What's In An Object?

It's funny how a simple inanimate object can have such an effect at bringing back a flood of memories.

This past weekend, my son and I spent the long Easter weekend with my Mom back in Levack.

Because my Mom had given Liz and I Baba's long-standing recipe for pierogi last December, and we had gone through at least a couple rounds of making them on our own with Liz's girls and Alexander, I told my Mom that Zander and I would make some pierogi for her.

My Mom hadn't made pierogi since her mother, my Baba, died in February seven years ago. She keeps buying them from Costco. So I thought it might be fun for her to have some home-made pierogi. No, not as good as Baba's (nothing could ever replace those) - but home-made and, like Baba's, made with love and just a touch of calamity in the kitchen.

When, back in December, Liz and the girls and I had been making pierogi, I remember being quite particular about the vessel we used to cut the dough into the round shapes for crafting the little Eastern European dumplings. I likely went overboard in my desire to find just the perfect glass or cup to use, and was never quite satisfied with what we ended up using.

It was because Baba had always used a particular little tea cup for cutting her pierogi dough with. A small white cup with red roses and green-silver stems and leaves; complete with a couple of chips in it that suggested it had been long and well used.

Baba's pierogi tea cup

Looking at that teacup brought back a huge flood of incredibly powerful memories.

Remembering Baba

We lost Baba last year.

Of course, some might argue that we had lost her a long time before that, because much of her personality and mind were subdued and hidden under a murky cloud due to the serious of small strokes that affected her about a year and a half earlier.

You might say that the mourning process began a lot earlier.

And it never truly stopped.


I still think of her every day. Francine and I regularly talk about her - discuss how she might react to something going on, how much she might have enjoyed something else taking place; laughing about a funny comment she made in a similar circumstance. Family gatherings just haven't been the same without her so we often conjure her up in shared personal memories.

Alexander often talks about "Old Baba" - he came up with the name on his own. Baba was always Baba to everyone, so we named my Mom, Alexander's Baba, "Baba Jean" to distinguish between the two. Except Alexander felt the need to distinguish in his own descriptive way, and she thus became "Old Baba" to him - and yes, we all had fun with that.  Of course, Alexander adored "Old Baba" - and she adored children.

There are a lot of pictures of Baba with me and my cousins Rodney & Kevin, all at various stages of growing up (some of them appear in my post "Baba's Boys" & "More Baba's Boys") - but my favourite picture of her is this one where her and Alexander are smiling unabashedly at one another. It's one of those perfect moments that wonderfully captured the special and gentle love she shared with the world.

Baba was very much like a second mother to me; Baba was the epitome of love. When children were worshiping Santa Claus, I was thankful to have a special loving woman like Annie Dusick in my life and I still feel blessed to have had her play such a central role in my life.

I'm thankful for the many memories, all the laughs, the smiles, all those special "Baba" moments I grew up with an enjoyed as an adult. I cherish the fact that no matter how old I got, Baba was always an important figure in my life. At my wedding I danced with my Mom, but I also danced with my Baba to her favourite song - Conway Twitty's "Here's A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" - Ironically, even through my university years, I was constantly ensuring I called Baba so she knew that I still cared, that I still loved her, that she was still the central special matriarch of our family.

Baba might be gone, but her legacy, her love and all the things she meant to so many still live on.

I love you, Baba!

Baba's Burial

We buried my Baba this past Friday.

She passed away in February. In Northern Ontario you need to wait until the spring thaw before you can bury someone. So we picked June 10th - it being a PD day, we figured Baba's great grandchildren would not be in school and able to attend.

It was a cool, overcast day. The cemetary was relatively quiet. We were a very small group.

There were two other small groups of families at a couple of other grave sites that we passed on the way in and a few maintenance workers trimming grass on a knoll in the distance.

When we arrived and got to the pre-dug hole, I realized that though Francine and I had spoken to Alexander about Baba dying and about why we bury someone, we hadn't yet explained cremation to him. He saw the small pre-dug hole and asked if that little hole was where we were burying Baba.

Perhaps because my mind works like a child's I had visions of Alexander being horrified that someone would have violently crammed Baba's body into this tiny box measuring less than half a foot by a quarter of a foot. Francine and I exchanged a quick look of parental confirmation, that unspoken and quickly resolved debate about what, how and when we should explain things to our son about the world.

