and says "ITs only the tree", "Well take care of it in the morning".
I always felt that GOD was in his heaven around Les, he had a way of being kind of reassuring in his manners and his walk and his nonchalant approach to life.. You knew when he was coming in the house or was around the yard, he subconsciously whistled while he moved along where ever he was going at times.Sometimes he would be working out in the yard for hours with dad on an old car .Dad thought the world of Leslie.He was loved by us all very very much.
One day mom put the garbage out in the back porch for Les to pick up on his way to the dump. WE lived in the country and this was back in the day of no garbage pickup.Well she had also set her bags of laundry out there to go later into town to dry it all. So seven garbage bags sat in the back porch.Mom went up stairs to make ready, she heard Les come in the drive heard the back door.Figured he was on his way to dump the garbage. An hour later or so she goes out to the porch. YEP!!! You guessed it!! He took off with all her laundry and it went down over the 12 foot embankment at the dump!!! Clothes curtains towels and sheets. Not a white sock in the house.Ida never let the man outlive the telling of this story. Ha!!
When my husband Fred came home after being placed in a wheel chair from after the  car accident he was in, Les threw him up over his shoulders and up the stairs they went, no question about it Fred was going to fit in just fine, with all of us, and Les was here to help this process along. Its not easy going into a wheelchair at age 36,Leslie made this transition so much the better for Fred. They were like brothers. We visited them often.Not many places Fred felt comfortable like he did with Leslie.
Les had a few jobs really great ones but he liked being his own boss best. He liked to work and worked hard but he liked his own scheduled and his own pay day. He never asked for a handout but he never put more in the political coffers than he had to.
Leslie loved to drive and would never let me drive his old truck. One night after a few drinks he played it safe and gave his keys to a friend to drive it was his last. He was killed instantly in St.Margate Bay, Nova Scotia. He was on his way with my sister to my house the next day. He never made it. We still miss your whistle old boy.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

the visit

You are about to read about a very personal spiritual experience. The night before we were in The White Out I was preparing for bed. I felt deep within me a calling, a longing, an intense wonder, as if I was with my mother or wanting to be so much with her it was as if my mother was with me, it was so intense! Then in a moment it passed. My next thought was one of surprise "wow I haven't thought of mommy like that in years. My mother was a warm, caring, nurturing, country, godly,healer  woman who passed into SPIRIT some 22 years ago.
Then I was into bed and off to sleep.
The next morning I went outside to wait for my friend,who was coming to pick me up in her dads SUV and we were going to Crosby House up in New Minus.
I stood downstairs out on  the veranda to wait.
As I stood there I said a prayer of gratefullness from my heart, (as I often do) I said a blessing on the day and gave thanks for being alive. I felt and I mean in an inner- conscious way an energy of light circling above my  left side, it was shaped like the Universal symbol for energy I thought of Reiki energy as I am an energy worker in the form of Reiki.
The energy circled there for a few seconds then it entered my chest internally I felt an energy of light circling my chest its direction was North East as it entered. I was blessed and felt grateful to be in this blessing of light.Then my friend came into the driveway. Three hours later we were in a very bad car accident we all came away unharmed. I have some injury in one shoulder and my arm.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

