The Waking Hour

There was chaos on the streets. People running, screaming a language I didn't understand. I wasn't sure where I was exactly, but it was in Eastern Europe and it was a country on the precipice of war. I hid for a moment in an alley, observing the frenzy, unsure of what to do and regretting whatever stupid decisions had brought me here. Life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I told myself, and sometimes you have to face an untimely "The End". As I mentally prepared for this, I heard the voice of my father say:  

"I'm always with you, even though I'm far away". 

And then I woke up.

It wasn't anywhere close to the time my alarm normally goes off but it didn't matter - five a.m. and I were now forced to get acquainted.

Everything felt too real. I assumed the scenes of Ukraine's current crisis subconsciously infiltrated my dream as a result of all the mass media I consume but wasn't sure where my father's words originated; ever since July 3, I have been hoping - praying, even though I'm agnostic - for a sign from him telling me that he was alright. His last days in this realm were so full of struggle and strife that I desperately need to know if at one point he accepted his fate. Did he find the peace that we primitively envisage the afterlife provides? This may have been the cosmic reassurance I require … or it could be nothing at all. The previous night, I had a dream that Jack White was sleeping on my couch and I don't know what the fuck that could have been about. 

Next July I'm climbing a mountain. Mount Fuji, to be exact. During his first hospital stint, I told my father I would celebrate his birthday in 2015 by doing this and he gave me the most epic side-eye I'd ever seen, knowing full well I'm ambitious but also incredibly lazy when it comes to physical activity. I now feel I have to prove him wrong. How hard could it be? Thousands of people climb it each year with little to no training. The real challenge will come in 2016: this is when I plan on traveling to India. 

My father always wanted to visit India; its kaleidoscope of humanity proved intriguing. He would talk about it often, always with the postscript "I need to do it before I get too old and sick". How little we knew that time was more finite than imagined. There were always reasons to put it off…travel to India seemed less a holiday and more of an experience that one must be in the right frame of mind to appreciate. He was never ready. I was never ready. Now I am. And I'm taking him with me. 

The Funeral Director warned me that India has very strict rules about bringing remains within its borders. Special certification needs to be obtained. Approval must be granted. After a few false starts in trying to obtain the necessary information, I've been redirected to and have initiated communication with the Ministry of External Affairs of India. It seems like it will be a slow process but I have almost two years and am confident my wish will come to fruition. I hope to spread a portion of my father's ashes on the Ganges at Varanasi, the most sacred spot of the river according to Hindu religion. It is believed that the dead will quickly ascend to Heaven when their ashes are spread upon the water. I may be ambivalent towards faith but if I'm going to do something, I'm going all out. 

My father WILL visit India.

The Eastern European schism wasn't the first time I had a dream about my father. A week prior, I dreamt that he was standing next to me. When I reached out to lovingly embrace him, I was jolted awake the moment my fingertips touched his flesh. Again, it felt real. I was disappointed that it wasn't. Reality remained askew. Staring at the ceiling at 3:00am, partially illuminated by a new office building across the lane, I prepared for another long night as melancholia set in.  

The importance of seemingly simple things becomes clear after loss. Back in May, I visited my favourite bakery in Winnipeg to purchase some cinnamon buns for friends before heading back home to Saskatchewan. Making small talk as I searched my wallet for change, I noted to the cashier how much I loved their goods and that I'd probably be back over the summer as my father had terminal cancer and I would be returning to care for him as the condition worsened. She expressed sympathy and related her own experience with parental loss. She was honest. It wouldn't be easy. Afterwards, she came around the counter and gave me a hug. 

I don't know if she will ever realize how significant this simple, genuine act of empathy and kindness amongst strangers was to me.

I need to get black-out drapes.

