Page 55 - Aging Parents - FDCCPublications

PATIENCE, PLANNING AND SUPPORT: REFLECTIONS ON DEALING WITH AGING FAMILY MEMBERS
the only daughter of a coal
miner who, my older brother
explained, was one of the very
few crew leaders after each
shift to bring all of his crew
back to the surface without a
fatality. He was likely at least
Scottish rather than English.
Still, given his, my late uncle’s,
and my late mom’s modest
height,1 the best bet is that she
was most likely neither – my
brother contends and is likely
correct that his parents were
descended from the Picts, a
fierce tribe formerly inhabiting
the northland near Hadrian’s Wall between England and Scotland.
My maternal grandfather’s housemaker spouse was born
in Scotland and counted both the Stuart and Blair clans
in her lineage. This resulted in my middle name, which
has some distant relation to the Rhodes family, from which my brother gets his middle name. She was never in good health and passed away when my mom was still in her teens. Mom always aspired to more than the hardworking life of industrial northern England, and after her mom’s passing, she resolved to become an actress. Ultimately, she was admitted to and a graduate of London’s Royal Academy. She first emigrated to Canada with her first husband to participate in regional theatres. She returned home to give birth to my older brother before returning to Canada. After her divorce, she worked factory and bank clerking jobs to support her acting career whenever they were available. After marrying my dad, she later worked as a bookkeeper and ultimately as a city librarian before she retired.
Dad was the fourth son of a Canadian-born black father who worked variously as a general laborer and factory worker and a US-born black mother with a fascinating history of their own, space, and time, which we don’t have here. For our purposes, suffice to say, he had a physical presence but a quiet demeanor.2 He and his younger sister were the first and last in their generation of the family to earn university degrees.
His older brothers stayed close to home, working in factory jobs until retirement. His older sister also worked in various jobs, including at
a local candy factory and later as a custodian at the local hospital. Her younger sister had been the head of a time nurse. This older sister remained in the family home to help out their parents while using her savings to travel, often with a local singing troupe, including overseas to places in Europe.3 Space does not permit saying more here on these relatives.
Dad’s undergraduate degree earned from what was then Sir George Williams University in Montreal,4 funded by the Young Men’s Christian Association, was in social work, and he started his career with the “Y” in what is now Thunder Bay, Ontario as a specialist in teen and adult education. After my arrival on the scene, he was posted to a new “Y” facility in Edmonton, Alberta, which my mom later told me was one of the largest in the country at the time. While he was posted there, the federal government’s Department of Indian Affairs & Northern Development approached my dad to develop an adult education program designed for our Canadian first nations people. He was later required to compete for the privilege of administering the program he
While you may feel you’re now “the adult,” remember that aging does not and should not be made to take away your parents’ or other relatives’ grace and dignity.
1 Mom’s passport record, when she left the dock in England, listed her at 4’111⁄2” – when she arrived at the Pier in Halifax, the immigration officials remeasured her and erased the 1⁄2”! When I later met my uncle, he was no taller.
2 Although standing a full 6’1” tall and just under 300 pounds, he was known as “shorty” by his siblings.
3 My chapter contribution for this work was delayed in part by duties owed as this aunt’s estate trustee upon her passing on October 27,
2021, one month shy of her 99th birthday, the last of this generation of my dad’s family.
4 Now Concordia University.
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