reflections on my dads life

My dad Gerald grew up in Curriville N.B. Canada, just on the backside of a farming town Hopewell Cape.
He was one of three boys and two girls none of which we became very close to except his brother David.Dad and Uncle David were inseparable. Hardly a day went that these two didn't spend time together, they both bought and sold old cars as well as held down full time jobs to put the bread on the table.We always ate very well, with lots of treats.
David had lost full use of his leg as a boy pinned up against the barn door by a tractor.He walked with a noticeable limp, and wore a wooden built up shoe.Over the years of growing up I witnessed the love and friendship of two men who truly loved one another, as life pulled us all along its rocky shores.
I wonder today if this strong attraction set in motion another two friendships of the same nature, was it a circling back and moving him forward through a Universal life force of time and space.
Each summer we vacationed in Nova Scotia, with John Zink and his wife for a period of a few days, then we would be invited to stay with Marie and Lawrence.
John and Dolly lived in a wonderfully mysterious three story salt box on the LA Have River beside the bridge.Dad and John met as younger men working in Bridgewater as carpenters. It was a time of great friendship and change when he met John,he was the principle motivator behind the adoption of my one and only sister, a few years after they met.
John had a "bad", leg. He walked with a cane.Whenever we were going on a sightseeing tour of the area great care was given to his approach to getting comfortable in the car. I only once remember him being able to drive up to visit us in New Brunswick, as his leg was a trouble to him. I like staying there very much John had two granddaughters my age and we would go on adventures around the area. I remember a very strong moth balls smell in the house and closets our bedding came from. Magic!
Where you saw Marie you saw Lawrence and vise versa. Dad and Lawrence met at church and became friends right off. They liked cars. Lawrence had been in the war and told stories and had a wonderful old style English moustache. Marie kept the most wonderful gardens I ever saw. There were berries bushes ,veges, flowers; a real old style Dutch garden.
They had the sweetest little cottage on the South Shore, and with a wooden leg in it!! The one time I saw the leg was in the night and me walking to the bathroom across the hall from their room. They were the first people I ever heard making love in the night.Sweetly moaning themselves to sleep.
Dad would go on site seeing tours and we would all pile into the car with Lawrence in the front seat and the two women and us two girls, squished into the back!
Sometimes we would arrive and he would be away.He was a dynamite. He blew up the rocks of Nova Scotia so folks could get water in their wells.He was very popular and always had well paid work.I liked listening to him tell these tall tales of traveling to wells in the area and the response of people he worked for when he blew up their wells.We were never really sure if the dynamite and the leg had any relevance to his crippling situation.That was not made clear.I suspect it may have been in the war.They had three children we enjoyed seeing each year. Mom got along very well with anyone and would help cook and clean with these women. She had a way of tracking us and keeping us out of trouble.
When my Uncle David passed away I stayed home from the funeral, it was all to painful for me.He was like my dad away from dad.We had such a close time he played for me as I learned to sing, he taught me to swim, and I loved him like my life.I was his flower girl at his wedding, so I wanted to remember him as I saw him in my mind. I still think funerals are barbaric. But that's another story.

By Cathleen Steeves

 

Friday, February 20, 2015

The White Out

Today started out no different than any other crisp sunny windy winter morning .We had planned to meet downstairs in the front of the restaurant and head right away off to New Minus where friends were waiting for us to have a lovely tea.
My reasoning for going was of a more personal and professional level.I always wanted to see Crosby House as I had heard really successful reports of its treatment stats over the years.I have been engaged in Addictions Counselling for about 20 years and now working with Reiki healing practises and acupuncture I wanted to investigate there attitude towards naturopathic medicines.
I found it strange my friend was running late, not her usual habit .I stood in the sunniest place on the veranda in the sun as the temperature was about minus 9 or so. As I stood I felt an very delicate energy forming in my chest .I'm an energy worker and so I was not alarmed exactly the opposite, I raised my head skyward and thanked Great Spirit and all beings of light for this blessing.
We chatted and drove along for about half an hour, stopped in for a coffee and started for Windsor.
The roads had been icy in spots with some blowing but overall it was a very pleasant drive.The white fields of snow were glorious against the ice blue sky and soft white clouds.In places the horizon seemed infinite and as if it went on forever as one huge scene of white and blue.Snow, sky and clouds.
Out of nowhere came blowing snow high banks of snow narrow road isles of passage, then blowing white blanket of snow and fog.My instinct said pull over.Yet I did not speak.
Within moments I saw a trunk of a car no lights on, I heard the smashing immediate carnage of crashing twisted steel! We were lunged forward from a force behind us into oblivion.
Parallelising,incapacitating vacuum of trauma, over takes all my senses. I reach out for the steel in front of my face and lunge myself off to the left of me.  Pain sears my right shoulder,I'm woozie and almost throw up!
I hear my friend holler "get out Kate there may be fire! " I swallow my fear and open my door.I cannot stand on frozen L'eggs.Someone helps me out.Someone puts an arm around me and walk me slowly to an open van door of the man who did not get hit. I see oil smoke and a haze of faces for the first 10 minutes.We huddle.We puzzle.We muddle.
The young man who hit us remained with his car.
The 18 wheeler who pulled off the highway in front of us moved off down the road.
We waited for the ambulance.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Empty pockets

