Collectible Elvis bites the dust

Things occasionally happen around the house that, in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter but can still make you feel bad.

For example, I recently broke a bowl.

It wasn't a great bowl, not a family heirloom or anything, but it was a bowl I used most days and my heart sank when I dropped it. For a split second, I imagined myself gluing it back together — it broke into quite large pieces — but I've moved beyond that as a solution to a broken dish and I stoically swept it up and put it in the garbage.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my new white blouse got put into the drier by mistake. The clothes would normally be on the clothesline but it was a showery day and so the drier was pulled into emergency use. I'm sure I assumed the blouse was a man-made fabric, just made for a drier but it turns out the blouse is 100% cotton. I knew as soon as I looked at it that it hadn't enjoyed its trip in the drier. It was the broken-dish-on-the-kitchen-floor feeling all over again.

As it happened, I gave it a little iron-therapy which may have stretched it out — it was the length that was affected — and although it might not be perfect, I think it will probably be wearable.

These are small things though and I mention them only to try to lead up to a comparison.

Because then, there's this:

Please look at this very closely. Click on it to enlarge. That's a 78 rpm record of early Elvis — on one side Blue Moon of Kentucky, on the other That's All Right. It's a classic and it's a victim of many moves and many boxes since it left my parents' basement many years ago. Our joint record collection has now been dealt with as we begin the marathon of trying to get rid of decades worth of stuff. This wasn't the only 78 that didn't make it but it was the most notable.

I went to some of the collectors' sites to see what they'd think of this record. The original recording of these two songs was on Sun Records with the yellow label. Someone would pay you a few hundred dollars for that one. By the time RCA Victor got its hands on it and put the black label on it, it lost value and you might get $50 for it. There's also more than one RCA Victor label and they're also considered to be different values.

I wasn't going for a payday anyway and would never have got around to sending it away to some collector in Tennessee or wherever. I just liked the idea of having a collector's item, even if I wasn't doing anything with it.

I can still listen to Elvis. Our music supply is, I guess, simpler to access nowadays. It's certainly more portable. This is the exact device I listen to music with. It's a few years old now so it's probably obsolete but it works really well and it runs on a triple e battery. It's tiny and easy, not nearly as cumbersome as a turntable and a stack of records.

Simon's big bang performance as Cosmé McMoon

We saw the movie Florence Foster Jenkins today.

In the 1940s, New York socialite Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) dreams of becoming a great opera singer. Unfortunately, her ambition far exceeds her talent. The voice Florence hears in her head is beautiful, but to everyone else it is quite lousy. Her husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) goes to extreme lengths to make sure his wife never finds out how awful she truly is. When Florence announces her plans for a concert at Carnegie Hall, St. Clair soon realizes that he's facing his greatest challenge yet.

I don't know what more can be said about Meryl Streep. She's surely acknowledged to be the greatest actress of our time — and if there were an Olympics of acting, she'd win the gold medal every time out. (She's been nominated for 19 Oscars, more than any other person in history. Why she hasn't won 19 Oscars will always be a mystery to me.)

She plays the lovable, eccentric, generous Florence with just an edge of foolish but never enough that you lose respect or affection for her. Florence is a woman who loves music with such passion that it rules her life and her relationships and her very self-image. Meryl walks a careful line and gives us a beautiful character.

And Hugh Grant? I've always liked Hugh Grant. His reputation has taken a few hits but I've always enjoyed his acting. I always found him quite romantic. He plays Florence's loyal loving spouse while living in a very familiar way with a pretty young woman a taxi-ride away.

But the real joy in this movie is the actor who plays Cosmé McMoon, Florence's accompanist as she pursues her dream of singing opera.

Do you recognize him? This is Simon Helberg, best known as Howard Wolowitz on TV's The Big Bang Theory. Simon plays Cosmé with an innocent, intelligent, funny personality — and a different voice and different face from Howard's. Not only that, he plays the piano. He had studied piano to the level of concert pianist and that secured the acting job for him. He's an amazing choice and I can't say enough about his wonderful performance.

