Feb 27

Feb 27, 2003 - I'll never ever forget that day. That was the day I had no choice but to grow up. I finally had to accept that things would never be the same again. I remember just collapsing in my despair, calling upon God to take the pain of sorrow away. I was completely weak, helpless, and powerless. I look back at that very moment 3 years ago and I see how it is a reflection of what growing up means to me now. Maturity doesn't mean becoming a stronger woman. Maturity means collapsing in complete weakness and depending on the strength of Christ alone to carry me through. It's amazing how sorrow and despair can be a beautiful blessing.

Conversations

Conversations are funny. There are some people with whom I have no problem interacting with even if I don't know them all that well. The conversation can be smooth, no awkwardness whatsoever. I feel comfortable, they feel comfortable it's all cool - even if we don't have much in common. Then there are a handful of people with whom I interact and I don't know what it is, whether it's me or the other person, but the conversation always seems almost torturous. No matter how many times we interact or how many experiences we have shared together, there's complete awkwardness. Neither person knows what to say . . . we find ourselves stumbling for words or questions. . . . . responses are vague one word answers . . . the interaction is full of cliche phrases. . . . It's like there's an unwillingness to share who we really are or something. These conversations drive me crazy because I just don't get why we can't get below the surface and beyond the superficiality of initial interaction. I wonder if when the "awkward conversation people" in my life see me coming they want to avoid me like I want to avoid them. How does one break a conversation barrier that has become a habit? Maybe I'm just weird. Maybe I need to try harder. Maybe I need to flat out ask these people if they sense the awkwardness too. Maybe we need to get over ourselves.

Elisabeth

Today I had a lesson with Elisabeth. It's been far too long since I've had a lesson with Diva Pomes :) She is definitely one of my favorite people. She is a true diva, not the horrid ego driven kind that are catty, demanding and ultimately insecure (the kind I tend to find so amusing :) No, Elisabeth is a real diva. A beautiful, strong, confident, yet humble woman - a woman who knows who she is and won't compromise that for anything or anyone. She's strong yet fully aware of her weaknesses. Not only have I learned a lot about singing from her, but she has been such an example and support system for me. It's funny how singers tend to bond with their teachers. Elisabeth has seen me at my very worst and at my very best. She knows me like noone else. She's seen my determination, my frustration, my vulnerability, my passion, my strengths and my weaknesses.
I feel so blessed to have Elisabeth in my life. She has always pushed me to my max, today being no exception. She's always been so honest about what she hears - we often laugh together at the horrid things I manage to do with my voice. The one thing she's always been is encouraging, even when I squawk and sound like a dying chicken. She has even encouraged me to move on and study with Steven and Darryl (both of whom have been great for different reasons). Elisabeth is different though in that she will always inspire me. We're what Anne of Green Gables would call "kindred spirits". For some reason Elisabeth gets me and all my craziness. After my lesson today, I know that I've got a ton of work to do for my upcoming auditions and performances, but I feel like I can now take on the world one aria at a time. Yaaaay Elisabeth!!

tarte a la diva mcneil

I finally finished reading the biography on Dame Nellie Melba, one of the reputed Diva's of the early 20th century. I've always known that she's the reason we have thinly sliced dry toast otherwise known as melba toast but I didn't' realize that the dessert Peach Melba was named after her. Apparently she loved ice cream but could eat it only rarely, afraid that the chill would damage her vocal chords. A French chef guy created a sauce of raspberries, redcurrant syrup and sugar, which took off the initial chill, so the ice cream couldn't "shock" her vocal cords.

Me thinks I need a dessert named after me :) Something dramatically delicious yet meets a particular Diva need, like Nellie's "don't want to shock the vocal chords" excuse . I'm all about blood oranges lately, they are pretty dramatic with their crimson interiors. I had a blood orange tart the other day at a fancy schmancy restaurant downtown. It was sweet, rich, yet delightfully surprising and it looked pretty( much like myself :) Maybe I'll call up the chef at The Edward and ask if he'll consider changing the name to "tarte a la diva mcneil". One thing needs to be changed though to meet one of my Diva needs; the tarte needs to be topped with a caramelized sugar tiara, just in case a Diva was to traumatically forget her most important accessory at home.

The Hill of Crosses

This hill of crosses in Lithuania is apparently well known. It has often been used as an illustration of how Christianity could not be conquered by communism. The tradition began in 1831 when several oppressed Christians in Lithuania planted wooden hand made crosses on the hill. The communists tried time and time again to destroy these symbols of faith and would guard the hill, they’d even put people in jail if they were caught trying to plant a cross there. Those determined Lithuanians still managed to secretly plant them there without the communists catching them. After communism fell and Lithuania gained its independence the crosses kept coming. There are supposedly over 50 thousand crosses there right now and the hill has become a tourist attraction.

I remember my grandfather telling me about the hill several times. He was a true Lithuanian patriot, very proud of his people and anything that they accomplished as a culture. At the local Lithuanian Cemetery in Mississauga there's a replica Hill of Crosses. Any time we'd go to the Lithuanian church, Tutty would ask if we wanted to go visit the hill. As a child, walking through the cemetery wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday afternoon; thankfully my grandma knew how to directly tell him “no". We never went to see the hill.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the cemetery, and decided to go check out this replica Hill of Crosses that Tutty had talked about so many times. It was a bit of a hike away from where Tutty's grave is located, but I really wanted to see this sight. So I trudged through the snow. I must say it was pretty cool. There are over 100 crosses on this mini hill. There were some plain, some intricately designed in wood, some made of iron or copper, some gold, one was even encased in glass and had a little scene of the crucifixion in the centre.

