Rest in peace, girls...

Sunday afternoon, dh & I were glued to CBC Newsworld. A verdict was imminent in the Sh.af.ia murder trial that had been playing out & making headlines in Kingston over the past several months.

I don't know how much coverage this trial has had outside of Canada. Do some Googling (remove the periods in the name) and you will find tons of coverage.

The barebones of the story is this: Father S., an immigrant from Afghanistan; his wife and their 21-year-old son, were all found guilty of murdering four women -- including not just one, not just two, but three of their teenaged daughters/sisters -- as well as an older "cousin" of the family, R.o.n.a. (top left), who immigrated to Canada to help with the seven (!) children.

A car containing the four bodies was pulled from the Rideau Canal near the locks near Kingston, Ontario, in late June 2009. The water was not deep (a mere 18 inches above the roof of the car) and the window was wide open, but there was no indication that they had tried to escape. The official cause of death was drowning, but, ominously, the three girls all had bruising on the tops of their heads.

The murders have been called "honour killings" by some. Not long after I started this blog, I wrote about a teenaged Pakistani girl from suburban Toronto named A.q.sa Pa.rv.ez, who refused to wear the hijab, stayed out with her friends, and ran away from home several times. Her brother convinced her to return home; shortly afterwards, she was found dead in her bed; her father & brother were later convicted of strangling her.

Like A., the S. daughters chafed at the restrictions placed on them by their father. When their tattletale brothers reported that the girls were changing from the hijab into revealing clothing at school and (horrors!) being seen in the company of boys, Father S. would fly into a rage. His daughters were pulled out of school for months at a time & confined to the house. At various times, the girls sought help from social services authorities, but understandably were reluctant to discuss their complaints in front of their parents when the police or child welfare officers arrived at the house to investigate. The oldest daughter, Z., age 19, got married, seeing it as the only way out of the home, but was persuaded to annul the marriage before the ink was barely dry on the license.

As with A. several years earlier, I wanted to weep when I learned about this case. As someone who lost a very much wanted daughter, the idea that a father (& mother) could just throw away the lives of three beautiful, spirited, NORMAL teenaged girls, like they were garbage, all for some twisted sense of family "honour," all because they were girls and therefore deemed disposable, made (and makes) me ill.

But I will admit that it was R.'s death that has affected me the most. The family presented her as a cousin/aunt who helped with the seven children. The truth was a little more complicated: the children's mother was actually Father S.'s second wife. R.was his first; it was a polygamous marriage. R. was infertile. Because she could not bear children, she encouraged Father S. to take another wife -- who promptly popped out seven over the following years, and enlisted R. to help raise them.

If female life is cheap in Afghanistan, you can only imagine what it's like for an infertile, childless female. After years of living essentially as a servant (which she chronicled in a diary that was entered as evidence at the trial), R. somehow screwed up the courage to request a divorce, and a little money to help her move to France and start a new life near her siblings.

Instead, she wound up in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal. She was 52 years old when she died -- a few years older than me.

As I have written before, hearing stories like this makes me eternally grateful to the Powers That Be that, as a woman, I happened to be born in Canada in the late 20th century (how much more fortunate can you be, really??), and into a family where I was never, ever made to feel less than or disadvantaged because I was a girl.

But that doesn't mean that all the women living in this country are as lucky as I am. And it doesn't mean that I don't mourn for the A.'s and R.'s and S. daughters of this country and this world. There are still far, far too many of them.

Imitation is supposed to be flattery, but...

Every now & then, I go on Google Blog Search & do a search for "childless infertility," "childfree infertility," etc. I've found a few interesting new blogs that way.

Recently, I found something VERY interesting. I stumbled onto a blog (or something resembling a blog) that was reviewing Melissa Ford's wonderful book, Navigating the Land of IF.

But as I read, I realized that there was something awfully familiar about this post.

As in -- a good chunk of it was MY post -- or pretty damned close, anyway. (!!!)

Have a look & see if you agree:

• My original review of Melissa's book, from June 2009: "It's a book I would definitely recommend to anyone going through infertility. It would also be a fabulous book to read if you're a fertile person hoping to gain some insight into what a friend or family member is going through and how you can best support them.... I'll confess -- I went straight for the chapter on childfree living. So very few books on infertility say much about the childless/free option beyond a few paragraphs -- so I'm always interested to see how the subject is covered in any new IF book that I come across."
• Plagiarized review, from January 8, 2012: "It’s a book – Navigating The Land Of If Understanding Infertility And Exploring Your Options By Melissa Ford – I would definitely recommend to anyone going through infertility. It would also be fabulous to read if you’re a fertile person hoping to gain some insight into what a friend or family member is going through and how you can best support them... Because my husband & I wound up living without children, I was particularly interested in what Melissa would have to say on the subject, and went straight for the chapter on childfree living first. Very few books on infertility say much about the childless/free option beyond a few paragraphs — so I’m always interested to see how the subject is covered in any new IF book that I come across."