He was paralyzed with nerves when they went to Carnegie Hall but he came through in a professional and loving way for Florence. By then he had become a co-conspirator with St. Clair to keep from Florence the awful truth of what a terrible singer she was.

It's a sweet movie. It's well-written, well-acted, funny and it's a tear-jerker. I enjoyed it a lot and if you haven't seen it, maybe you would too.

The day George W. galloped into town

In late 2004, the President of the United States of America came to Halifax. I had almost forgotten about the visit until I came across this short account in my archives. This was written for the progressive Catholic newspaper called Catholic New Times. I was clearly struck by how easily public opinion swung toward George W. Bush just by virtue of a quick visit and a couple of jokes. It explains a lot.

---

So. . . George W. Bush came to Halifax. They told us he was coming to say thanks for all the help we provided to Americans on September 11, 2001. (That’s 2001.)

Before he even got here, our premier, John Hamm told us to be polite and give him a warm Nova Scotian welcome – do it the “Nova Scotian way,” he said. Our mayor and the chief of police said that we were allowed to demonstrate but we must be peaceful and show respect for a duly-elected leader of a democratic country.

By the time he left, I felt that I had been patted on the head with condescension so many times that I had to go get my hair done. As usual, that made me feel better which was a good thing because by the time he left, I was feeling deflated and somewhat discouraged.

He travelled from the airport in his husky bullet-proof limo, accompanied by a couple of kilometres of entourage. They all scooted through an emptied-out downtown Halifax, and scuttled up to the back door of Pier 21 – avoiding the 4000 (well-behaved) protesters.

I borrowed this photo from The Marxist-Leninist Daily

The people awaiting George within Pier 21 had been there for over three hours (no food, no coffee), having been admitted after a strict security clearance. In retrospect, it may not be so surprising that, the instant he appeared, he was given a standing ovation.

Then he made the speech – the one that got lots of laughs and applause with hockey and Jean Poutine jokes – and went on to scold Canadians for not going to his war and for disapproving of his missile defence plan. He finished and he got another standing ovation. Then he left.

But not before something disconcerting happened. Within hours, it was clear that there was a different feeling in the air about George Bush. Pundits and people and passers-by were saying, “Well, he doesn’t seem too bad.” I sensed that our edge was gone – that suddenly, people felt that … “well, it’s true that we have to put up with him for four more years but at least he came here and paid attention to us and he was kind of funny. And he said thank you.”

The following day, the editorialists mostly focused on how well-behaved the protesters were and how polite everyone had been. There was much about how important it is to have good relations with the U.S., no matter what – trade, you know. There was almost nothing about Bush’s hateful ideology, his murderous war, his harmful tax cuts. There was just a superficial observation about how good his researchers must be (well, he quoted Mackenzie King!) and how charming he is and a Great Communicator too. I shake my head – but then, I never “got” Ronald Reagan either; he always seemed to me to be just some duffus who was orchestrated by someone else – oh, that sounds familiar.

The worst thing about Bush’s visit – and for this, I blame the premier, the mayor, the chief of police and the media (which mostly paid little attention to the protests – they were peaceful, remember) – is that the Bush-supporters have now come out of their caves in brave numbers. They have come out not only to uphold Bush’s policies but to insult, in the clearest possible terms, the 4000 Nova Scotians who went downtown to protest the visit.

One columnist, Rick Howe at The Daily News, compiled a list of what the protesters have been called, after the fact: “whiners, kiddies, slobs, wingnuts, yahoos, lazy, shiftless, homeless, ignorant, socialists and idiots.”

I wait patiently now for the premier, the mayor, the chief of police and the media to pat the Bush-supporters on the head and suggest that they be polite, that they express themselves in the “Nova Scotian way.” Then I will sit back and wait to see how the brutal, intolerable philosophy of the Bush administration can be defended with any kind of rational argument.

