Life = Loss

The earliest losses I remember ... in no particular order

• the well chewed rubber nipple removed from my bottle and replaced be a mew one I would have to break in. 
• the much loved, not often enough worn, and too soon outgrown dress known as my indian dress. Cotton. Tiered skirt. Pesant top with elastic in the large neckline. Beige background colour. The print was reminiscent of the Navajo blankets - geometric and very colourful. 
• the house in which I lived my first 11 years
• the woman who mothered me those years, and of whom I think every time I pick up my knitting. Mamita was a saint to accept the raising of me, after her own three were about fledged! 
• the gentle man who would take me with him to bring in the milk from the milk box. Who would keep me entertained im the early mornings before anyone else awoke. Who would scoop ice cream for us and bring it upstairs to share with me in a bedroom. Who worked in his garden while I sat among his flowers plucking petals. Who vanished inexplicably from my life when I was 26 months old. It was only decades later that my mother finally told me what happened to him. A fall and concussion on black ice did it. As often as I had asked in childhood, no one had answered clearly.  It’s only because my missal had one of the remembrance cards from his funeral that I knew the date of his death. He was - in my baby-talk - Deedee; to the rest of the household, he was Daddy Gene.  No one told children ANYTHING back then!!! I was already a mother of two, before I figured out who I was named for!!! Middle name Jean, for Daddy Gene. First name Jessica for Jesse, the young doctor who solved my grandparents’ fertility problems ... twice. Resulting in the existence of my mother and the twins, my aunt and uncle.  

As one ages, other things/abilities are lost. 

I can no longer roller skate; I tried at a rink in Leominster a few years ago, and it didn’t matter if they were in-line or not, I just can’t anymore. 

In 2019, I rode my bicycle once. 

In 2018, twice. 

Today is August 7, 2020, and I haven’t ridden it at all. :(

RIP Jamal Cynthia Applewood Isrep

On September 26, 1973, after too many hours (from my point of view!), our son Jamal was born.
Leaning over the side of my bed an looking at him in the hospital's bassinet (polycarbonate box on wheels), I cried with joy.

On November 19, 2019, I held his arm as the doctor - whose name I forgot as soon as he introduced himself - injected the lethal doses of many syringes into the PICC line, I cried. That was awhile ago, yet I cry every day, several times a day.
46 years and 52 days is too short a life!!!
Someone had sent him a pair of ankle socks with the words "Fuck Cancer" on them. They never would have fit his size 15 feet, but the sentiment was valid. He was very angry that he was dying, but he knew the outcome before his first hospitalization. When he'd told us he was going to be operated, he also told us he was looking into the medically assisted death option. It seems he'd spent a good part of the year researching his odds, and he didn't think they were good, even before that first operation - "radical neck" is its name.
It was early morning August 21st, when I left him in the hospital. It was supposed to be a four-hour operation; it lasted nearly eight hours.
He was supposed to be hospitalized for three days; he was only released on Sunday September 1st, after they'd installed a PEG-tube for supplemental feeding - to keep up his strength during the chemo and radiation therapies.
He was supposed to begin those therapies the second or third week of September, but he took an ambulance to the ER early on Sunday September 15th, and never came home again.
After a few days in "stretcher care" - an alcove off a corridor in the ER - he was shipped up to a room on the 18th floor of the Montreal General. From there, they transported him a few times back and forth to the new Royal Victoria Hospital where the chemo and radiation therapies were given. Eventually, someone had the bright idea to transfer him to the Vic ... as soon as they could find a room.
While in the Vic, they called Code Blue on him TWICE!! He'd had trouble breathing both times. After the second time, they decided to perform a tracheotomy, so he'd be able to breathe when the treatments and/or the cancer made breathing normally too difficult.

We spent from September 21st through the afternoon of November 16 (after which he wasn't able to text or write due to the extreme swelling of his arms/hands/fingers) exchanging messages on the Messenger app. Now, I wish I could figure out how to save them. If I can't find a way, I'll transcribe them here. Since he always lived either with us or in his apartment upstairs on the second floor of our triplex, I have no written letters from him; these texts are all.