Anyone else ever been plagiarized, by this or any other blog? (I use the term "blog" very loosely.) What, if anything did you do about it?

I scanned the site, but there doesn't seem to be any way of contacting the writer/owner or leaving a comment (gee, I wonder why...). I did notice that, at the very bottom of the page, the copyright line misspelled the word pregnant as "pergnant." Which gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here.

People get expelled from university for stuff like this.

If you ARE the so-called writer, hello, I'm onto you. And I don't appreciate it.

30 years ago: Hot romance, cool skating ; )

This past weekend, dh & I marked 30 years since our official first date. As I wrote in a post this past fall, about the 30th anniversary of our first meeting, the attraction between us had been building for some time. It reached a turning point at the residence Ukrainian New Year's (Malenka) social -- where I started the evening in a last burst of flirtation with the good-looking guy who lived down the hall from dh (all flirtation all fall long, but no real action), but wound up leaving with dh. (Smart choice. ; ) )

Our first official date, not long afterward, was January 22nd, 1982: he asked me if I'd like to go to a movie. There weren't any movie theatres anywhere near campus at the time (going to the movies generally involved a long bus ride), but once a week, the student union building showed cheap movies in the multipurpose room -- so we went to see that week's offering: "Altered States" starring William Hurt and Blair Brown.

It was a very weird movie -- in the words of the IMDB synopsis, "A Harvard scientist conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber that may be causing him to regress genetically." There wasn't any popcorn, and the seats were just hard, uncomfortable folding chairs. Not exactly an auspicious first date, eh? Well, I don't think we were paying much attention to the movie anyway. ; )

We thought about going to a movie this weekend to celebrate... but there wasn't anything on we wanted to see, at least not at a time when we wanted to go. Jan. 22nd is also FIL's birthday, so we went there on Saturday night to celebrate. We often go to the movies on Sunday afternoon, but I wanted to be back home by 3:30 because... this weekend was also the Canadian figure skating championships in Moncton, New Brunswick....

*** *** ***

...which brought back even more memories from 30 years ago, lol. Because, shortly after our first date, I regretfully abandoned my new boyfriend for the weekend, & took the bus two hours down the TransCanada Highway to Brandon to visit a girlfriend. We "met," several years earlier, via a chain letter for Bay City Rollers fans, & became penpals. (Today, we'd no doubt meet on a message board or blog.) Eventually, since Brandon was not that far from where I lived at the time, we met in real life. I haven't seen her in years, maybe since my wedding, but we still keep in touch on our birthdays and at Christmastime.

Having moved on from the Bay City Rollers by then (!), we still had another mutual interest: figure skating. And her extremely generous combined Christmas/birthday present to me that year was an all-events ticket to the Canadian figure skating championships, which were being held in Brandon in mid-January that year.

Torn between my new love interest & my longtime love of skating, I compromised: I skipped the Friday night events, including the women's final (won by a marvellous spinner from Toronto named Kay Thompson)(my girlfriend took her grandmother instead that night) -- but arrived on Saturday in time for a full day of skating events, including the senior dance, pairs and men's competition, as well as the gala performances on Sunday afternoon, before I returned to school. (I spotted Elizabeth Manley as we came into the arena, all cute & blond & fluffy in what looked to be a rabbit fur coat -- very fashionable at the time.)

I was already a big fan of an up-and-coming jumping sensation from Ontario named Brian Orser, who could do the still-rare triple axel with ease (the most difficult jump a skater could do at the time -- the first one had been landed in competition only four years previously), and had used this competitive advantage to jump right onto the top spot on the podium the previous year. My girlfriend preferred the skater he beat then, the three-time Canadian champion & more artistically inclined Brian Pockar (it was the original Battle of the Brians). We stopped at a florist en route to the arena to buy bouquets to throw to our respective Brians on the ice, and when we got to the arena, we found out they actually sold pre-wrapped flowers there. Who knew? (We were still pretty naive and didn't realize that both Brians were gay. Pockar -- whom Dorothy Hamill handpicked to be her Romeo in a skating version of Romeo & Juliet -- sadly died of AIDS in 1992.)

