Tag: non-fiction

Day 235 “Conflict Resolution”

“It’s not rape if the girl is a prostitute, is it?”  one of my students asked me recently.

“It is without consent,”  I answered sternly, but the question left me unsettled.  As a high school teacher, I am immersed in the attitudes of the young, and it is worrisome.

The prevalence of sexual assault and the reluctance to report these crimes is a conflict that currently plagues Canadian society, and one that hits me at my core.  When I was abducted and assaulted in the early 1970’s, the police informed me that reporting it would be futile, as “I had asked for it”given what I was wearing that night, so, I let it drop, and have been haunted ever since.  The authorities knew all about the man who’d done this to me, and maybe the girls after me weren’t lucky enough to escape with their lives.  Every woman who doesn’t tell carries that burden of guilt.

“I was told that it was my fault,”  my mother told me referring to the multiple times she was assaulted by male relatives starting at the age of six.  “Boys will be boys,”  her mother told her.

I had thought that our society had progressed, but apparently that is not true.  In a recent court case, the victim – who had awaken in the night with her assailant on top of her – was dragged through three days on the witness stand, and questioned about all of her lifestyle habits, even though there was DNA evidence clearly convicting the accused.  “She asked for it” remains to be a viable legal argument.

Yes, there are cases in which men are wrongly accused – it happened to someone I know.  The “victim” came forward to confess her lies just prior to the trial, but when told she would be charged with contempt, she backed down sticking with her initial story.

The countless arguments that have appeared in the media recently look to our legal system as the culprit of this ongoing imbalance of justice.  Yet, as a woman and a schoolteacher, I cannot help but feel that there is a larger problem here not being addressed.

I think of my student’s question.   He asked it in all honesty, and was surprised by my response.  This is a young man that associates with the criminal element; his role models are drug dealers and gang members.  Having grown up in a household where domestic violence was the norm, he is conflicted about male/female relations.  He is not alone.

When I taught in a rural school, many of the families had “shacks” on their farms, which the children converted for their own purposes.  The parties they hosted included under-age drinking and a disturbing number of sexual activities.  A female student (grade 10) reported to me that there was a stripper pole installed in one of the cabins.  Visions of music videos flashed through my mind.  Were these children emulating their celebrity idols?

Another student of mine, female, was recently assaulted at one of these parties.  Her assailant grabbed her by the hair and forced her into a sex act.  She was hesitant to report the incident for fear of backlash from her peers.  Suicide seemed a better option.  Fortunately, she was not successful, but she continues to be tormented.

“If you were male, and he used physical force on you, that would be assault and there would be no question of a charge,”  I tried to reason with her.  So why do gender differences cloud the issue?

I do not know the answer to this conflict, but I do believe that we all have an obligation to find a solution.  Educators, parents, law enforcers, and the media all play a part in how we view issues relating to sexuality.  Someone needs to counter the messages of inequality with a reverence for human rights and humanity itself.

Personal responsibility and accountability should never be overshadowed by “She asked for it” bullshit!

 

Day 233 “The Tao of Giving”

My sister, Mae, is obsessed with yard sales and thrift shops, always looking for the buried treasure amongst other people’s discards.

“I found a beautiful bracelet for Mom,”  she’ll tell me.  “Really, you should see it! Would one of your girls like a purse.  I bet they could use it.  It’s really stylish and only fifty cents!”

Mae is sixty-three years-old and further removed from what is “stylish” than I am, but I don’t tell her so.  Instead, I graciously suggest that they likely have more purses than they know what to do with, being working girls and all.

Mae’s generosity is never without a catch, so recipient beware.  She is so persistent that caught in a weak moment I will relent and accept a gift on behalf of myself or others.  This immediately triggers a flurry of phone calls as to when I will come pick up the illustrious item – as many as six a day.   Once retrieved, she will never ever let you forget the gesture.

“Remember that owl plaque I gave you once?”  you said recently.  “Do you still have that?”

