Betty - A Life Well Lived

Last Friday, November 13^th was the end of a long and amazing life of a dear family friend, Betty Dimock.

Friday the 13th is also the celebration of the divine feminine goddess.  In the goddess trilogy, the Crone Goddess represents the old woman, crone is the old English word for crown.  She is the wisdom keeper, seer, healer and midwife, whose knowledge and wisdom emanates from the head like a halo. She is sought out to guide others during life's hardships and transitions.  Crones are not scared to speak their truth and are sometimes feared.

Betty Dimock was a true crone goddess, she was brave, feisty, gifted and certainly not scared to speak her mind. 

She served in the Second World War as a Nursing sister, losing her hearing in the process due to an infection. She cared for soldiers and witnessed horrible atrocities in the absence of proper medical care.

She returned to Canada post-war to find a different life for women. She married and with her husband Herb, settled in Winnipeg. She became an advocate for the deaf. Having studied art in New York in pre-war days she took it up again and became a well-known talent. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Art, University of Manitoba, at age 63, and studied printmaking in Japan.

She had her own studio, a bohemian setting in an old part of Winnipeg.  She was a source of creativity in her cooking, baking, decorating, clothing and of course in her art. She continued to paint and do print making and even travel internationally into her 90s.

After not seeing her for a long time I visited her earlier this year at the age of 99. We made arrangements on the phone to go out for dinner and she asked me if I was up for walking.  I met her at her apartment where she was living alone.   Off we went, Betty in her motorized wheel chair and me at times running to keep up!

Betty in her studio

She led me to her go-to place to eat. I was surprised to find it was a local sports bar, with scantily clad servers, big screen TVs and slot machines.  She was oblivious.  I ordered a cider and she thought that sounded like a good idea so had one too.  We reminisced and got reacquainted. She was articulate and opinionated as usual and she said to me:

“Cyndy, we live too long”

Betty in her 'Jazzy' at the Sports Bar

Given all the changes in the world in the past 100 years I don’t disagree.  Rest in peace Betty! 

My sister

My little sister Jennifer turned 51 this month.
I remember the day she was brought home from the hospital, laid on my parent's bed, and promptly sneezed.
I was worried.

Jennifer (in the red coat), Winnipeg, mid 1970s

  But she survived, thrived and we moved to Winnipeg to endure the cold prairie winters.

Me, Michael and Jennifer, 2013

She was a middle child, sandwiched between me and our younger, entertaining brother.
She excelled in music and sports and was always cracking us up.


She married Jean-Marc, a Franco-Manitoban, moved to Ottawa, Manila New York and back to Ottawa, all the while working or volunteering in early childhood education.

Jen and I eating  Halo Halo in Manila, 2003

Talking about children,

Nic, Jean-Marc, Jen and Luc 2013

she is the proud mother of Nic and Luc, two busy teenagers

Sisters working on papers 2014

She went back to school in 2013, excelled and recently convocated from the University of Western Ontario with her Masters degree in Professional Education. Mum and I were there to cheer her on!

Way to go Jen! 

Then the whole family celebrated her achievements!

 

Jen, I'm proud of you!

The Chosen Ones

Sunee Dhaliwal

One of the benefits of working at a college is ready and inexpensive access to all kinds of entertainment events.

Last night Keith and I attended Comedy Night at the college, a student fundraiser sponsored by Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club.

As usual, Keith suggested we sit at the back, worried that we might be singled out in the front rows or worse, asked to come up on stage.

We were a little worried that the dialogue would be full of f-bombs or not suitable for our older sensibilities.

The first comic asked for volunteers to be on stage and sure enough picked a couple of women in the second row. Whew!

We were pleasantly surprised to find the comedians 'laugh out loud' funny, clean and thoroughly entertaining and we weren't the only people over 30 in attendance.

The last comic was particularly hilarious and really engaged the crowd.

He described the 'exciting' towns he's travelled to on the comedy circuit and asked if anyone had been to Whitehorse.  Innocently I raised my hand. He pointed at me and asked "Why?" I replied: "For work". He said: "Of course" and asked: "Why else would anyone go there?" Yada yada.

He later singled out Keith who he pointed at and called "The teacher at the back who claps twice after each joke". He then referred to him several times as "Mr. Double Clap".