I got to thinking about what the Hill of Crosses represents. Ever since I became a "Christian" in the evangelical sense of the word, I thought that the Hill of Crosses was indeed an awesome symbol of faith. A couple of years ago the Hill even came up in a Lenten devotional book that I was reading. (I've been trained to get excited whenever Lithuania is mentioned because really no one knows where it is or even that it exists as a country. So when it's mentioned it's a big deal.) I believe the tradition of the Hill of Crosses started as a message of persevering faith, but somehow it's become more of a shrine to freedom. I wonder how many people really put those crosses there as an act of genuine faith. Are the crosses more of a statement of freedom? Do those crosses really represent true faith in Christ or were they put there as a symbolic act of religious freedom?

Today at Church a man from Poland spoke about his ministry. Poland is very similar to Lithuania in that both countries are strongly routed in Roman Catholicism. There are a lot of people in Eastern Europe including Lithuanians who are "religious"; a lot of what they would call "faith" is based on symbolic religious acts - acts like publicly placing a cross on a hill.

At first glance the Hill is beautiful because it represents hope and the fact that the cross of Christ can never be conquered, but knowing a bit about the culture that it stems from, the Hill of Crosses may be more of an indication of the many lost “religious” people in countries like Lithuania. Do those 50 000 crosses in Lithuania and the 100 or so here in Mississauga represent the Christ I know and love? Or do they really represent the many Lithuanian people who lack a real understanding of salvation and what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Sadly I think it's the latter. Now the big question - what am I going to do about that?

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company

Fay – “I wish my son would come, I’m so lonesome. Who am I to talk to? I don’t hear from my son . . . I don’t see any of my family – it’s unbelievable. I just sit here.”

Ida – “At least I’m not bothering people. . . now I’m doing nothing and I should be doing something.”
Interviewer – “what would you like to do here?”
Ida – “Be with people. . . The last years are not good. It’s good that I can think back and see faces in my mind. If I didn’t have that I’d go crazy.”

Fay – “I wish I was dead.”

Ida – “when you’re married to a man and you realize that you are his life, you don’t want anything else after that. . . After he died I saw a change in myself. My body changed, I changed – he was one wonderful guy. I was the luckiest woman and then he left me. God took him away. I don’t know how I did it. Where do the years go?”

Claire – “My daughter never had time for me.”

(quotes from Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company)

Tori and I watched a documentary on TVO last night called Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company, an actuality drama by Alan King. It showed life in a Toronto nursing home and how some of the residents were coping with old age.

We sat for 2 hrs watching. I cried a lot of the time. My heart just broke for each of the “characters” as they shared their pain and lost their memories. I’ve always had a tender heart for the elderly. I remember visiting a nursing home when I was a Brownie and for weeks just crying at night because I felt so sad for those “old” people. Also when I was working at the tea room, I encountered a lot of elderly widows. I found myself very drawn to them, in that I wanted to help. Their loneliness was so apparent. As a result I have involved myself in Mrs. Chrisitie's widows ministry because there is a desperate need for some sort of community for those ladies, a lot of whom are not saved and seem to be grasping for hope.

That documentary last night really reiterated the loneliness in the elderly that has always been so apparent to me. As I was watching I felt an urge to head over to the nursing home down the street, sit down with a lonely elderly person and just listen to them in an effort to if only for a moment help them forget their loneliness. But as I walked in the door last night, I noticed my grandma’s cane and I suddenly remembered her desperate plea for me not to leave her .

How is it that it so often takes the voice of a complete stranger to make me realize what is beneath my nose (in this case a documentary)? Why doesn’t my heart break for my grandma as it did for Claire, Ida, Max and the others from that film? Why is it so easy for me to ignore her loneliness and frustration? Why am I constantly rolling my eyes when she claims that she wants to die, yet wept for the lady who said exactly that in the film last night?

The words of those people rang so true. My grandma is so similar – wanting to die, being lonely, changing so much after my grandpa died.

Who am I fooling? The loneliness of the elderly has not been apparent to me at all, and when it has been I’ve flat out ignored it. I don’t need to go down the street to listen to a person in the nursing home; I need to pay attention to the loneliness of a woman who lives under the same roof as me.

What was it that I heard a couple of months ago? Something like, service starts in your own home. I’ve been failing miserably, consumed by my own selfishness, deliberately ignoring the pain that comes from aging. Maybe I just don’t want to see my grandma that way. She was always such a vibrant, energetic, strong lady who wore her heart on her sleeve. Now she’s just miserable and I know it’s her loneliness. No matter how much time we spend with her she’ll never get over the loneliness of losing her husband, but sometimes I think by leaving her out of my life I make her feel more lonely.

Before I go anywhere she needs to understand that when I leave it won’t be an attack on her. What I so desperately need her to know is how much of a legacy she has left in my life. In many ways she has influenced who I am. She has always been a model of love, self sacrifice, and strength for me.

I think it’s time for me to start modeling some of the very things that she has taught me - not at the nursing home down the street, but here at home.

1 Tim 5:4
But if she (a widow) has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them. This is something that pleases God very much.

My Grandma's Plea

A couple of weeks ago my 86 year old grandma came to me while I was in the kitchen making lunch. She was crying so hard that she could barely speak. She came, pulled my arm and looked at me and said, “Please don’t leave me, don’t go away, don’t move yet. I’ll be so lonely.” I guess my mom and dad have been sharing with her my plans to move in the near future.

On my way back to work that afternoon, I was upset. How could she do that to me - lay a guilt trip on me like that? I can’t live at home forever just because she’s lonely! She could have another 14 years left in her. I’m almost 28 years old! It's time for me to jet!
But there was such desperation in her voice . . . .