Richard Hatfield: A colourful NB flashback

(Back in the winter, I shared a piece I had written about Alden Nowlan: The poet from Desolation Creek, Nova Scotia. Alden and the Premier of New Brunswick at the time, Richard Hatfield, were good friends. Richard was a regular at Alden's, hob-nobbing with poets and novelists and artists. I met him there often and always enjoyed his company. I took a special interest in this book and this is a review I wrote when it was published in 1992.)

Richard Hatfield: Power and Disobedience

Michel Cormier & Achille Michaud (publisher: Goose Lane Editions)

This is a terrific book. Authors Michel Cormier and Achille Michaud have captured an era in New Brunswick political history that is as lively as good daily journalism and as relevant as good history.

In spite of the title, the book isn’t a biography of Richard Hatfield in any strict sense; it’s a picture of a province through a changing time, with Hatfield at the centre and the usual cast of characters peopling the inner circle, the outer circle, the margins and the fringes. How can anyone say New Brunswick is dull?

Both authors were journalists in New Brunswick during part of Hatfield’s tenure but they didn’t decide to write the book until 1985, the year the premier went on trial for possession of marijuana. They used a combination of interviews, archives and personal observations to put together this work, originally published in French by Editions Libre Expression. The translation is by Daphne Ponder. (Cormier is now Ottawa correspondent for CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning and Michaud is the Toronto correspondent for Radio-Canada’s Le Point.)

Hatfield was certainly one of the more interesting premiers in our country in the recent past and all the predictable stories are here: Bricklin, kickbacks and Francis Atkinson, the doll collection, the membership in the Parti Quebecois and the bizarre toast to the Princess of Wales and, of course, the marijuana affair. Some of the stories are more familiar (and more frivolous) than others but all, especially the chapter about the Atkinson affair, are meticulously researched and clearly presented.

Hatfield with Bricklin

Other stories (and I was a journalist in New Brunswick and knew Richard Hatfield socially) are less familiar; the authors had good sources and have an engaging way with anecdotes.

Maybe the most interesting thing these authors bring to the book is their own Acadian background. Not a lot has been written for English-speaking readers about the political dynamics of the Acadian communities and the relationship Hatfield was able to build with them – which most certainly was one factor in his longevity as premier.

Not so his administrative skills. The book is riddled with examples of his carelessness in running his government, his lack of interest in how things get done. One typical story involved the hiring of Marcel Mass‚ as deputy minister of finance in 1973. Mass, an economic advisor in Pierre Trudeau’s office, was interviewed for the position and went back to Ottawa:

“Four months later...Hatfield called Mass‚ and said, ‘You start as deputy minister of finance in two weeks.’ Taken aback, Mass‚ explained that he needed more time to resign from the Prime Minister’s Office, sell his house and discuss the move with his wife. ‘That’s your problem,’ Hatfield replied, apparently amused. Before hanging up, Hatfield asked Mass‚ to draw up his own employment contract because he was not sure of the responsibilities of a deputy minister of finance.”

The authors observe that he preferred to forget about day-to-day problems or let them be dealt with by others – or not. “Not only was he more interested in principles than in their application, but he also believed that it was up to individuals to demand their rights...”

Certainly Hatfield was a charming and engaging man and his life makes for an interesting story but a reader coming to New Brunswick politics for the first time must wonder how anything got done in the province, how any progress could be made. And in truth, many things didn’t get done; progress was limited to one or two areas of Hatfield’s special interest.

There was an ambivalence about Hatfield in the province which I think these authors understand very well. Some people voted for his governments because to vote for another party was not an option to be considered.

They were your lifelong Tories. The Liberal party went through several destructive changes during the ‘70s making them a less desirable alternative than they would become later. But Hatfield was able to stitch together odds and ends of support to bolster the core Tories and some of the Acadian communities to win four consecutive terms – unprecedented in New Brunswick. (His final election, when he lost every seat to the Liberals, has also gone into the record books.)

