The warble sounded on the police radio to indicate a serious incident -- attempt suicide. I listened to the call that was happening in a different part of the city that I worked. “The witness is saying that this woman is yelling that she wants to die,” said the dispatcher. “She is described as a white female, 54 years of age, approximately 5’4” and 120 pounds, bleached blonde hair and goes by the name of Corley.” I turned off my police radio. Corley was known to police – impaired driving, assaults, mental health, public disturbances – and I knew her too. But I knew her by another name. I knew her as mom. I didn’t always ignore my mom’s pleas for help. In the early 1970’s, it was a normal childhood with hard-working parents. Didn’t every nine-year-old get dropped off at Safeway with a blank cheque? Things changed when I got to high school in the 1980’s. My mom split her time between launching the first indoor tanning salon and sleeping on the family room couch – unshowered and in that damn purple housecoat -- for months at a time. I didn’t bring friends home. If we talked, we fought. But I didn’t understand depression then. I don’t remember “I Love You’s”. I don’t remember hugs. But I also didn’t hear “be careful” or “you can’t do that” which allowed for fearless exploration. “Hey mom, can I teach myself how to drive a standard in your courtesy car?” “Sure,” she said. “Hey mom, Deb and I are going to Puerto Vallarta for spring break.” I said. “Ok,” she said. Things got normal again while I was at university in the early 1990’s, and we became roommates in a downtown 2-bedroom apartment. I saw prescription bottles but didn’t know why she was taking medications. She taught me how to run and joined me in my first 10K race. She introduced me to a vegan diet. We road tripped in her Volkswagen convertible and watched the stars in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon at midnight. I loved how she overruled David Lee Roth’s ‘I-I-I-I Ain’t Got No-bo-dy” and sang “I-I-I-I Got Some-bo-dy”. After I graduated, we became partners in a health and fitness business and I started to see mood fluctuations. I couldn’t keep up with her disjointed, racing thoughts and after two years, I moved out and left the business. But not before she racked up $10,000 in company bills that I later paid personally. Then she started to drink. I didn’t understand what was going on but I tried to help. I picked her up at the police station. At every hospital emergency room. I loaned her money. I cleaned vomit from her bathtub. But after five years, my help wasn’t helping. So I distanced myself – maybe too much. I was sad when she lost her apartment, her business, her beloved sailboat. But I kept saying no. Even when an emergency room nurse said, “what kind of daughter are you, you won't pick up your mom?” The worst kind I guess, but I don’t know what else to do. In 1998, I decided to become a police officer. “Michelle, you’ll make a great cop,” she said but I created more distance. “Mom, if you get in trouble with police, don’t you dare tell anybody who I am,” I said. She promised. And she did become known to police. Our uncommon surname had many officers asking if I knew her. “That Corley is nuts, are you actually related to her?” asked one officer. I said no. In October 2004, I accepted an invitation to work a temporary position in Car 87, a partnership program between Vancouver Police and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. I almost didn’t take it. I wanted drug squad. But I was ready for a change and said yes. A three month assignment turned into four years. My partners were psychiatric nurses and we responded to mental health incidents throughout the city. Crystal meth-induced hallucinations. Suicides. Self-harm due to alcohol. Schizophrenia. Delusional behaviour. And, bi-polar disorder. I spoke to hundreds of people with bi-polar disorder. I spoke to their families. I had meetings with mental health workers. I interviewed psychiatrists. And I started to understand. But for the next few years, I still drove by when I saw her on the streets. Once, I saw her causing a scene at our station’s public information counter, I ducked into a back stairwell. In the last year of my assignment, we spoke with a woman who was on the verge of a crisis. When we asked about family supports she opened a drawer and pulled out a photo of a uniformed RCMP officer. “I have a son. I’m very proud of him but he’s told me not to tell you about him.” The next time I saw her on the corner of Main Street and Gore, I stopped. “Hi Michelle!” she said as she ran across the street to my police car. I knew my partner would wonder why I ignored safety and chatted to a person on the street through an open window. “Who was that?” he asked after I drove away. “That was my mom”. After that, whenever I saw my mom, I stopped and we'd chat. But I learned how to keep boundaries. “Okay, you can come over to my house, but you can only stay one hour and I won’t let you in with that wine bottle.” “Oh, you are a good cop,” she said and we’d both laugh. My mom no longer asked for money. She no longer asked for favors. She was always smiling. She had friends all over the Downtown Eastside. She still drank but, “the drinking binges get shorter and shorter and the sober times get longer and longer,” she said. My mom’s medications helped stabilize her moods. She started sailing again. I was