Anyway, Orser skated & I ran down the aisle to the boards to join the throngs of adoring fans and present him with my bouquet & a kiss on the cheek. My mother saw me do so on national TV. : ) This being pre-VCR days (and many years before YouTube), I missed it. Years later, I mentioned the moment on a skating message board, and someone actually mailed me a VHS tape with a very fuzzy clip, in which I'm just barely visible for a few seconds. I've checked YouTube but sadly, it is not available there. Brian Pockar's wonderful performance is, however (although the sound & action are slightly out of synch, & it ends before you see him collecting the flowers... no doubt my girlfriend & I are in that one too, lol). Orser won in the end (I could see him backstage, jumping up & down in excitement when he realized he was the repeat champion), and there's another YouTube clip from that event in which Johnny Esaw, Mr. CTV Sports of the time, interviews both Brians.

I saw Brian Orser skate many times over the years years before he finally retired (& turned to coaching). One of my favourite memories was seeing him & Brian Boitano skate an exhibition number together at Maple Leaf Gardens (not long after their own epic Battle of the Brians at the 1988 Calgary Olympics) to "King of the Road," one-upping each other in a spectacular "anything you can do, I can do better" dual of triple jumps. He's still one of my all-time favourites. : )

16 years later, in January 1998, I attended Nationals again, this time in Hamilton, Ontario, just prior to the 1998 Nagano Olympics (with Aunt Flo memorably in tow). One thing I didn't mention in the post I wrote about it: while we were there, Quebec and eastern Ontario were hammered by an apocalyptic ice storm. Weeks later, tens of thousands of people were still without power. At the arena, the sizeable Quebec contingent was abuzz. Several people sitting in the row behind us left the event early to go home & survey the damage; others scoured the local Canadian Tire outlets for prized power generators to take back home.

It was the bizarre beginning of a rollercoaster year for me.

Calgon, take me away....

It was supposed to be a business meeting -- a daily "huddle," with each team member updating the others on their projects and their expectations for the day ahead.

It turned into a prolonged discussion about the team leader's due-any-day-now granddaughter -- she excitedly sharing the details, the baby's name, what the expectant mom (her daughter) has packed in her suitcase for the hospital, what the latest ultrasound photos look like, how she plans to take off on vacation the moment she gets the phone call, and not return for several weeks -- the rest of the team (all women -- two of them also mothers, three of them young single women with stars in their eyes) chattering excitedly, giggling and throwing in frequent sighs of "Awwwww!!" And all of it taking place in the cubicle directly across the aisle from mine.

On & on it went. I could literally feel myself slumping, physically, mentally, emotionally, behind the wall of my cubicle. With every giggle and every chorus of "Awwwwww....!!" I felt more & more suffocated, their words & excitement weighing me down. At the same time, I started feeling jittery, my skin crawling, a nervous tic surfacing. A voice inside my head started whispering, then shouting, "I've gotta get out of here... gotta get out... gotta get out gotta get out GOTTA GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT..."

And so I did the only thing any self-respecting bereaved mother of a stillborn would do in such a situation. I got the heck out of Dodge. ; ) It was a little earlier than usual for my coffee/tea break, but I took it anyway (& made it an extra long one... lingering over the magazines at the newsstand downstairs, doing some banking at the ABM, etc.). The relief I felt as I fled down the hallway, voices fading behind me, was palpable.

This wasn't the first time (or even the second) that I've had to endure a similar scenario, or remove myself from the scene. Of course, my coworker has every right to be excited. No doubt if it were me, I'd be acting exactly the same way.

But it never WILL be me -- and knowing what I know about how some pregnancies (far more than most people think) end, I find it difficult to get too excited about ANYONE's pregnancy these days. There is always more than a little fear & apprehension until the baby arrives & I know that both he or she & the mom are all right. They may not be too worried whether anything bad will happen. They don't have to -- I'm doing it for them.

I'm not quite sure why I reacted the way I did today... it's not an "anniversary" date or anything like that. I have endured previous such sessions with only perhaps an eye roll behind my cubicle wall. I think it's a cumulative sort of thing, too. I might be able to endure five minutes of such conversation -- but at the 7 minute point, it becomes too much, you know? As I wrote in a post last year, about the Academy Awards ceremony:

I often find that, when it comes to enduring all things pregnancy and baby and mommy-related -- at baby showers & family events, at work, on TV, in the movies, online, on the magzine covers -- I can take it & take it & take it -- but then, slowly, gradually, the steady, constant, never-ending drip-drip-drip begins to erode my sense of self and security -- the relentless talk, everywhere, about babies and pregnancy and children and baby bumps, all reminding me of the reverence (well, the lip service, anyway) paid to motherhood in this culture -- and that I am not a part of it, never WILL be part of it -- & then suddenly, I reach the tipping point, & I've had enough, & I just want to go home, or turn off the TV set and go to bed, and sulk for awhile. And vent about it in my blog. ; )

I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. But please, humour me; go ahead & tell me that I'm not anyway, won't you? ; )

Article: "The War on Only Children"

Salon had a great article by Mary Elizabeth Williams recently about "The War on Only Children." As I read, I couldn't help but compare the reactions she describes to her status as an only child to the typical reactions those of us who are childless/free (for whatever reason) get when people find out that we don't have kids. Tell me, does any of this sound vaguely familiar?