Death: A Conversational Taboo

People don't like talking about death. I've also come to the conclusion that people don't like talking to people who've just experienced a death. I haven't ascertained whether this is from the blunt, discomfiting realization that our mortal coil is constantly on the cusp of being retracted or if it's simply the fear of becoming depressed by-proxy. Despite being a universal truth, it is something that we avoid discussing as a society instead focusing on more upbeat topics such as how those Roughriders are doing or speculating on the features of the latest iPhone.

DESPITE BEING A UNIVERSAL TRUTH, DEATH IS SOMETHING THAT WE AVOID DISCUSSING AS A SOCIETY. 

I'd never written an obituary before but was aware of the significance of it. It is our bio to the world. Everything we've accomplished in character and essence over a lifetime distilled into a few brief paragraphs. To aid with crafting my father's, I started reading those in my local newspaper. I noted the common structure: predeceased by, survived by, life story imparted with brevity and then concluded with a call for donations to whatever charity most resonated with the deceased. As I skimmed them, one obituary stood out. It was for a colleague. 

I had never met them but I was taken aback. In a quirk of circumstance, here was the name of my regional employer echoing through the column inches of the Winnipeg Free Press even though I now lived in a different city in a different province. What were the odds?

My first reaction was to run and tell my dad of this strange coincidence.

Death is ugly. I had no prior experience dealing with the physical and emotional torment of it other than a beloved dog being euthanized in 2005. I wasn't present in that moment though; I didn't witness their last breath or feel the weight of the room shift as a soul departed. Because death is such a taboo subject, my actualized knowledge was slight and I thus entered with false expectations under the promise by doctors that my father would be kept "comfortable" during his final moments. Comfortable was akin to peaceful in my mind. My father's passing was not. Not until the very end, anyway. He appeared to struggle for four-and-a-half days after his massive stroke to death. 

It was four-and-a-half days of watching someone decline by the hour.

104 hours of witnessing someone heartbreakingly struggle with confusion, loss of coordination and an inability to communicate in any form. 

6,240 minutes of observing the spark in someone's eyes fade further and further away. Of body getting weaker. Of temperature getting colder. 

374,400 seconds of begging someone to let go. "Please, just go". 

During all of this, one of the doctors took me aside to talk about the stages of death, something I had never heard of before. It was an enlightening conversation. It made me realize that I was the only one who had to deal with being uncomfortable. What I had been watching wasn't necessarily struggle for my father but rather a natural pattern that everyone goes through before dying. I'm not sure why no one previously mentioned this to our family considering the diagnosis was terminal. I feel it's something everyone should be educated about as it would lessen the trauma of losing a loved one. Especially one spending time in a palliative care environment. 

Death is traumatizing enough for those left in its wake: I lost 15lbs in two weeks from stress alone and one month on, I still regularly get but three hours of sleep a night. My restless mind continuously seeks distraction from the mire of reality; most of the time this involves artistic pursuits…other times, it involves wine. An endless supply of which is provided by a close friend on their own highway to hell. She's one of the few willing to talk with me, at depth and discomfort, about this subject. 

The day before the funeral on July 14, I took my mother to IKEA. She had never been previously. I wondered if she would like it as much as dad did. During our spring road trip through Europe, my father would always be keeping an eye open to stay overnight in a city with one even programming the GPS in our rental vehicle to locate them. He liked the cheap-eats in the cafeteria. When he was initially discharged from the hospital on June 25, I thought of bringing him to the location in Winnipeg. But first, I needed to find out the accessibility options and specifically if they had wheelchairs available for rent. 

We never got to do this. 

Despite this, as my mother and I rode the escalator to begin the confusing trek through display rooms filled with Stockholm chairs and Billy bookcases, I noticed a row of wheelchairs down below available for use by patrons of the retail behemoth.

My first reaction was to run home and tell my dad. 

Music & Lyrics

Her mind is Tiffany twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

Chengdu, China has a population of over 14,000,000 inhabitants and is the communist nation's fourth most populous city but I had never heard of it prior to 2007. That spring, I stumbled upon a travel guide while strolling through my favourite bookstore and discovered that the city was home to a research centre for panda breeding, a site where visitors could actually interact with the creatures. I want to go there, I thought to myself. I want to do that. And a few months later, there I was somehow having talked my father into backpacking around the country with me; our adventure reaching its zenith at this gateway to Tibet. 