This book is beautifully written – and beautifully translated. In a passage about former Liberal leader, Joe Daigle: “He was respected for his integrity and discipline, and for the long hours he worked on the public’s behalf, but only in the way a boring priest is called a saintly man. His appointment to the bench at the age of thirty-five seemed less an impressive career advancement than a sign that he had grown old too early.”

In this day and age, it’s a wonderful thing to read a book that has all the words spelled right and is almost completely devoid of editing inaccuracies. (Okay, IODE stands for Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, not International etc. etc. In the authors’ defence, this is an organization not commonly found in Acadian communities.) In general, Goose Lane has made an attractive, readable book – with photographs interspersed rather than bunched in the middle.

Oh yes. Some of you want to know how the question of Hatfield’s sexuality was handled. And these authors have added little to the discussion on the eternal question: was Hatfield gay? They asked him, choosing their words carefully and assuring him (and us) that their only reason for asking was because it had become an issue in the last campaign. His response was vintage Hatfield:

“If it was a factor in 1987, it was also in 1982 and 1978. In 1978, Joe Daigle made an accusation he retracted because of the adverse reaction to it. So regardless of what they may have said or what they may have whispered, you know, sometimes people would tell me things and sometimes they wouldn’t. But it never bothered me. I had a very generous respect for the people.”

People in New Brunswick knew that, I think. That would be another reason for his political success over such a long period.

---

The book is still available and anyone interested in looking back at fairly recent history would definitely enjoy it.

A shocking view that still hurts to read

This column was shocking when I wrote it for The Daily News back in 1991. We had just returned from a trip to Spain and it took me back to earlier trips to Spain and some of my observations and experiences of those times.

It's still shocking today. It so clearly explains how prejudice and bigotry exist and thrive. I'm sure if I read the entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica of today, they would be very different but think how many generations of people read the entries as I quote from them below.

When we were in Italy a few years ago, we encountered gypsies – still called gypsies in many places – who seemed to live much the same way in Rome and Florence as we had observed in Granada almost 30 years ago. The prejudice is still very strong. There remains in many countries an antipathy toward the Roma people, including Canada.

---

I remember strolling up the hill toward the Alhambra in Granada on one of my earlier trips to Spain and being presented with a flower by a charming, laughing gypsy woman. I accepted it with pleasure, thinking what a nice hospitable country this was, when she demanded payment from my (male) companion. He hadn't noticed any of this and was taken aback by her aggressiveness but things were sorted out, the woman was paid, and I decided I might as well enjoy my flower. I was a little embarrassed that I had so easily assumed it was a gift.

I've never accepted another one although the flower vendors – women and children – are as much in evidence on the streets of Granada today as they were 20 years ago. Some of them could be the same ones, I suppose. They still thrust the flowers at women travellers and then turn to the men for the payment – “por amore!” they say, both loud and pathetic at the same time.

The Granada gypsies live outside the city in the mountains. In fact, an old guide book I came across lists them as one of the tourist attractions: “Granada is protected by mountains...in the north by the Albaicin, where a large colony of gypsies live in caves – complete with electric lights and telephones! Make a trip there and perhaps see them dancing in their colourful costumes.”

That particular guide doesn't say watch out for your wallet, although another guide I read recently warned of groups of young gypsy boys in certain areas who, the book said, are accomplished pickpockets.

Gypsies are not a people I've thought too much about although I was once fairly well-acquainted with Ron Lee, author of the acclaimed book Goddam Gypsy.

But after returning from Spain this time, I kept thinking about them – they live not only in Granada, of course, but are also seen in the other cities, usually street vending.

I read bits and pieces about gypsies here and there, and then went to that definitive tool of research, the Encyclopedia Britannica. Now I must explain that my Encyclopedia Britannica is quite old. The only reason I have it is because the high school in Chatham, N,B, was being converted into an elementary school and someone called and told me that many books – including a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica – was being taken to the dump. Imagine! So I went and rescued it. This set was revised in 1960.

