Author: Phyllis Diller Stewart

Don’t forget to be friendly to outsiders, for in so doing,

some people, without knowing it,

have entertained angels.

Hebrews 13:2

A while ago, I cleaned out a small desk. Along with dried-out pens, and outdated waste schedules, I found a Visitor’s Book.

I bought that visitor’s book nearly twenty-five years ago. Like the ones my mother had, it was meant to keep a record of those who visited and shared meals with us. Alas, the most recent entry is 2007, so the book was a bit of a fail, but the names that are there remind me of good times.

There’s the signature of my husband’s buddy, recording a happy visit after they hadn’t seen each other in years. There are names from a reunion of friends, long ago teenagers, from a summer job I’d once had, and folks who came to my dad’s 70th birthday party. As well, there are signatures of family and friends who came to our daughter’s nursing graduation party, and others who attended another daughter’s wedding rehearsal meal. Most precious of all is the writing of relatives no longer with us.

But the memories in my book are so few compared to my mother’s. Her books are a genuine archaeological site; and layers of family history are revealed when the pages are turned.

Who eats baloney these days? Do kids even know what it is? There are much healthier sandwich fillings, but baloney lovers know there’s nothing like nutrition-free squishy white bread and thick-sliced baloney to tickle nostalgic taste buds.

But what may seem delicious, nostalgic, and “right” to me may have a different twist for you. Should that bread be spread with butter, mustard, mayo, or perhaps all three? And what about the filling? Just baloney? A Kraft cheese slice or two? Or maybe a leaf of iceberg lettuce.

So, here’s a story for you.

I don’t have to tell anyone that COVID shut down life as we know it in early 2020. At my job in a Greater Toronto Area Emergency Department, we came face-to-face with stuff in pretty short order. It was hard, it was scary, and it was real. For the next year, we rode the waves of that pounding storm.

Finally, in April 2021, with COVID numbers going down and vaccination rates rising, it was time to take a deep breath and look ahead to summer, hoping that COVID would soon be behind us. Feeling that relief and optimism, a couple of us were chatting at work one day about the lockdowns and all the cooking people had done while stuck at home. One thing led to another, and we hit on the idea of a departmental cookbook — like, what were we all cooking when the restaurants were closed? We talked about old favourites and how some of our index cards and cookbook pages were covered with stains and spatters. This somehow evolved into the thought that our cookbook could have actual pictures of well-loved recipes, not just typed-out versions, and voila! We had an idea for a unique book, plus it would be so easy to ask our co-workers to snap a picture of their recipes; no laborious copying-out required.

I usually write a short story — often a memory — to post here, but not today. The weather has been quite wet this October, so I really tried to enjoy the nicer days when they came along. That meant camera in hand when walking the dog.

Some of the pictures I took follow; different memories than the written kind. In the winter, when it’s cold and the snow is blowing, I want to remember this beauty.

October is my favourite month. We are usually blessed with gorgeous big skies, spectacular red, orange and gold leaves, and cooler weather. The only part of October I don’t enjoy is having to empty my summer plant pots.

Before beginning the task, I take one last look at the plants who have bloomed their little hearts out for me all summer.

I spent much of today, marked “Canada Day” on my digital calendar, in deep thought. While I’m proud to be a Canadian, and very thankful to call this country home, what I have learned over past years about our history has given me pause. Facts that have been revealed, little by little, were put under glaring spotlights recently, when some of the dear, innocent children, buried at forced confinement institutions, were at last found.

This afternoon I finished my second reading of Invisible North: The Search for Answers on a Troubled Reserve by Alexandra Shimo. Shimo, a Toronto-based journalist, made a plan to spend several months living on the Kashechewan reserve to research a water problem. What resulted is part memoir, part history, and she gives first-hand insight about life on that reservation.

I highlighted as I read, and I’d like to share pieces of her book with you. Although long, what follows are just a few words that taught, shocked, and broke my heart. Putting myself in place of the people who must live with these injustices, I wonder what kind of person I would be now if I’d experienced a fraction of what so many live with daily.

” . . . from the nineteenth century onwards, First Nations were confined to poverty in six ways. They were moved away from mineral wealth. They were displaced from natural resources including forest, lakes, and rivers. They had their land stolen through “theft” and “fraud”. They were stopped from establishing their own industries on traditional land. They were obstructed from opening other businesses. They were excluded from jobs off-reserve through racism.

“If you take away a community’s ability to generate resources, and then remove an individual’s ability tyo make money, then . . . you end up with the current situation of First Nations: racialized poverty. . . . Ninety-two of Canada’s one hundred poorest communities are Aboriginal, according to Statistics Canada.” Continue reading “July 1, 2021” →

I am very sad to say that I have profited by someone else’s misfortune.

Some locals may already follow my cousin’s daughter on her Reverie Farm IG account, as I do. I’ve enjoyed watching her business (on a farm between Markham and Stouffville, Ontario) grow and develop. Things appeared to be ticking along in fabulous fashion until . . . COVID. It kicked out the legs beneath lovely social events hosted on the farm — weddings and beautiful evening solstice meals — and that meant change and diversification.

At one point I watched a new bed of garlic being planted, and I anticipated the purchase of a nice stash to use over the winter. And then, a few days ago, there was a sad new post. Because of a problem I won’t get into here, the garlic wouldn’t grow to to maturity and she was offering green garlic for sale. I bought some. Continue reading “It’s a Green Garlic Day.” →

I’m trying to remember when I met my mother. She met me on the day I was born, and we spent the next week together. Fathers weren’t welcome at deliveries then, so Dad dropped her off at the hospital and she went in and had her first baby. To top it all off, the world was in the midst of — wait for it — the Asian flu pandemic, a global pandemic of the influenza A virus. A vaccine was released a couple of weeks after my birth, and the rapid deployment of same helped contain the virus. All that to say, the hospital allowed no visitors, and because a birth meant a stay of nearly a week, poor homesick Mom was on her own with me. Naturally, I have no memory of this.

When I was born my mother met me, but I have been wracking my brain to remember when I met her. Technically, that first meeting was mutual, but is it truly a meeting if I can’t recall it? Photos tell me we spent formal time together, sitting with my father and with various grandparents in generational poses. In other pictures, disembodied hands bathe me and cradle me, and I sit in front of a Christmas tree. Parental folklore tells me we spent time together walking the circuit of a small upstairs apartment in the farmhouse where we lived: around the kitchen table, down the hall, around the living room, down the hall, and so on, and so on while colicky me cried.