So before her ashes arrived with the gentleman from the funeral home, I knelt by the grave and quietly explained cremation to him. And yes, I used the example of what they had done with Darth Vader's body (the redeemed Anakin Skywalker) at the end of Return of the Jedi - sometimes it's best to explain things using situations and settings children are most familiar with. My son is into Star Wars big time right now so that helped him imagine it with something he recognized rather than trying to imagine a casket moving down a conveyer into a giant oven.

Then the gentleman from Lougheeds arrived with the ashes.

The prayers were said, a poem was read.

I placed her ashes into the grave and we each placed a rose on top.

When asked if there was anything to say I started to talk about Baba, but choked up and cut it short at just a few quick sentences.

That's the thing with me.

I can go on and on about things that are important to me (like when I've blogged about Baba), but sometimes have difficulty speaking them aloud.

The same thing happened when my Mom and I released my father's ashes into the lake near one of his favourite fishing spots. I had prepared a short speech and a snippet from W. H. Auden's Funeral Blues which I just couldn't bring myself to read aloud because the emotions simply ran too high.

I can put the words together, express my feelings perfectly when writing or typing. But verbalizing those very words is sometimes too much.

I guess that might be one reason I chose the path of writer.

HNT - The Garden of Memories Continue To Grow

Just a quick HNT this week. I've recently posted about the passing of my Baba who was very much like a mother to me. And last week's HNT post also featured her. Of course, I've been looking at a lot of pictures recently and reflecting back on many good times, so you'll never guess who's included in this week's HNT post too . . .

Here is a shot my Dad took of Mom, Baba, Francine and I in the yard of my parent's home in Levack.

Dad and Baba are gone now, as is the garden we were standing in front of. But the memories still continue to provide sustenance for the heart, perhaps as a virtual garden of memories.

Okay, now that I've said something in an attempt to be warm and touching I can get back to the really important thing, which is to tell you to STOP LAUGHING AT MY MULLET!

HNT - More Baba's Boys Pictures

Last year I posted some pictures of my Baba with her three grandkids. Her boys: Me, Rodney and Kevin.

Yesterday, I was going through some pictures of Baba and pulled a few more out that I thought were neat.

The first one was taken in my bedroom. I must have been either in Grade 7 or Grade 8 at the time. Rodney, Kevin and I were playing on my Intellivision game system.  You can see an Underwood typewriter on the desk beside me. I'm pretty sure that was when I was working on one of my first novels -- a "Dungeons & Dragons" inspired story of a wandering barbarian and one of those early written pieces that will NEVER leave the trunk. I'm pretty sure that the book on the TV tray was one of my D&D manuals that I was using as a piece of reference material for some of the monsters attacking my characters.

The next shot is one that was taken many years later and in the kitchen we spent so much time in with Baba.  She paused long enough from going back and forth from the fridge to get us more food and drinks to pose with us for a picture. I love the way that Baba and Kevin's hands are clasped together in this shot.

My Baba

Baba & Alexander (One of my favourite pictures of the two of them)

My Baba died this week. She was 90 years old.

For those who aren't familiar with the term, Baba is a Polish term for Grandmother. (Well, technically, I believe it's supposed to be "Babcia" or "Babka" -- but hey, every family has their own unique slant on how they use terms, don't they?)


Baba wasn't just a Grandmother to me. She was like a second Mom. But not just a second Mom, because of the special relationship Grandparents always have.

Baba and Deedoo (I'm spelling it phonetically, because that's how we pronounced it), lived across the street from us when I was a baby and toddler. Among my earliest memories are me standing on the sidewalk and calling in a loud voice: "Baba! Baba! Come and get me!" Because I knew I wasn't allowed to cross the street on my own, I needed an adult to walk across with me. And Baba would always answer my call. Not just when I was that really young child, but throughout my life. All I had to do was call out, and Baba was there.

Deedoo died when I was two years old, and shortly after, my Mom, Dad and I moved across the street to live with her. We lived on the main floor and Baba moved into the basement, which was fashioned with a washroom, bedroom, living room and kitchen area -- what we called and continue to call "Baba's Apartment."  The apartment was merely an extension off the main living area and didn't really have it's own entrance or separate living arrangement.