Anyway...I looked up gypsies. I read some interesting things: for example, says E.B., the gypsies were originally a low caste people of India whose language is related to Sanskrit. They dispersed throughout Europe, retaining a common language but integrating it with the language of the cultures they lived among.

So far, so good. I first began to get uncomfortable when I read this: “...When the gypsies first entered Europe, they were confused with another group whose descendants, called Jevgjit, are found in Albania living in humble houses. The Jevgjit have clean habits; they are reddish-brown in color, have oval faces and have little in common with the gypsies.”

I went through a rather long and rambling history of the gypsies and then arrived at a section titled “Characteristics, Customs and Crafts.” The first sentence says: “The mental age of an average adult gypsy is thought to be about that of a child of ten.”

Excuse me?

I went on to read:”Gypsies have never accomplished anything of great significance in writing, painting, musical composition, science or social organization. What culture they possess has been thrust upon them from outside.”

A little further down, there was this: “A common gypsy conception of paradise is a place where there is plenty to eat.”

A few sentences on, written in a really patronizing fashion, this: “...They ply trades which members of established society find either humiliating or unprofitable...their small earnings are in general sufficient to satisfy their simple needs.”

And this list of their trades, although it's clearly pointed out that, except for these, they don't know much about anything: “...they're trough makers, blacksmiths, farriers, kettlesmiths, tinkers, riveters, combmakers, makers of wooden spoons, spindle makers, sieve makers, matmakers, basketmakers, hacklers, bagmakers, musicians, bear trainers, dealers in wool and cattle, jugglers, horse dealers, circus players and there are a few lawyers.”

Oh, where to stop? This leaves me speechless. This is the Encyclopedia Britannica, not the National Enquirer!

“Quarrelsome, quick to anger or laughter, they are unthinkingly but not deliberately cruel...They betray little shame, curiosity, surprise or grief and show no solidarity.”

Ron Lee was a bitter, angry man when I knew him. No wonder. I wonder whatever became of him?* As for me, if I'd read this before, I suppose I'd have bought every flower ever offered to me on the way to the Alhambra.

---

*After I read "I wonder whatever became of him?" I browsed around to see what I could find. Ronald Lee's website is called kopachi.com and it looks really interesting with lots of information and articles. I was really happy to find it; it cheered me up immensely. I hope you go visit the website. He was presented an honourary laws degree by Queen's University in 2014. Sometimes there are happy endings.

Food, football, friends — on an evening in summer

We had Cousin Dale (Estey) and his friend Lorna over last week. We were very anxious to meet Lorna and, of course, we wanted to make a good impression. We knew she had been a Shakespearean scholar at Cambridge and she’s a huge fan of football (footy! soccer!) and opera. We were pretty sure there would be no shortage of conversation.

With that in mind, I thought I should concentrate on the food. We had been having very hot days and I was pretty sure no one would want to sit down to a hot dinner. I knew for sure that I didn't want to cook a hot dinner.

I'm mildly obsessed with getting things done in advance. In fact, I've been known to go too far. Once, when we were serving a delicious pâté with crackers as an appetizer, I took matters into my own hands and before the guests arrived, I prepared a lovely plate of crackers with the pâté already spread. Don't try this. By the time the guests tried to pick up a cracker, they had all wilted like dead flowers and were just about as appetizing.

I've learned a lot since then and I'm pretty good now to know what can be done in advance. I started by making some beautiful lemony aïoli.

The recipe is from one of my favourite cookbooks which I wrote about here.

The aïoli can be made by hand, with a mortar and pestle and a whisk but, as you can see, I took the easy route and used the food processor.

At this point (above), the only thing left to do is add the lemon juice, to taste.

And there it is, in all its finished glory. I have to say, the garlic was very strong and when I took my first taste, I was quite impressed with the statement the aïoli made. It was hot but very tasty.