Cross-Rib pattern stitch from Fitzgerald Scarf

This pattern: http://www.tricksyknitter.com/pages/bakery/fitzgerald-scarf-15.php led to a question on Knitting Paradise http://www.knittingparadise.com/t-8399-1.html which led in turn to me spending most of a night knitting up a swatch to enable me to answer the question. Being unable to post my findings on Knitting Paradise's pages, I'm putting it here. I'd put the scans of my swatch, but can't figure out how to put the photos here.

To note: I was not happy with the numbers or the balance of the original pattern. This is my re-worked (and more balanced, in my opinion) version of the Cross-Rib stitch pattern.

I used worsted weight yarn and 5mm needles. I cast on 28 stitches, using the crochet-hook cast-on.

Row	selvedge		2 pattern repeats		selvedge
1,3,5	3	P3	*K2, P5*	K2, P3	3
2, 4, 6	3	Knit all stitches			3
7, 9	3	P2	*Sl1wyif, K2,sl1wyif, P3*	Sl1wyif, K2,sl1wyif, P2	3
8	3	K2	*Sl1wyib, k2, sl1wyib, k3*	Sl1wyib, K2, sl1wyib, K2	3
10	3	K2	*Drop 1st slipped st to front, move next 2 sts to right-hand needle tip, drop 2nd slipped st to front, place 1st dropped stitch onto left-hand needle, replace 2 sts from right to left-hand needle, put 2nd dropped st on left-hand needle, K7*	Repeat between *’s but end with k6	3

Selvedge = for every row: begin with slip one knitwise through the back loop, K2, and end by knitting the last three stitches.

Who knew?

Who knew that access to a website could be blocked? By the ISP? By a government?
No access from there to many interesting sites - blogspot, Amazon.com (but not Amazon.ca!?), facebook, and others.

I am blessed to be back in the land of high-speed Internet connection to whatever websites I can find! Back where our immediate 'problems' are relatively unimportant. HOME SWEET HOME!

Circumstances beyond my control ...

What a lot that phrase can cover!

At this moment, it covers my youngest brother-in-law's death, the aftermath, and our hasty (and ahead of schedule) trip to Syria.


Burhan was about 50 years old. He was the youngest of my husband's siblings who survived into adulthood and reproduction. There were eight; now there are seven. He began his own family rather later than usual in that society. That means there are now five youngsters without their father. They range in age from 14 down to 4; three girls and two boys.


He was the spark of any party or gathering. He was the chief organizer of parties. He was the one who kept his father's bakery running despite all odds. He helped out everyone else with all their problems. Besides working endlessly in the bakery, he saw to it that his 'land' (patches of farm land well outside the city devoted to fruit trees) was well cared for and produced bumper crops of fruit - which he then carried to each of his siblings each week during the season.


He never asked for anything in return; nor did he receive it. No one ever offered to do anything for him. His brothers often shirked their turn in the bakery, even though none of them worked there full-time. Everyone felt free to ask favours of Burhan, but no one ever seemed to have any favours to offer him. Unfair!


Whenever anyone of them wanted some cash, he handed it over. Unfortunately, he never kept proper books of the bakery business. There were no books for him to take over from his successful, but illiterate, father. Early this summer, everyone got very agitated and they all demanded a family meeting. At that meeting, my husband played the role of peacekeeper. Burhan was supposed to put the books in order and present a proper accounting of income and outgo ... yet no one, not even the retired mathematics professor, offered to assist him. My darling did offer to help ... my darling who barely has a clue where our own monies are; who has never filed his own tax returns; who never kept books for his own business. Well, that offer was never carried through.


I dread this visit. I foresee the complete dissolution of the ties that have held these siblings more or less together into late-middle or old age. Burhan was the glue after their father's death. Without him ...


My lack of Arabic and the simple fact of being a female will insure that all I can do is be a silent bystander and watch the inevitable train-wreck. Left to my own devices, I'd stay far, far away from it. Since my darling says he'll be less unhappy with me over there with him than not, I'm going. In less than a week!!