One fine hot summer day our family decided to go on a picnic and stop into the zoo, abut 60 miles from home on the other side of Moncton.
We invited our grandfather Charlie,and his friend Wilfred.
Grandpa Charlie had a family reputation of being overly generous, and Wilfred was known to be on the  stingy side.
I slide my nine year old hand into Grumpy Charlie"s and off we went!
The sun shone bright in our faces as we sauntered up the gravel stony path to the small animals cages.Our first stop.
"Oh look a raccoon" I gasped.Wilfred turned to face us leaving his back exposed to the cage.A raccoon came up behind him and stuck his little paw into his left pants suit jacket pocket,unbeknowns't to him.
Gramps Charlie could not resist the comment "Ya won't find anything oink there little one".
We all smiled and moved on.Wilfred no less the wiser of his visitor.
Later on at home my dad and Charlie sat for hours making merry with the experiment of the raccoon paw in the wrong pocket!
It became a family humorous telling at many dinner table gatherings for years to come.
It is one of my fondest memories.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Home from School

I was talking to a friend this week who asked me "what was it like coming home from school when you were young"? Immediately my imagination sprang over to the old wood stove and yellow sunshine in my mothers kitchen .An old tin match box reflected the sun in my eyes sometimes, and a horse shoe hung upside down over the glass fronted door, while the big black kettle swung out fin-suite, fin-suite, tittle tittle back and forth over the cast iron shinning black stove top.
This time of year in late winter was the most precious of all coming in out of the cold weather we be skating tobogganing or just home from the school bus ride, this small room was paradise.
"Kathleen take your boots off I just scrubbed the porch floor", she would sing out, as she may be in the living room or upstairs who knew, but she knew when we came in every time never missed a mark.Then she may have been just sitting there in prayer sometimes her head back in her chair eyes closed and a pleasant very natural light on her face. Sometimes she would be waiting for the donuts to finish cooking in the deep fryer." Have to make your father some sweets for his lunches this week".
Yellow-Hello was the color of my mommy's kitchen and white with floors so clean you could eat off them until the dog came in or one of her seven cats. We were the last of the farmers in the area but my mother grew up on a farm with only a mother and a couple of Uncles to help out along with her four sisters.Arletta,Mildred Sarah and Ida. Some liked to call her Idy..
It was not unusual to hear her say as I was coming in the porch "don't take your boots off just run these potatoes over to Ted or another neighbour Doris.
One day I was there in her kitchen after school and I was talking about these white buck shoes I wanted, all the other kids had them.I thought this was going to work on her, She looked at me very seriously and ask me "If I jumped off the bridge would you?" "No!" I replied without a second thought.Little did I know this was my early days and ways of leadership training in my moms kitchen after school.Be a leader not a fool.
My mother was a solid woman in her small village of Edegett's landing in Albert Co. NB
She loved kids and we her two adopted daughters knew we were loved. She could sew us a new dress better than any store, make a wedding cake, or wedding dress, a costume for the school play. She loved to laugh and knew how to laugh at herself. This is the greatest gift she gave  me.Don't take life to serious and don't make mountains out of molehills.Sometimes mom would share the kitchen with dad he liked to cook and his meals were very healthy and tasty.No cotton wool bread for him we made homemade bread everyday, to go along with fresh vegetables, greens home made jams fish jellies and fruit.
Today my kitchen is bright the pot is on and my shoes are off while I cook clean and sing into my future a brighter place because of my mothers kitchen and all we found there..