proud of her when she was part of a 6-person crew to Hawaii. In 2005, I told her I wanted to leave policing and start a dog training business. “You’re brilliant, go for it,” she said. The next time I saw her she gave me a dog training book that she bought at a garage sale for a dollar. I still have that book. And later in the fall, I met my mom at 7th and Alberta Street. It was sunny. We sat on a park bench and watched dogs play. I told her about my boyfriend and asked why she never had a steady one after her divorce. “I’d love to be in a relationship, but I love my independence too. I want him to have his own sailboat, so we can sail side by side, together,” she said. Having joked to friends about wanting a husband who lived in his own apartment down the hall, I finally felt it. I was my mother’s daughter. On January 4, 2006, I resigned from the Vancouver Police Department. Twenty-two days later she was killed in a road accident. She was 58. Being the ever optimist, I almost heard her say, “but hey, I was cycling in Mazatlan, what better way to go!” I am now forty-three. I still eat a vegetarian diet and have a positive body image. I believe I can do anything (mostly). I am glass half-full girl. I love adventurous travel and Stanley Park is still my favorite place to run. And I strongly believe that behind every person is a story worth knowing. ----- For information on mental health, please see the Canadian Mental Health Association ------ Thank you for spending your precious time with my story. If it resonated with you, let me know at michellesevignywriter@gmail.com ... I love getting surprise emails. I open my first floor apartment door one inch. Hallways empty. Elevator quiet. I skip exactly six steps to the building’s front door in my wrinkled fleece pajamas. Through the glass door, I see my Saturday breakfast in the far corner. Damn delivery driver. I swing open the door and when it scrapes to a halt on the uneven concrete, I curl around it like a pole dancer, my bare right foot landing on the last millimeter of dry concrete. My fingertips cling to the door handle – a little lock-out dare -- and I stretch out my right hand as if I was auditioning for an adventure film. Got it! I recoil like a vacuum cord and slam into bed. My cranberry-raspberry herbal tea is on my nightstand. My playlist is "Morning Shuffle" and volume level is set at two. My 85 pound Rottweiler is stretched alongside me. "Monty, I am ready for my feast." I snap off the elastic that holds my breakfast together. I fling the grocery and drug store flyers aside like a used teabag. I flip through Canadian Tire and rip out the eight-piece glass container set with red lids for 60% off. I chuckle at The Bay's re-launch of the original K-Way jacket. My mouth waters at the Rachel Roy salmon-coloured swing skirt. I thumb through my main meal and pick out the Sports and Classifieds like soggy mushrooms in an omelet. I slurp through Section A’s articles on cycling risks and Vancouver Police’s enforcement of sex workers. Pete McMartin interviews a local cyclist who passes a commuting milestone of 50,000 kilometers. And I savor Douglas Todd’s feature, A Question of Luck. “If you can figure out what luck is, you can basically explain the nature of the universe,” he writes (and no, he doesn’t). I sniff around the display ads. Who knows what you'll need when you're hungry later? Retirement sale at Ata Rug Gallery. Air Canada deals to Asia. Buddy Holly play at the Arts Club. Academy of Pathologists at the Vancouver Convention Centre. I sample other tidbits I wouldn't stop to taste on the internet's fast food menu. No doctors left in British Columbia's northern communities. Closing of Vancouver’s Playhouse. Scientists aiming to popularize Canada’s double-named paw paw fruit. Section B throws my tastebuds across the country and around the world. Montreal’s annual anti-police brutality march. Catholic Church recruiting Spain's unemployed. India’s sex workers get their own bank. I pucker at the sourness of the feature on Joseph Kony, Uganda’s leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. And I lick my lips at the juiciness of the interview with neuroeconomist Paul Zak about his new book, The Moral Molecule, of how genes and chemicals affect social organization such as why do we trust strangers. Yum! Section C, Travel, is dessert that has arrived too soon and I gently place it on my pillow, along with Section D, Arts & Life. I debate the deliciousness of Section E like a food critic. I disagree with three of the four Letters to the Editor. But agree with the guest columnist who writes on how to raise cyber-children safely in Issues & Ideas. I want to be the chef here one day too. I add more salt to my meal with Quotable Quotes: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker. And enjoy the enhanced flavour of Books on page E6, including four book reviews and the Top 10 fiction and non-fiction. When my stomach growls at the library later, this will help. I smile at the hidden treat in the Business section -- all about the Irish economy. And pick through the listings on the Weather Page -- 8 degrees and rain in Dublin, and yowza, 36 in Bangkok! The New York Times crossword is like a pomegranate, too difficult to bother. And Bridge? I have no idea how to peel it or eat it so ignore it. Almost done. I reach for the palate cleansing Arts & Life. Movie reviews (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen). Vlogger foodies. Music reviews (Plants and Animals). Gallery openings. Recipes. Free workshops. Movie listings at the Vancity International Film Centre. Rip! Rip! Rip! I have leftovers for the entire week now. As a word nerd, I surprise even myself by refusing to taste the easy crossword puzzles, like a meat-lover asking, “who wants my bacon?” I finish by sipping the Aquarius Horoscope, “Make changes that best suit you and the direction you are trying to pursue. Make choices that will help you improve instead of setting you back.” Nice. I sip my tea before I say yes to dessert. Today’s feature in Travel? Beijing and Shanghai. More vanilla ice cream than chocolate rum ball , but I still enjoy it. I analyze the structure. I wonder at the word choices. I study the sidebar layout. I imagine life in the photos. I scan the airfares. I want to be the pastry chef here too, one day. I then uncover another treasure, like dimes wrapped in wax paper in a 1970's birthday cake: Old, Wild Ireland Still Found on the Islands. Yes! I skip licking the plate clean. Does anybody still read the TV Times? After two hours, I push my scraps away, stretch and sigh as my arms collapse to my side. And Monty snuggles closer. © 2012 Michelle Sevigny. www.michellesevigny.com. Reprint permission granted with full copyright intact. Photo by Hitchster I shopped for groceries today to fill up my stomach and instead filled up my heart. I’ve been a regular at Sunshine Produce Market at Third and Chesterfield once a week, for the last ten years or so. As a vegetarian, almost all my groceries are bought here; broccoli, Romaine lettuce, field tomatoes, organic bananas, even olive oil and raw nuts. I love my little produce market. I don’t even know the owners' names but we greet each other warmly. “Hello miss, hi hi hi, how aaaawe you?” says the older Asian woman as she pulls strawberries from a gallon-sized bin, trims the stems and gently places them into one of six smaller green baskets. She has the cutest, little raspy giggle when I hold up a jelly-filled Asian snack and ask, “so, how do I eat this?”. “Bohks or bag, miss?” she asks and then giggles when I answer, “Ah! Na! I’ll be right back,” and dash out the front door to grab my cloth bags from my car parked out front. It was about 4 o’clock one afternoon as I plunked an overflowed basket onto the counter as she asked “Hi, hi, how aaaawe you, miss?" “I’m hungry!” I said as I grabbed the chocolate bar from among the three bunches of spinach and stuffed it in my pocket. She giggled. “You wok-ing all day?” she asked as she weiged my red peppers. “Yeah, running around with errands and I didn’t have any food at home,” I said. She finished packing up my bags and handed me change from my forty dollars. As I stuffed the change into my pockets, she grabbed two packets of individually wrapped Asian snack crackers from a green plastic basket sitting on the counter. As I pulled my hands out of my pockets to gather up my bags, she cupped my hands and pushed the crackers into them. “Here miss,” she said. “No, no, no, that’s okay,” I said as I pushed the crackers back. “Yes miss, you hunn-gwee,” she said as she held them in my hands. “Please. Take.” I looked at our hands. I looked at her. I looked down. I paused and thought of my 2012 Guiding Principles. #2 Say Yes and #4 Connect Daily. “Thank you,” I said. I loaded my bags into my car, shut the door and sat. My chest tightened. My left hand covered my mouth. And I burst into tears -- and then, laughter. I thought of my Guiding Principle #1. Go Slow. Why was I reacting so strongly to this tiniest of gestures? Yes, I was hungry. But she saw that I had bought two bags of groceries. She saw that I even bought a chocolate bar to stifle immediate hunger pangs. Yet she reached out and gave me crackers. 40 cents worth of crackers. Crackers. My first reaction had been to deny them. Deny her gift. I'm good at giving myself gifts but I find it hard to allow in gifts from others. I feel uncomfortable. How often do we refuse gifts from others? And an even better question is, why? We don't feel we deserve them. We don't feel worthy of them. This first came up in my Stanley Park experiment and where I first learned how to tell the difference between my heart speaking and my sneaky little mind. (see Day 17 of 30 Days in Stanley Park). It takes practice and the crackers were another lesson, another opportunity. Once I paused, I knew that it was only my mind saying I was unworthy and I chose not to listen to it. I accepted the crackers which squashed my chattering mind and allowed my heart to speak. Yes, accept them, you are worthy. It was even stronger because it was food. Food is a core need. I was hungry and she offered to share her food. While I had already included her in my community, I now felt a part of hers. Part of giving is receiving. We cannot give from a place of emptiness and if we give without receiving, from ourselves or somebody else, we become empty. Giving is easy, and genuine, when it comes from a place of fullness. The circle of giving and receiving with others creates connection. Creates community. If we refuse gifts, we deny ourselves, and the giver, of connection. Yesterday, I would’ve helped my giggling shopkeeper unload a vegetable truck. Today, I'd give her a kidney. I laughed. All because of crackers, huh? Photo by Orphanjones |