The object in question was a small wooden plaque with an owl engraved into it and some words of “wisdom”.  “I hung it in my first classroom,”  I tell her.  “I thought the message was appropriate there.

“Oh yeah, what did it say?”

I really can’t remember.

“I don’t have room for anything else,”  my Mom will complain, “but I can’t throw anything out because  she looks for it when she visits.”

Perhaps this is a good place to interject that my sister Mae is mentally ill, suffering from schizophrenia.  Giving is her way of connecting to the world.  I have never understood this relentless need of hers, and am equally stymied by the fact that she outright refuses to receive anything from anyone.

“Why would you give me that?  It’s too expensive,” she might say.  Birthday, Christmas, or just because gifts are handed back belligerently or quickly passed on to someone else.  She will not have the stain of taking on her hands.

What has caused this imbalance in Mae? I often wonder.  Yet, if I am honest, I too have never been totally comfortable with the whole giving and receiving concept.   Social etiquette is somehow lost in our family.

Children learn from the example set.   In our family, there was always something sinister lurking behind the act of giving.  Our father, for example, would lavish my mother with new, expensive clothing, but the fact that it usually occurred when she was at the end of her rope and threatening to leave him, was never lost on us.  I clearly remember questioning how he could afford it all at a time when Mom didn’t have enough household money to pay for the basics.  Father’s gifts were clearly a ploy to control her.  I swore never to fall into that trap.

Gifts from my mother similarly conveyed a message.  She would favour one child over another, and excuse it by saying that the child in question had greater need than the others.  Her logic was confusing, if not outright cruel.

Mae’s inability to escape the cycle of unhealthy giving is a symptom of the dysfunction we lived.  She cannot escape.

Escaping and experiencing something different is what I strive for.  Yet, years of guilt for not having given enough to my children, or embarrassment for having missed an opportunity to give to another when everyone else has risen to the occasion, continue to plague me.

“Unattached giving” is the lesson to learn according to today’s reflection in The Tao of Joy Every Day, by Derek Lin (my inspiration for this blog).  To give only what you can spare, and without expectation of return.

“Give a small amount every day…” Lin advises.

Now confined to home with illness, this challenge requires a real shift in perspective on my part.  What is giving?  What does it involve?  If I begin with the assumption that anyone, despite their present circumstances, is capable of giving, then I have to redefine what that means.

I cannot offer to take someone out for lunch, or even get out to buy them a card, so how can I still fulfill this task? What do I have to offer?

Gifts, I decide, come in many forms, and are defined as much by the joy that they bring, as they are by the value they hold for the person giving.  So what do I value right now?  Well, I value my energy (as it is limited), and I value my writing.   I am a good listener, and I will share whatever I can to brighten someone’s day, but I am constantly learning the importance of boundaries, so to give more than I have, energy-wise, has  immediate and devastating repercussions on my health.   Reaching out, if that is the gift I can give, has to be sparing, and I somehow have to learn that this is good enough.

Boy, this “Tao of giving” stuff is not as easy as it sounds, and I surely, have lots left to learn.

 

Day 232 “Levels of Virtue”

“Good, better, best.  Never let them rest.  Until your good is better and your better best,” my father would make me recite often; a constant reminder that I was never good enough.

“Patience is a virtue…, ” my mother would wag her finger at me implying that I was somehow sinful.

I gave up being virtuous long ago.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been leery of “good” people.

I knew a woman once who was touted by others as a guru – saintly sweet, full of love and light – you know the kind.  She often rented space in the same office building where I was working at the time, and for some reason, I kept my distance.

Call it instinct.

Or maybe, it was because I didn’t want her judging my lack of virtue.

One day, as I approached the building, I heard a distinctly female voice raised in anger, coming from inside the lobby.  I hesitated, not wanting to walk into the middle of a fracas, and listened for distinguishable voices.  I caught the low, gruff tone of one of the landlords, and the higher, more nasal,  and still calm voice of his partner.  Whoever they were trying to discuss matters with was having none of it – her voice like piercing shards of glass was bouncing off the walls, and as it did not seem like it was going to subside, I had no choice but to push open the door and disturb the scene.

