Wolf Within

Funny how no matter how old we are, death takes it's toll.
My mom and I were seperated when I was a very young child, in a topsy turvy series of events -
I met up with my mom when I was 33 yrs old after not seeing her since about the age of 4 yrs old, I'd given up on ever finding her again, but because my half sister found me and connected - I met up with my mom. As life would have it, moving and other, we lost touch, but for the second time, my sis found me again. She'd remarried and moved so it was hard for me to hunt her down. I don't change much and she found me through a search and my mom and I were recently getting news about each other through my half sister.

... this is my interpretation of our story.

My mom was a young woman, in her late teens (1955), who met up with a "dashing" navy man - in Halifax Nova Scotia.... little did she realize how this meeting would change and effect her life.

She got pregnant and things began to take on a roller coaster ride - in an unstable and rocky relationship - my dad was 21 and pretty caulky in that uniform.

They married and I came about. My parents were off and on for sometime and they'd broken up - i was living with my mom.

My dad and her began to speak again and he visited with my mom and i.
He told my mom that he loved her and wanted to make the marriage work and they re-consumated their marriage and he spent the night.

During the night, he got up, woke me (about 18 months old), dressed me and kidnapped me, taking a flight back to Ontario from Nova Scotia and placed me in care with my Grandmother (his mom)
Now I loved my Dad, I know in my heart, he thought he was doing what was best and perhaps in a way, he did - but how he did things was well, harsh and done out of lack of knowledge or the means of predicting the future.

My grandmother was raising me for several months, when my mom - who was of modest means, took time to get things in order - to chase me and my dad - from Nova Scotia - to ontario! N.S. wasn't exactly a booming place with exception to it being Naval oriented and one of the main employers besides, women, especially a younger woman, had jobs that didn't pay anything much.... so she did what she had to do to make her way half way across canada.

My dad took her back and she moved in with him at my grandmothers - who was a proud and noble little scottish woman, who had raised 6 sons - no daughters, who felt that both had made a big mistake and took pride in being a part of my raising. She also had house rules and things were made uncomfortable for my mom, so uncomfortable that she gathered her laundry together one day and left to go do laundry and never came back .... only with one intention in mind, that she was going to find a way to kidnap me back...
And she did try.
She showed up one day, with a male companion when she knew my dad wasn't home and as young as I was, I remember a man trying to loosen my grandmother's grip on me while she clung to me in her arms, while my mom was trying to pry me away from my grandmother... lotsa anger and screaming was going on AND THEN, out of the blue - in WALKED MY DAD and he was so livid he came out swinging and beat up the man who was trying to pry my grandmothers fingers off of me and a slew of other things.
My grandmother had a upper level kitchen, you had to walk up a few steps from th eliving room and she put me up there out of the way of the fighting that was going on and called the police.
( i also remember a time before that, when we were still in n.s. - when my mom went to port to look for my dad who didn't come home, she got a friend to babysit and the friend had to be home at a certain time and when my mom hadn't come home yet, her friend's mom showed up and she had to leave, leaving me there alone.
I remember crawling out of a crib and going to the front door, calling out underneath the door and finally crying! Two men in uniforms showed up and had the landlord open the door. They picked me up and I remember being so happy to see someone. Somehow, I ended up on the Naval base and the chapel minister babysat me...)
When I met my mom, i told her that i remembered these two incidences very clearly, even at the age I was - she cried and cried and filled in the gaps for me, the gaps no one in my dad's family dared to speak of....

I remembered her for a long time but after my dad remarried when I was 5 yrs old and I was told that his new wife was my mom, things began to fade, but I was always confused over those changes... trying to hold on to what I could remember.

By the time, I hit 21, due to my own background (my dad and his new wife were both severe abusive alchoholics - police at our house regularly 4-5 times a month due to domestic violence) I had begun working with street kids, children of physically abusive drug addicts and or alchoholics - it also explains why the sister I did sorta grow up with, became an OPP Child Care Protection Worker - we both certainly had the experience in the background and all we needed was an official certificate to say we'd studied child care, the laws and other....

