Looking forward to the two debates although my French is not good enough to keep up with the flow of conversation I am sure that there will be translation. I think it will help to solidify support for the candidates. Decorum will be important I think because we are Canadian and do not like nastiness in our election process.
Working away on the matches and remembering my brother Doug and the hours we spent talking and looking at the results of the DNA work. Since another one of my brothers also was willing to be tested I had asked Doug if John and his wife Gloria would like to come along to our breakfasts/dinners (since they were working sessions I always insisted on paying for them after all I invited them). But that didn't work out unfortunately for all of us to be together. John and I as young children were very close; being the older one I was protective of him but as chance would have it John was held back in school one year repeating that grade. We are just over 1.5 years apart and because of that and my skipping Grade 4 I ended up four years ahead of him. I would say it certainly created a rift between us and that was sad actually. When I was in Grade 13; he was in Grade 9 and he felt that difference (to be honest I would have loved to have him closer to my year but life doesn't always flow the way we would like). Catching up to Doug was not exactly his idea of fun either to be honest. I have been mulling relationships about the last couple of days. My brother Doug died in 2020 (during COVID) and the two of them (Doug and John) had become good friends bonding somewhat over all those DNA results as Doug would share what I brought to him and sent to him with John. I also sent John items when he was still on Facebook (not sure if I ever realized that he wasn't because I seldom look at Facebook - it takes an email from Facebook on occasion to bring me back). But I was widowed not long after Doug died and must admit I pretty much withdrew from almost everyone except my children and their family. I am still pretty much like that and have not really been anywhere except to see the Total Eclipse of the Sun along the St Lawrence River last spring - it was majestic (and my daughter took me of course otherwise I would not have been there!). One never wants to miss the Total Eclipse if it is possible to be there. Moments get missed just because of chance. Working through the matches has been a trip down Memory Lane for sure. Having this small part of my family members keeps them alive in my mind and I am beginning to realize just how much of a treat it is to feel them with me as I work away on the projects. They will never be lost; there is a part of them that will be there so long as the databases of these companies endure. Perhaps their matches will go down through history; a wonderful thought. I tried to call John before Christmas but I apparently have the wrong phone number when I checked with one of my siblings. I should have asked really but I had no idea that he and his wife had moved. Life does separate siblings out and my reaching out to them through the last decade and more has revolved around the family history which I appear to be the custodian of for the moment although my younger sister has done the work of bringing together the modern part of the family as I delve deep into the past.
I will think a lot about John these days whilst I remember our times together since the death of our parents in 1998 and 2002. They have been very infrequent and primarily it was Doug who was the pivot for all of that. He passed in 2020 during COVID and my husband Edward passed in 2021. Since then I have been so occupied with the Siderfin Book once into it. We are a very private family and so I would never write a book solely about the seven of us in the past. But I am thinking I should consider putting down on paper the life of the family from my viewpoint through the years for my own children to read and enjoy (marrying at 20 my time at home was really very short when one considers I am approaching 80 so just one quarter of my lifetime). Living so far from family for the last fifty plus years initially we went back probably half a dozen times a year but that gradually decreased as our children grew and Edward's desire to find his family lines took over our traveling time (it was his passion for many years and amazing that eventually I did join him with that passion but from a somewhat different angle which he moved to eventually; the pursuit of DNA). One of the driving forces that sent me back was my parents and my oldest daughter as she was the only baby for eight years although they had three older grandchildren two of them were even further away. The relationship between my oldest daughter and my mother was beautiful to watch - I enjoyed it. They would sit together on a chair and laugh and it was good to see. The next baby was again mine eight years later and we were still going fairly regularly but then the next four appeared and the onus was no longer on me to keep being there so often as I knew my mother loved her little grandchildren - every one of them were treasures to her and the four little ones could now have her loving devotion.
Life flows and that is what makes Homo sapiens the greatest of the Homo species that has occupied this world to our knowledge. We can not control life but we can make it a better life for all who occupy this planet if we try. But I do not belong to the card carrying environmentalists; that isn't my way at all. I am fundamentally a fiscal conservative person and think that Homo sapiens will best survive in that environment where we pinch the pennies and use the natural resources that are at our fingertips always aiming towards a better use of the planet. If this world should last 100 million more years then we can really say that Homo sapiens was the best but so long as we are beset by wars (created by Hamas and Russia) and greed our time in this world is limited by those ugly realities.
Well I am a little less stressed it would appear although there is a lingering in my mind that has been there for a short while; not sure when it started actually but it just kept being there in my very soul. I realized it when the time came for me to do the obituaries for the South Collegiate website and I could not move myself to do that and so took a leave of absence whilst I work through my thoughts. As a person I am possibly one of the greatest failures of all time with regard to my relationships with people especially with regard to my sisters in law and my brothers in law and my many nieces and nephews. They did not and do not become in my mind my sisters and brothers or my children and I am unlikely to change although I have made on occasion and will make the effort to be a better person in that regard I generally fall short of the mark (I prefer email, messaging and that sort of relationship and my siblings oblige me in that). So I shall just continue to do what I need to do which is to be the best mother and grandmother and sibling that I can be in the life time that is left to me. Here too I do fall short of the mark but I will continue to try and school myself to do better.
The debates are on the calendar and I shall not miss them. Will they help me to decide because I am very much conflicted as to whom I should give my vote. It was much easier when I just always voted Conservative but I do think that I am a better voter now because I actually think about it beyond the party line. It was a chance happening that I moved to that really - the NDP winning the province of Ontario made me stop and think. They did a poor job here in government leaving us with all sorts of problems and I do blame them for the downgrading of our hospitals in the late 1990s done by the Conservatives (the amalgamations were a great idea to help offset that except insufficient funding although somewhat improved with the Ontario Health Tax). We need to have stable governments which do not have as their main objective the destruction of anything put in place by the former government. I will say Premier Ford does do that and when he says he would like to be Premier for ever I can only say; I hope you will be although I do have disagreements with some of the things he does overall his heart is with the people.
Minus 1 degree celsius and it is Sunday - God's day. We are blessed with this earth that was a gift of the Almighty. Thank you God now and always for the life that you have given us.
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