Red in the face, foaming from the mouth, was the “guru”.  Unforgiving of my untimely entrance, she turned her wrath on me:  “Could you not have waited?!  Does no one have any sense of boundaries around here?”  Then she stormed out the door, leaving three brow-beaten people in her wake.

“What was that?”  I asked looking at my befuddled landlords.

“Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I think.”  chuckled one.

“Apparently we did something to disturb her,” stated the other.   “Nothing that would provoke that amount of anger, I should think, but there was no talking about it with her.”

I had no reasoned response.  After all, she was the purported paragon of virtue, certainly not me.

 

 

Day 227 “Life is Love”

It is nap time and I am lying on the bed with my three-year-old granddaughter who pushes her rosebud lips up against my face, squishing my cheeks with her chubby baby hands.  She snuggles so close and with such intensity, it is as if she wants to merge her little body with mine.

I adjust her position so that she is now cradled in my arm, her head resting on my shoulder.  Taking slow, deep breaths, I close my eyes.  I can feel her intense blue eyes staring at me, and then she too starts to breathe deeply and I peek to see she has succumbed to sleep.

We will lie like this for two hours, her baby hair matting as she sweats in her slumber, and I marvelling at this little soul who has brought so much love into my life.

Earlier, she and her two-year-old cousin collected fallen leaves in the backyard and I pressed them so we could make Thanksgiving collages.  The world, through their eyes, is wondrous and new, and all the leaves are beautiful no matter how torn or blemished.  The enthusiasm is contagious.

After nap, we will all sit down to a traditional meal and the babies will chatter non-stop, and giggle at their own nonsensical language.

Then both granddaughters will scramble to sit on Grandma’s lap whilst I read a book and we discuss its content as if its the most important thing in the world.  (Really, I will do anything to prolong the scent of their baby hair and the feel of their sloppy kisses.)

Hours after they leave, I will lie in the dark and replay each delectable moment over and over in my head, and Grandpa and I will talk about all the little developments and beam with pride.

There is no mistaking the fullness in my heart after time spent with my “babies”:  life is love!

 

Day 226 “Resistance to Change”

The magician rehearses and I, alone, observe from the front row of the theater. 

Assisted by two women, he plans his piece de resistance:   the illusion of transformation, one woman appearing to give birth to another.  Dark, terrifying, and magnificent.

In the final run through, one woman walks away, and because of my proximity, I am drawn in.  The part is now mine.

“No!” I protest to no one listening.  “I don’t know what to do.  I’m not prepared!”

Everything around me turns to chaos:  the stage manager suddenly falls ill, as does the stage hand.  I am alone and the curtain is about to rise, and I have no choice but to play the role.

“Improvise”, I tell myself.  “You can do it!” 

Concealed beneath the cloak of mystery, my partner and I merge and appear as one   entering the stage.  Strobe lights cut through the dim atmosphere and the magician begins his spell, gesturing and waving cloths, and just at the right moment lifts the cloak and I’m pulled off stage, out of sight, and the new woman emerges: transformation has occurred – suddenly, magically, efficiently – and only those behind the scenes know the fear that led to this moment.

*  *  *  *

The dream repeats itself again and again, and I toss and turn trying to shake it loose.

It makes no sense to me at first consideration, but then I see it:  “All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare penned, “And all the men and women merely players.”  Reluctant players at times, as I am in the dream.  Improvisational players.

No matter how much we prefer to sit in the audience and watch others perform, time comes when we are called to play our part – or as, in this case, the part chooses us.

Is this what this illness is about?  Am I being called to transform myself, give “birth” to a new woman?  Is this an opportunity?  Or am I just participating in a grand illusion?

