April 7

My grandmother was born 101 years ago, today.

She left us in 2001 at the ripe old age of 85.

She was a firecracker.

I don’t remember her as well as I should and I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked. I know she was warm and loving. She was always – except at the very end – so genuinely happy to see me and her smiling face remains a very clear memory that shows itself exactly when I need it. I know she will forever embody class, for me at least.  I know that more than anyone else, she is the one I want to believe could be or might have been proud of me.

We were not particularly close but, to me, she has always seemed to be a perfectly imperfect woman who just got it. She knew what it meant to be a wife, mother, grandmother, friend, community leader, and a creative. She balanced the weight and expectation of it all with grace (and a rye and ginger on the rocks) and inspired the same in others.  I know that better now than ever and I am awed anew.

For most of my life, she was the only person who had really encouraged me to try anything. At 12 years old, I believed her when she said I could be a writer…when she said I could be anything…and again a few years later when she gave me my grandfather’s old typewriter.

I wish my children could have known her. I wish she could have known them, encouraged and loved them the way she did me. I wish she could have met my love to know that I finally got it right and that I am in very good hands. They would have been fast friends.

I still think of her in a WWGD (What Would Grand-Maman Do) kind of way and I try to make the choices I think she might have made or supported. I have been thinking about her a lot today and I guess that makes sense. I don’t know if she had any dreams or expectations for me when she met me or as she watched me grow but I do hope that I haven’t let her down and that I am at least half of what she had hoped I would be…so far.

Happy birthday, Grand-Maman. You are loved.

Possibility

I have been reminded of the less than perfect part of my job.

Working for a charity connected to health services means that, inevitably, you will meet and connect with people who are sick. Sometimes it’s minor and treatable and other times, it isn’t.

Years ago, when I worked for a cancer-related charity, I had the privilege of meeting survivors* and their families and was inspired by them in ways I hadn’t even realized at the time.  While I worked there, one of the survivors I had come to know died from a particularly rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.  I remember her still as a spirited woman who fought her disease and for others who had it, lobbying for innovative medications and government/insurance coverage, right to the end.   Last night, I was notified about a post on the Facebook page of the charity I am currently working for – one of our patients had died. Only 23 years old, he had lived with a congenital illness his entire (short) life and died while waiting for a transplant.

Being new to this organization, I hadn’t met him and had met his mother only briefly a few months ago. Still, his death shook me. I spent some time this morning confirming the information and – being new – inquired about protocol around sending condolences to the family, prepared a card from our team, and finally updated his information on our contact management system.  A check in a box marked Deceased? .

That’s the way it goes. And while the work being done here really is cutting edge and world class (and that’s not just the communicator in me spouting off buzzwords), it still isn’t quite enough and couldn’t save this young man.

But, I have realized two things:

• I am truly and immeasurably lucky. My family, and in particular my children, are healthy and afforded the luxury of boredom and complaint and unpredictable attitude. I hugged them each a few extra times this morning and thankfully, neither one seemed bothered by it (tweens, I tell ya).
• There is hope and the work we do here – convincing people to donate their money to our foundation/hospital over or in addition to another – really is what will lead to the discoveries and treatments and innovations that will (and DO) save people’s lives. There is still a lot to be done and a lot of opportunity for discovery but looking at what can be done now versus what was possible 5, 10, 15 years ago makes me hopeful. This young man’s family is devastated and I would never want to minimize that but, the advances so far gave him 4 years more than he thought he would have, and probably 20 years more than he would have had if he’d been born 10 years earlier than he was.

So, I will go back to work now and hope that something I do today inspires someone to donate money that will be directed to research that will save someone’s life. That’s not nothing.

 

 

 

*survivorship in the cancer community (at least here in Ottawa) is defined as the first day of diagnosis and beyond because from that point on, you are a survivor.

I’m white

I have a problem. You see, I’m white. Clearly and obviously white. Now, I also happen to be a woman so I do have that injustice card to play from time to time but, a white woman so really…I still have a problem.

What’s the problem with being white?  By virtue of my skin tone, I am made to tread more carefully and speak more thoughtfully about all things race related. But why? If what we are looking for is equality…why are we – the villainous white – being reprimanded for “whitewashing” Hollywood while casting non-Caucasian performers in Caucasian roles is considered progressive (and I have a similar problem with gender equality but that’s another story)?

At issue: http://mashable.com/2017/04/03/michele-selene-ang-whitewashing-tee/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#Xhv8JrbOokqZ

If I or my white children or step-children had worn a shirt that said…say…

Morgan&
Samuel&
Idris&
Laurence.

We or they would be seen as racist…and that’s really the problem.

I agree that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to cast someone who doesn’t physically fit the part but to me, that’s all there is to it. When realizing an existing piece of work – a book, play, or previously made movie – we should be respectful of the creator’s vision. Period. Where there is leeway – and there often is, particularly in movies based on original screenplays – I say go for it and cast to your vision.

The above are all talented performers who happen to be black. Each of them cast in roles where the character had been described – and in some cases previously portrayed – as white: Morgan Freeman as the “pale, Irish redhead” named Red in Shawshank Redemption, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Idris Elba as Norse God Heimdall, and Laurence Fishburn as Jack Crawford in Hannibal.  These actors delivered stellar performances and you would be hard pressed to imagine anyone else as Red or Nick Fury.  As the villainous white woman, I am not allowed to say that Morgan Freeman, while incredibly talented, should not have been considered for the role of Red.

For me, it is about the story. It’s about the authenticity of the execution. Red was a red-headed Irishman and the Shawshank Redemption story begins in 1947 when much of the US was still segregated, meaning it is unlikely that a black man would have been in the same part of the prison as Andy was, let alone in the same cell.

James Bond was clearly described in a great many books before the film franchise began and he is a physically strong, suave, martini drinking, white man (described as resembling a real-live-at-the-time musician named Hoagy  Charmichael) and should be cast in a way that maintains that vision. Imagine casting a group of Vietnamese actors as the Weasley family – doing so would alter narrative, dialogue, and core elements of both the stories and the characters themselves.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that casting Caucasians in non-Caucasian roles is okay. The offense is on both sides of this fence. That said, I think something like the Annie remake that saw a retooling and updating of the basic story is up for grabs. It’s not a direct remake (i.e. Daddy Warbucks was nowhere to be found and the “daddy” in the 2014 version was a tech-wiz-mayoral candidate named Will Stacks, adorably portrayed by Jamie Foxx) and opens up a world of opportunity for vision and actor-driven characters.

I take issue with labels like “ethnic”…we’re all ethnic. Accepting that, believing that, would change the game!  My problem is that I am white…and I can’t actually say any of this. I can’t say “Hey listen, let’s just all be on the same page as people and respect and celebrate our differences instead of calling each other out about them”.