Chengdu lacks the sex of Hong Kong, the ambition of Shanghai and the history of Beijing but in itself represents perhaps the most honest portrait of modern China. It is a working class city where, despite numerous temptations brought about by economic virility, family and tradition remain life's top priorities. My father and I witnessed the essence of this one afternoon when we took a stroll through a local park. Younger children marvelled at the koi ponds while their adolescent siblings excitedly lined up to ride the most archaic (and seemingly unsafe) roller coaster I'd ever seen. Grandparents and other extended family members rounded out most groups that were out simply enjoying the company of each other without distraction. This life had become foreign to me. Before I could ponder it too long though, I overheard something that captured my attention. Something distinctly Western being piped through the loud speakers bestrewed throughout the area:

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place. Such a lovely face. 

It was so absurd to me at the time, this 70s AM radio staple about excesses of the high life being played here of all places. My father noted it as well. It made him laugh and was something he continued to reminisce about in conversation for years to follow. 

If I listened long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

It was an awkward weekend. There's always a shift, sometimes just barely perceptible, when a relationship changes. Of course there's the initial increased heart palpitations of being around someone you fancy, as well as the inability to maintain eye contact or to formulate intelligent speech after friendship turns to lust. These graceless transformations of resolve normally signal something positive though; that one's heart is open to the risk of rejection. This weekend, they signalled its closing. 

There had been problems. Some that were obvious and others that I just suspected. Over the course of these two days, at an acquaintance's wedding in a city far from home, I would be brought to light. My intuition gratified. Angry at the situation and moreso at myself, I flipped through endless television channels on Sunday morning trying to find something that would speak to me. Something that could aid in my spirit rising above the bullshit of modern romance. I came across Rod Stewart's Unplugged set (this was still an era when MTV actually played music). At that exact moment, Rod was singing the lyrics above from his classic "Reason to Believe". Whether fate or pure chance, I found the strength I was looking for delivered by a pietist with a mullet. 

Music is such an important part of my life. I could go forever without watching another film or reading another book but losing the feeling of becoming enraptured in rhythm and lyric would be the end of me. Music provides a soundtrack, sparking memories and enhancing future ones that you may not yet realize the significance of. It is a conduit towards understanding the human condition. Counsel, gospel and friend in symphonic form. I still feel that I owe Rod Stewart a fruit basket or something as thanks. 

To this day, whenever I hear "Hotel California" I am instantly transported to Chengdu. It gets me thinking about my past and present self. About the journey one takes through life and the people who help them get there. Recently I considered playing this song at my father's funeral as it's oddly come to represent family and the importance of prioritizing those relationships. I decided against it as I felt the context would be misunderstood. I instead picked my own favourite song. One whose memory I forever want linked with the person that has meant the most to me in life: 

There are places I remember
In my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one that compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more

Carpe Diem

Finished a University of Wisconsin-Madison course on the French Revolution a few months ago but am still fascinated with that particular era of world history. It continues to inspire my personal work including this portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte I designed titled "Carpe Diem": 

To order a copy of this 16"x20" print (titled "Carpe Diem"), please contact me here.

Booyah!!!

Received the 2015 Graphis Poster Annual in the mail today. Oblada Creative was one of only four design studios from Canada to merit inclusion:

Life, Love and Fate

I donated blood for the first time this week. I feel it's the bare minimum I can do to pay it forward in response to all of the transfusions my father received during the final weeks of his cancer treatment. Our family got to spend extra time with him as a result of this selfless act and the depth of gratitude I have towards the anonymous strangers who granted us this privilege cannot be expressed in mere words; it has profoundly altered my outlook on life, love and fate.

One does not fully realize the power of a month, a week, a day, an hour or a minute until time itself escapes us.   