Being involved with an organization that centered aroudn children, I began my search for my mom... all I had was her maiden name that was registered on my birth certificate - no date of birth or location as to where I could begin looking, but I told my story and had help trying to find amongst 21 others who shared her name in Canada and another 400 odd others in the United States - maybe she'd moved out of country -right?!

By the time, I hit 32, I kinda gave up, after exhausitng so many venues, with no success - until one day, I got a call at home, while I was out working and was left a number to call my "sister"

My sister and brother, two children born to my mom, in another marriage, had grown up knowing about me most part of their lives, as my mom kept me alive in her heart, even if I wasn't there and didn't know where she was.
Because she had done this, my sis, took the info she'd gotten from our mom and began calling where my dad was from, got ahold of one of my aunts, who gave her my dad's number and she called my dad.
As fate would have it, my best friend through the end of elementary and into high school's name was - Linda, so when she spoke to my dad and gave him her name, he figured it was my old galpal and gave her my number - IF - he had of know who she really was, he'd of hung up the phone and threatened to call the cops or whatever - i just know he would have.

Linda and I commmunicated for a while and then finally I got to speak to my mom. I flew out from Montreal to Calgary and then went up to Edmonton, to meet my Mom!!!
I WILL NEVER FORGET, the shaking in my legs and the sick feeling in my nervous stomache as I walked up the flights of stairs to go knock on my mom's door - i'll never forget it as long as I live and I'm sure my daughter will carry over the story even after I'm gone... Plans were made for my trip and I painted her a double painting of old huge fishing nets, hanging to dry in the shallow waters of the ocean... it was from a picture I'd taken years before while visiting old navy friends of my dads... - i just wanted to give her something other than just a picture of my daughter and i, something she could look at with pride.
I spent a glorious 3 days with her, talking, sharing wine and eating steak - we sure cleared up a few things and my heart soared - i just knew that "other woman" was not my mom.... her and I never got along, she wanted me to go live at my grandmothers and she wanted my dad and her to start a new life together.
In all reality, I only lived with my dad for 9 years, during which time, I'd stay with my Grandmother from the end of the schoool year until labor day weekend and he'd come pick me up. The reason I'd stay with my grandmother was because his wife and I did not get along and she'd beat me frequently (then my dad would beat on her, the police would show up, etc etc and I was blamed for all their problems!) I've had quite the life - haven't we all?

I had people I knew in Calgary and it was suggested that maybe I should move out, my daughter had gone through a traumatic situation and I was looking to get her as far away as possible - everything fit and 3 weeks later, I moved to Calgary from montreal... I saw my mom a couple of times after and she met her grand-daughter, my daughter... and then life drifted us apart.

Linda and I kept in touch quite frequently and my daughter had met up with my brother at a Flames Hockey Game, so he took my daughter into the dressing room and the guys all signed my daughter's jacket and baseball hat - she was utterly thrilled! (till one day, her jacket that she wore everyday with pride and was the envy of every guy in her school, she washed it, not knowing that the ink would fade - she was 11-12 at the time and so-o disappointed that happened. My brother even picked her up a couple of times and spend time with her and then he moved out of Calgary and again, things drifted apart.

Months ago, Linda found me again through the internet search and we re-established contact - my mom and I were on the verge of talking again, my daughter was so excited and my grandson, really excited to think he had a Great Grandmother - but that never came about to be. .......


she wore a chain around her neck, seen in the previous entry with the pic of my mom, and on it is a wide wedding ring, that she told her sister, she wanted me to have - I'm not sure if it's the one my dad throew back at her or her wedding ring, but that will be my keepsake to pass onto my family in her memory.


god bless you mom and know that we have and always will love you - because - love never dies.