I was making small talk with a woman I’d just met when the inevitable subject of family came up. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” she’d asked. “No,” I’d replied. And there it was: the subtle change in her expression, the quick reassessment, the pinched face I’ve seen a thousand times before. “Well, that must have been nice for you,” she replied. “You must have been so spoiled.”

It’s one of the standard responses we “onlies” get — near strangers denigrating us because of our parents’ reproductive habits. Nobody ever says, “Youngest of four? So you’re really immature, right?” or “You’re a twin? Wow, you must be a total dick.” But I didn’t answer, “Yeah, after my dad left my 21-year-old mom when she was pregnant with me, you can imagine what a cosseted, pampered existence this princess had.” That’s because I didn’t want to get the other classic reaction: unbridled pity for my no doubt sad, lonely existence. Hi, what year is this?

Growing up in my mostly Irish-Catholic neighborhood, I understood that I was an anomaly. Hell, just having parents who were divorced was considered exotic. Back then, I generally shrugged off my dubious reputation as both wildly pampered and horribly starved for company, content with my childhood claim to fame as The Girl Who Didn’t Have to Share.

As I grew older, I met other onlies. It wasn’t always easy to find them – shockingly, they look a lot like everybody else. We exchanged stories of our similar bad and sad reps, but I noticed we almost never expressed a longing for a different fate. We were just a contented if misunderstood minority. But times have changed. There are now roughly 20 million only children in America, representing nearly a quarter of all our families. You’d think those swelling ranks would have changed those misconceptions. So how come if we don’t smoke in bars anymore, we’re still dissing only children?

I particularly loved this paragraph:

It’s especially galling to hear the contempt for onlies – that vaguely snide attitude that the real selfishness is on the part of the parents – coming as it does within a culture in which the subjects of infertility, pregnancy loss, deferred child rearing, and divorce are the stuff of idle playground chatter. If a child you know has no siblings, chances are you know the reasons why. It’s rarely because the parents are such big jerks. But whether it’s by the hand of fate or conscious decision, who’s to knock another’s choices, anyway? Why be a self-appointed Goldilocks of family size, bloviating that one is pathetic, five is pushing it, but two or three is juuuuust right? As my friend Anne’s mother once sagely told her, having one is a long way from the worst thing you could do to a child.

Read the entire article here. And thank you, Mary Elizabeth Williams!

Birthday girl

Yep, that's me. About 47 (eeeekkkk!!) years ago today, give or take a few. It was January 1965, and it was my 4th birthday party. Note the cake (confetti angel food, from a mix but made by Mom, decorated with plastic flowers -- in other years, it might be Smarties), the pin the tail on the donkey game on the wall behind me, my stylish '60s bob, Mary Jane shoes, tights & crinoline. : )

All my birthday parties as a kid were more or less the same (& so were those of my friends) -- up to a dozen friends would come to our house (decorated with balloons & streamers), we'd play a few games, have hot dogs or sloppy joes with potato chips & pickles, drink Kool-Aid, have birthday cake & then open the presents. I think we might give or get a chocolate bar to the guests as they left -- loot bags were unheard of.

I stopped having birthday parties around the time I became a teenager, instead having a handful of my closest friends over for dinner, & sometimes a movie. These days, my birthdays tend to be much quieter events. The last several years, I've usually tried to take the day off work, maybe go to the spa or shopping (or both), & then for dinner at a favourite restaurant with dh. That's more or less the plan for today. I'm thinking I might be daring & go for blue nail polish on my manicure, lol. It only took 51 years to try it...!

I look at that little girl in the picture, and it seems so long ago and like yesterday, all at once. (And I wonder if that's anything like Katie would have looked when she was 4.) 51 seems old when you write it out. :p But it's one year closer to retirement ; ) & being done with Aunt Flo's visits for good. (And, as my grandma used to say, & as I wrote last year, "consider the alternative.") All things considered... I'll take it, lol.

Anyone out there??

According to Melissa, it's International Blog Delurking Week. : ) I already feel like mine has been under way, since putting out the call for additions to my blogroll. : )

Step out of the shadows & say hello! : )