Change is never easy.  I have certainly been dragged against my will into my current state, and I know I fear that my self is lost.

I do feel as if I am playing someone else’s role; this is not supposed to be happening to me.  And yet it is.  And why not me?

The woman who walked away – whose role I filled – she did so because she felt too vulnerable and didn’t want to be exposed.  I didn’t have that choice.  I had no rehearsal.  I get one shot at getting it right.  What pressure I am putting on myself to succeed at this illusion of transformation.

Thank goodness for the magician’s skills.  I couldn’t do it without him.

Wonder who this magician is that makes change appear as easy as 1, 2, 3.  I could use some of his magic.

 

Day 225 “The Way of Life”

The sky is a cornflower blue, the sun bright, biting, as if in competition with the mustard gold, tangerine orange, and chartreuse leaves shimmering in the breeze.  This is the view from my window, and I close my eyes again, the scene too vivid for my newly awakened eyes.

I contemplate what I have witnessed and think life is like this:  too beautiful at times for words; glorious perfection.

I want to capture it, but when I open my eyes again, white clouds form the backdrop and the autumn wind is tossing the tree about. Branches dip and pull and the harmony of the past moment is gone.

And, I think, life is like this too:  it can turn in a moment, and what was once balance is suddenly lost, and we are left spinning.

I hear it now:  the wind rushing against the windowpane, taunting me:  Change!  Change! it leers.  Change is coming!

And I know what it speaks is true, for life is like this:  ever-fluctuating, never the same.

And the reminder is bittersweet.  I want it to be summer forever, but in my heart, I know it’s okay.  Change is okay.

It’s just the way of life.

Day 218 “Rule Your Life”

My five-year-old feet twisted and slipped in the dusty soil of the farmer’s plowed field, making my journey a challenge. Normally, I would take the long way, through the neighbourhood backyards, but today the hazy humidity was too thick for even the slightest breeze, and the sun beat down relentlessly, a I just wanted to get home. Inside it would be cool, and I could play with my toys. My hair clung to my head, a tangle of sweat and dirt from the morning’s adventure. Reaching the back gate, I jiggled the catch impatiently, my tummy grumbling with hunger and an urgent need to relieve myself. With one last burst of energy, I sprinted across the silent yard and stumbled into the back door.

Our back door was actually two doors: the first a screen door with a stubborn latch that you had to hit to open. For me, this meant balancing precariously on the top step while reaching up and slamming my palm against it, all the while hoping I wouldn’t lose my balance and fall off. This feat accomplished, I reached for the knob of the inner wooden door. It was locked. Again.

I pounded my little fist against the door, yelling for someone to come quickly. It was my sister Lorraine who answered the door.

“Shush!” she said, blocking my way.

“Move out of the way! I have to go pee!”

“She can’t come in here!” I caught sight of my oldest sister, Lily, in the kitchen feeding the baby. “Keep her out.”

“She has to use the toilet.” Lorraine was soft-hearted. I was sure she would give in.

“Alright. But make it quick! And not a sound, you mind!”

Lorraine held the door for me and ushered me into the small two piece bathroom just inside.

“I’m hungry too!” I told her. “I want to come inside.”

“Take these and get out!” Lily shoved a sleeve of crackers at me.

“But it’s hot outside, I need to cool off!”

“Look,” she said, leaning over so her face was right in mine. “Mom is suicidal, and the last thing she needs is you around!”

“What? Then I should go to her.” I tried to push past, but Lily was too strong.

“You want her to kill herself? Then you better get out now!”

Lily pushed me out the door and I heard the lock slide into place. Slumping onto the back step, I stuffed two crackers in my mouth and gobbled them hungrily, not worrying about the crumbs; then realizing that this was all I had to eat, I started to nibble them slowly, sucking each morsel until it slowly turned to mush in my mouth.

I thought about what my sisters had said. Would my Mom really kill herself? And would I be to blame? It must be true, I thought, because I was the only locked out of the house.