At the end of the show he came up to us with a big smile on his face and apologized saying: "With the lights shining on my face you were the only two people I could see!"

So, in future we'll sit in the middle!

Take time to smell the roses

When I was a little girl we lived near my grandparents in Montreal. My grandfather loved to garden in his retirement. He grew vegetables and flowers and often entered his roses into competitions, and many times won a prize.  I guess that is where I get my love of flowers. 

Stef took Keith and I to Portland's International Rose Test Garden. It is the oldest official continuously operated public rose garden in the US and features more than 10,000 roses.  

Despite it being early October, the roses were in their blooming and smelling glory. We walked around for over an hour and took in the beauty and scent of hundreds of rose bushes. I have never seen so many flowers in one place. Grampy would have loved it!  

Stef inhaling some yellow tea roses. 

The garden is immense planted on several tiered levels. 

A sign of fall, spider webs among the roses. 

With all these choices Stef and I could not decide which roses we liked the best. Next year we'll go back and find out!

Magnificent Trees

This is the second blog about our trip down the Washington and Oregon Coasts.

We witnessed immense, towering hemlock, spruce, fir and cedar trees, similar to the giant Kauri trees we saw in New Zealand. To think that all these trees start from a tiny seed, and grow to be as tall as 200 ft. with as much as a 59 foot circumference and live for a century!

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.       

Joyce Kilmer

Douglas Fir Trees along Rialto Beach, Washington

One of the world's largest Sitka Spruce trees - high winds last year knocked the top off this 700 year old tree. 

Moss covered Maple trees 

in the Hoh Rainforest,Washington

Giant 1000 year old Sitka Spruce tree at Quinault Lake

191 feet tall, 59 feet in circumference and 100 years old and still magnificent and growing! 

              

Beautiful Beaches

Keith and I just finished a wonderful week long trip south. We traveled down the west coast of Washington State and in Olympic National Park then continued down the northern Oregon Coast before heading east to Portland then north to Anacortes where we caught a ferry back home.

Our main reason for taking this trip was to see Stefanie while she is on a school break, between her first and second year.  But we also wanted to cross off something on our bucket list, the Oregon Coast, a trip we have wanted to do for a very long time.

It was the beautiful beaches and vistas that attracted us, similar to the Great Ocean Road we traveled in South Australia in 2012. The views did not disappoint!

Sea Scags make for breathtaking sites. Rialto Beach, Washington

Rialto Beach, Washington

Ruby Beach, Washington

Ruby Beach, Washington

Seaside, Oregon - beautiful but cold water, only about 12 Celsius! 

Looking South from Arch Cape

The view of Cannon Beach, Oregon from Ecola State Park

Cannon Beach Rock and Haystack

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Rockaway Beach Arch

Oyster Shell

Cape Lookout, Oregon

Cape Lookout, Oregon

Cape Kiwanda, Oregon

Cape Kiwanda Haystack, Oregon

Immense logs on many of the beaches from the huge trees.  For more trees, check out the next blog!

Visitors in Victoria

Having lived in Edmonton for a long time, living in a tourist town is a new experience for us.

The best part is people come and visit us!  We’ve had lots of visitors this summer who want to see us and the sights.  So we went to see the sights with them… thus getting to know our new town even better.

Some highlights.

Keith’s daughter and son-in-law Kristine and Jeremy and granddaughter Mary came for a week.  We had Mary all to our selves for a couple of days so we took her to:

Moss Street Market to eat organic strawberries

Beacon Hill Park to see the peacocks

and pet the goats 

What's Victoria without a walk (or ride on Grandpa's back) on the beach?

Hatley Castle aka Royal Roads University

The gardens at Hatley Castle

 My sister was just here visiting Mum on Pender.  She came over to Victoria and we decided to try out the restaurant at the Robert Bateman Gallery which overlooks the Inner Harbour.  We also experienced a tea and chocolate tasting at Silk Road, which have been operating in Victoria for 23 years and even grow some of their own tea on the south island.

My sister Jennifer and my Mum and I at Medicine Beach, Pender Island

Jen, me and Keith at the Steamship Grill with the Coho Ferry behind us 

Jen and I at a tea and chocolate tasting at Silk Road Teas

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