Most people have memories of how glorious it was when visiting with their Grandparents. Grandparents typically spoil the kids and treat them like gold.

Baba and Alexander

Living with Baba, I was fortunate to receive that kind of treatment on a daily basis. And she truly did treat me like gold every single day. Baba had a way of making me feel important, making me feel special, and making me feel loved. She had a way of making so many people feel that way.

She was a woman who loved the simpler things in life. She loved having family around her, loved having people over and entertaining, and particularly loved feeding people. Baba didn't judge people, except perhaps by how they ate. If you liked to eat, Baba had a particularly strong affection for you, because nothing seemed to give her greater joy than continually shoving food in front of people. As I got older, of course, she was also shoving bottles of beer in front of me or repeatedly asking if I would like a shot of rye.

Baba and I at Christmas dinner

So memories of Baba often involve food and drink and how much she loved to feed people -- and that was her greatest joy. Except, perhaps, for the joy she got from her Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren. My cousins Rodney and Kevin and I grew up within the matriarchal umbrella of Baba's family. We were raised, in many ways, more like brothers than cousins, with Baba at the heart of most family activities. Her focus, for the longest time, was wanting to see her Grandchildren grow up -- and at every pivotal moment in our lives she was there, beaming with pride.

She had the pleasure of watching all three of her grandchildren grow up and start their own families, and then watching her great-grandchildren start to grow up. Fortunately for Baba, her recent/short-term memory and mind weren't "with it" enough to be aware that her oldest grandson, Kevin, died last year. We felt it was better that way because it would have devastated her.

We have many fond memories of Baba - most of them take place in the kitchen I'm sitting in right now while I type this up. This house is filled with decades of memories of Baba, with the love that she shared, with all the funny things she did or said, and that we still joke about.

To most of my friends, Baba wasn't "Mrs. Dusick" or "Annie" but rather "Baba" -- she was simply "Baba" to so many people. I, of course, have the distinct honour of being able to say she was "My Baba." I never once lost sight of how incredibly lucky I was to hold that priviledge.

Baba might have died, but her memory lives strong in all those who loved her and whom she loved. Losing her was very much like losing my mother, and I've been slowly preparing for this ever since she got really ill more than a year and a half ago. It feels like the mourning of her loss started way back then and that now the mourning is becoming three dimensional and real.

Yes, many tears have been shed. But there have been many more fond memories, many more special moments, and many more cherished thoughts of a dear woman who was a central part of my life for over 40 years.

When I look at the photo I took of Baba and Alexander a few years ago and the simple unabashed joy in their smiles, I remember the very special woman my Baba was.

And I smile, thankful for Baba.

HNT - Baba's Boys

Last week for HNT I posted what was likely the first picture ever taken of just my cousin Kevin and I. When, last week, the family was together and pouring through old family pictures and reminiscing, I thought it was quite interesting that most of the pictures with Kevin and I in them are pictures of Kevin, Rodney and I together (the 3 boys united in our Baba's tiny little family empire) or all three of her grandsons with Baba.

It makes sense that most of the pictures we have are of the three of us together, because, particularly in our younger years, we did spend an incredible amount of time together. And given how, at that early age, Kevin was so much bigger than Rodney and I (and I was particularly non-athletic and scrawny -- as opposed to now when I'm non-athletic and pot-bellied), Rodney and I would often team up against Kevin in our basement hockey or wrestling matches.

And (have I mentioned how scrawny I was as a child?), my "best" wrestling move was discovered one time when Rodney had Kevin pinned and asked me to help. I launched forward and gave Kevin what I called the "toey-toe" -- a move where I attempted to force him into submission by wiggle-crushing his toes, bending them back and forward with my hands. Of course, the "toe-toey" didn't actually hurt Kevin, it just weakened him because it likely ended up tickling him and the goofy name sent him into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

It's just one of many more fond memories of the times us three boys spent together. And another tale I haven't yet shared with Kevin's boys, but will.

I don't have digital copies of most of those pictures of the three of us, but I do have a few and wanted to share them this Thursday.

Kevin, me, Baba and Rodney - Christmas circa late 1970's

Rodney, Kevin and me - late 1970's