I didn’t want my Mommy to die, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Tears and snot mingled with my soda crackers, but I didn’t brush them away. A new understanding was dawning and it made me feel deeply saddened, afraid, and alone. I had the power to make my mother take her own life.

My mother didn’t take her life that day, but as I grew older, the lesson I’d learned was reiterated and reiterated.

“Don’t make your father mad!”

“We must be nice to your sister, or her heart will get worse.”

“Don’t upset the baby!”

“Don’t tell your mother, it will only disappoint her.”

And on and on.

The burden of keeping my family happy became an impossible task that I somehow took on as my own. Of course, I was a failure.
But I kept trying.

I didn’t question the fallacy of this belief until I became a mother myself. As a parent, always trying to please children is a no-win situation. My role, I knew, was to make the tough calls, and say no even when my child would rage or cry. It hurt me to have always be the “bad” guy.

But it wasn’t until my fourtieth birthday that I really understood how wrong I had been all those years. As she had every year, my mother tried to downplay the importance of celebrating my day of birth.

“I don’t imagine you need anything,” she told me days before. “You’ve got more than you want, but I suppose you’ll be expecting something from me.” It was the same thing I heard every year. Weeks before each of my siblings birthdays she would begin planning, calling me up to make sure I didn’t forget. But she’d forgotten mine on more than one occasion, always excusing it by saying my needs weren’t as great as my siblings.

Something in me snapped that day. Something in me decided that I had feelings too, and I was going to express them.

“Mom,” I said. “If you don’t want to celebrate my birthday, then don’t, but don’t taunt me about it. I have feelings too, you know.”

“I’m just saying, you live a very good life, Beth. What could I possibly give you that you don’t already have.”

“A card, Mom. A token of acknowledgement. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“You don’t have get like that about it.” My mother didn’t speak to me for a week.

I told my therapist that I was a bad daughter; that I had hurt my mother.

“Aren’t you all powerful!” he declared.

I was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“Try as I might, I’ve never been able to make anyone feel anything. How someone feels is a personal, emotional response. Pretty sure you can’t choose that response for them.”

The truth of what he said hit me like an arrow shattering all those years of defeatist delusion. “Of course, I can’t. You mean my mother feeling hurt is her own choice.”

“She can choose to be hurt, angry, self-righteous, belligerent, whatever. You can do nothing about that. You don’t have that kind of power.” He let that sink in. “The only power you have is choosing your own response in any situation. What is important here is that you validated yourself by expressing something important to you. How she received it is out of your control.”

And all these years I thought that it was me keeping her alive.

“Rule your own life,” he added. “It’s so much easier than trying to rule everyone else’s.”

Day 217 “Leadership”

My father died on December 23rd and. because of the holiday, we were only able to post an obituary for one day before the funeral proceedings. It was a blustery Christmas that year, with the weather fluctuating between freezing rain and snow squalls, making driving a hazard. We had little expectation that anyone would come out for the service.

Surprisingly, many came, and we stood in line for hours greeting people, and listening to tales of our father. Friends I remembered from my childhood days appeared and fussed over how grown we all are, but many of the faces were unfamiliar. Regardless of the connection, the stories all expressed a common thread.

“If it wasn’t for your father,” one man told me, “I don’t know where I’d be today. Your father took me in at time when even I didn’t believe in myself. Hired me when he could have had a hundred other, younger, more experienced men.” I listened politely, as the man still clung to my hand. “I even asked him why me? You know what he said?” No, I shook my head, trying to picture my father even having this conversation. “He said I was a regular guy, down-to-earth; that people would relate to me. He said he couldn’t train the young whipper-snappers (definitely my dad’s words) to have what I had. I’ve been quite successful too, thanks to your dad.”