At Canadian Blood Services, I sat next to a gentleman that had been donating for fourteen years. His epiphany also hit after witnessing a loved one struggle with terminal illness. The day we met was his 100th donation, an achievement I was in awe of. How many lives had he touched? How much time had he borrowed from the Gods and shared with others? I tried to express my appreciation but could barely verbalize it. In the end I didn't have to, he knew. And told me that my father would be proud. 

First time donor pin from Canadian Blood Services. 

First time donor pin from Canadian Blood Services. 

"Are you ready to blow this popsicle stand?"

My father was restless. Desperately wishing to walk - or run - somewhere else. Anywhere else. A fighter until the very end, he didn't want to resign himself to the fate of laying in a hospital bed 24/7. This was problematic though as he was too weak to walk, couldn't communicate his needs and required constant assistance and observation. On several occasions when we were alone, delusions of normalcy would cloud judgement resulting in the need for physical restraint and the occasional scolding when he was especially stubborn. I always felt terrible about this; about negating whatever hope he had left to summon. A return to the status quo of life was all we were both fighting for but one of us had to be realistic. The burden of sensibility defaulted to me. His youngest sister, a nurse, offered a solution and thus a bit of magic happened one night that has left me with a final cherished memory of my father. 

At midnight on Tuesday, July 1, the nearly vacant hallways of Health Sciences Centre had lost the frenetic energy that I'd come to expect as part of my daily routine. The silence was occasionally interrupted by the sound of a nurse being summoned or the muffled noise of television being watched behind closed doors by others also restless at the witching hour. Our goal this evening was to take my father on one last trip through these hallways, to give him one last glimpse of the outside world, the likes of which he hadn't seen in days. 

My aunt, uncle and I assisted my father (and all of his medically necessary peripherals) into a wheelchair and thus the adventure began. We first brought him to the cafeteria where a yogurt parfait and chocolate mousse were purchased. While being spoon-fed the latter, my father struggled to communicate something. Deciphering his grunts and moans had become increasingly difficult but he was persistent when he had something important to say and we persistently searched for the cues/clues necessary to complete the dialogue. On this occasion, after approximately 10 minutes of guessing, it was determined that my father wished to offer everyone some of his dessert. His character never faltered. 

I had been staying at a hotel adjacent to the hospital, so this was our next stop before trekking outside for a brief period. The weather hadn't changed since he was admitted. The winds still howled; the greyness that erased daylight now evolved to blackness which swallowed the stars. There was respite though. If not from the outside environment, then at least from our own emotional turmoil.

This excursion - this midnight ADVENTURE - had lasted all of an hour. But it was an hour in which worry ceased to exist. An hour in which we focused on life, rather than death.

It was an hour I will never forget demonstrating the power that a relatively brief instance of time can hold. I know my father appreciated it as well. We didn't know then, but it also signified the last moments we would get to spend with him before he drifted away into his final slumber. 

On July 3, the day of my father's death, I received an e-mail from an old friend. The type of friend that one may take for granted, as they define the very essence and qualities of meaningful companionship that are often expected but rarely reciprocated in the Facebook age. I've shared a large portion of my youth with this person commencing when we met in college and, as such, they probably know me better than anyone else on the planet; appreciating my idiosyncrasies and excusing my often questionable taste in music and pop culture obsessions. 

After I moved out west several years ago, we lost touch.

Current circumstances would sway fate though. I've grown to believe that few things in life are left to chance. I've never felt stronger about this conviction. 

It took me a minute to read the e-mail. The power of 60 seconds hitting full force when I got past the standard offering of condolence to learn that my friend's father had also passed away several months prior. He never told me because he didn't want me to lose hope. 

My father knew that I would turn his life into a work of art some day and gave me access and permission to record everything I needed during his final eight months from diagnosis to demise. At times it was difficult; other times oddly comforting. I can only hope that the book I'm crafting does justice to him: a truly special individual that I am honoured to have had in my life.