“Your father found me sleeping on a bench in the train station.” Another man told me. “I had hit rock bottom, didn’t know where to go next or how to carry on. I had one suit draped over the bench behind me. In your father came, grabbed up the suit in one hand, and literally pulled me off the bench. ‘Come on, Man!’ he said. ‘You’re too good for this. I’m getting you a job.’ He was my angel.” I knew this man. He’d been far more successful than my father in his life. I never knew about the role my father played.

“Your father always had a way of motivating us,” one man told me. “We were his team, but we were more than that. He made us feel important, like family. And he never asked us to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself. We felt respected.”

“He fired me once,” another man chuckled. “But you know, I deserved it. Told me to come back when I grew up and got my priorities right. I did, and we worked together again. I credit him with giving me the kick I needed. He never held a grudge, and neither did I.”

It was difficult through it all not to picture the tyrant that had ruled our household with terror for so many years, and yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I had always seen this potential in my father.

He had been a great leader in his field, as witnessed on this stormy December day. The many who dared to come despite the weather gave us a wonderful gift that day – a new understanding of the man we called ‘father’, and a new purpose to our grieving.

I, personally, grieve that the type of leadership my father practiced in his working life seldom made it home where it was sorely needed.

Day 216 “Living with the Unknown”

“We don’t know what causes this illness, and there is no cure or course of treatment other than management, and that is mostly trial and error.” It is the standard answer from all healthcare providers when it comes to ME/CFS.

“I am flat out frustrated,” I tell my therapist. “I can’t seem to find a regime that works. I can have one or two good days and then, wham, I am knocked down for no apparent reason.”

“That seems to be the way with this disease. How are you managing emotionally?”

“Okay, mostly, but on the worst days I find myself always on the edge of tears.”

“There is a grieving process that accompanies a diagnosis of chronic illness, you know. It has to do with the loss of your normal life, and all the things that go with being healthy.”

“This feels more like fear. I know it’s irrational, but this feels very much like fear.”

“Are you afraid you’ll never get well again.”

“Nnnoo…….I know I can do that – I’ve gotten through worse before. It’s just….it feels almost as if it’s coming from an old place – a younger me, if that makes sense.”

“It does actually. Whenever we are hurt or vulnerable, we often respond from a wounded part of ourselves, and that usually relates back to childhood. How old does this make you feel?”

“Nine!” I respond immediately. “I can see me, sitting in the corner of my childhood bedroom. It was my favourite hiding place. I spent hours and hours there as a kid.” Wishing someone would come find, but they never did, I remember to myself.

“Can you talk to her?”

Little Me sits with her knees drawn up tight, arms hugging them to her, eyes wide open and hyper-alert.

“What is it?” I ask.

No one will want us, her fear says.

The emotion hits me violently. She was told over and over again that she was an unwanted burden. “Unwanted” is the key word. We can handle any other pain than that.

“We have a burden complex,” I tell both her and my therapist.

Both nod, but Little Me’s terror and tension doesn’t ease.

“Go on,” urges my therapist.

“A burden is something, not someone,” I explain. “You are not a burden. You are a child, and by that fact alone, you have certain rights – birthrights – among them the right to have your needs met, the right to be looked after and cared for, and the right to be loved. NOT: You have to earn these rights! NOT: You are unworthy and therefore undeserving! You exist, you are born, those are your rights!”

My therapist nods throughout, and more importantly, I see Little Me is listening, and her shoulders have dropped a bit.

But Mom says…., she begins.

“I know what your Mother tells you: Don’t wear out your welcome. All she means is be polite and stay a reasonable amount of time when visiting your friends. She is not commenting on your likeability.”

Really? What is a reasonable amount of time?

“Discreetly leave before supper is ready unless you are invited.”

“Yes, yes,” the therapist nods.

Little Me considers this. Then why does she rush us off to bed at night as soon as Dad gets home? Isn’t it because we’re a burden and she doesn’t want to remind him?

“NO! It has nothing to do with that! I cannot emphasize this enough! It is something you will understand as an adult, but for now, know that you being sent to bed is your parents’ issue, not yours!”

What about Thor? Won’t he find us a burden and leave us?

“Ahh!” says my therapist warmly.

I feel my throat catch and sigh. “Some things in life are uncertain.” It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. How do I begin to address this? “We have many things that Thor is looking for,” I offer. “Last year, we looked after him. We are patient, loving, and good listeners. These are important to him. He is wounded too, you know. He needs reassurances. Our insecurities will push him away more than anything, especially if we pretend not to have any.”

The truth of this last statement hits me. Little Me loosens her posture and now looks at me quizzically. Confession time.

“One of the things I have done in my life – right or wrong- is to develop a tough exterior. It hasn’t always served us well. Much like our Mother sending us off to bed early, I did it as a form of protection.” I pause to feel the weight of the revelation. “It doesn’t work anymore.”

The silence from within and without encourages me to go on. “Part of my healing process – our healing process (I add for Little’s sake)- is to replace that characteristic with a healthier one.”

What will that look like? Little Me echoes my therapists thoughts.

“Not entirely sure, but I know how it will feel: safe enough for you to come out of the corner and engage with life. You, we, have a lot to share, and we can’t do it when we hide ourselves away.”

I am strangely comforted by this conversation: lighter. “I have my homework cut out for me,” I tell my therapist.

“You do! But this is a good start.”

“Life is full of uncertainties,” I tell Little Me, on our way home. “Some good, some bad; it’s just the way it is.”

Kinda like an adventure?

“Yeah, it kinda is!”

Day 213 “Life After Life”

“Scoot up on the step, Rie-Rie, and let Mommy put on your new shoes.” With only weeks to go until my second child was to be born, I found bending over impossible. Obligingly, Marie climbed up the steps and offered me a foot. “Look how shiny they are! Don’t you love them?”

The black patent Mary-Janes fit her tiny feet perfectly. She sat patiently while I adjusted the buckles, chattering away as she often did, but this time I found her words strangely unsettling.

“When you were little you always loved your Baby Dolls the best.”

Baby Dolls! It was a term I hadn’t heard for ages.

“Where did you hear them called Baby Dolls?” I quizzed my two-and-a-half-year-old.

“You called them your Baby Dolls. You had to wear them everywhere.”

Marie often talked of when she was big and I was little; I had just thought that it was a thing that young children did. When you were a baby, I fed you applesauce, she’d say, for example. But repeating a name I’d left behind in my own childhood and forgotten startled me. Who are you? I wondered.

My second daughter was born at the end of October, the same day we moved into our new, unfinished home. Without kitchen cupboards, or a proper countertop, I was forced to bathe my newborn in the bathroom sink. I assigned Marie as helper and stood her on the toilet seat where she would be within reach. On the back of the toilet, I had placed a flower arrangement, made from the silk flowers that had been part of my bridal bouquet. Marie spotted it at once.

“Oh, how pretty!” she exclaimed. “I made one of these once.”

“You did? And when was that?” I couldn’t help but be amused. In her short life, at home with me, I knew for certain she had not.

“Oh a long time ago, before you were born. Only I made it out of yarn.”

Yarn?! Where did she come up with such things. I would say ‘wool’, not ‘yarn’.

“Oh yeah? And where was that?”

“It was when I lived in England. At school.”

“And how old were you then?”

“Sixty months.”

“And how old is that?”

“Five.” Marie said it so matter-of-factly, but I was stunned. How does a not quite three-year-old know that sixty months equate to five years?

“Marie is scaring me with the way she talks,” I told my mother over the phone. “It’s like she has been here before.”

“You were like that too,” was her response. “She is just very bright, that’s all.”

I wasn’t so sure. I called my cousin Lynne. “Could she have been here before, like she says?”

“Some people believe so,” she said. “It’s called reincarnation. There’s a book you should read that might help you out. It’s by Ian Currie – You Cannot Die.”

It was the beginning of a shift in the way I thought about life, and life after life.