Because I stay up late anyway, I decided to cook into the night. I roasted some potatoes and barbecued some chicken to be ready for salad-making the next day.

Happily, everything was ready by the time our guests arrived and after a very short time, I think we all felt we'd known Lorna forever. As predicted, the conversation was wide-ranging and interesting.

Dan and I are not huge fans of football — he knows much more about it than I do — but we often like to share a broad global experience with others around the world so we did watch, on our giant TV, the final game of Euro 2016 between France and Portugal. The game was played at the Stade de France, the same stadium where terrorists had attacked just a few months before. France was a sentimental favourite. It was widely felt that a win would begin the healing process for the country which was still hurting.

I felt that way too and I was leaning toward France until Dan told me that this was Portugal's 30th appearance in a final and they'd yet to win. Oh dear. Imagine how those fans must have been feeling. I began to waver back and forth in my team favouritism and I realized at a certain point that I would happily accept either team as the champion. When Portugal won 1-0 in extra time, I was thinking of their fans and of their country and what it must have felt like for them.

I told Lorna this but she couldn't agree. Lorna and her sister had been watching the international friendly match between France and Germany on November 13, 2015, when the attacks happened. Like those who were in the stadium, people watching on television didn't know about the attacks until much later and by then, the extent of the death and destruction had become known. For Lorna, that game for France was very much tied up with that awful night.

This doesn't sound terribly cheerful but in general, our evening was fun and we discovered a lot about each other.

Our appetizer for this evening — which was assembled in advance and which didn't involve crackers — was smoked salmon and cream cheese on cucumber slices:

The aïoli and the roasted potatoes teamed up to make a pretty salad. . .

. . .and the barbecued chicken, in the company of prosciutto, olives, red onion, broccoli and tomatoes held its own.

I've spent a lot of time and space discussing the food and although food matters, the people we share it with are the most important element of a good evening. Making a new friend always feels good.

Flowers from Lorna. That's Her Majesty behind the flowers — solar-powered — waving in the window.

A little addition to our family — and how it happened

This is a very personal story. It's the story of how William joined our family and became our son. William is 21 years old now, has been working and attending Nova Scotia Community College and will be heading to university in September.

A variation on this story has been published in the no-longer-existent alternative Catholic weekly, Catholic New Times. It has also been published in the German magazine Spotlight.

It was written just before William's third Christmas. He was born November 29 so he spent quite a lot of his first Christmas as a precious gift under our tree.

This is the story much as I wrote it then. I made a couple of very small insignificant changes and I added photos. I hope you enjoy reading it.

---

I'll give you this much background: When my husband Dan and I met and married, we were both past the age where we expected to become parents. But we knew we loved and admired and respected each other, we had common life goals and cared about the same things, and we knew – as much as anyone can know such things – that, with our work and our home and our friends, we'd be a happy fulfilled family of two (plus three personable, sometimes neurotic, cats).

All that notwithstanding, one day we decided that we would take the Children's Aid Society's eight-week course called Orientation to Adoption. We felt pretty sure that we would never be able to adopt a child through an agency but we thought we would learn something and we might as well be prepared just in case something came up.

We went dutifully to our classes, listened to social workers and others involved in the world of adoption, and joined an adoptive parents' organization. We looked briefly into international adoption, read material about other alternatives, but never really turned adoption into a project that took over our lives – as we saw happen in some other families.

Whenever we mentioned our wish to raise a child, we seemed to get the same advice: tell everyone you know; tell friends and relatives, teachers and nurses, doctors and dentists. Eventually, the advice said, someone would know about a child available for adoption.

* * *

Adopting a baby has become difficult almost everywhere for reasons that most people are familiar with: more effective methods of birth control; an increasing tendency for single mothers to keep their babies; and greater access to legal abortion. So maybe it's not surprising that the first question we often get is, "how long did you have to wait?"

It's not an easy question to answer: it was 1990 when we took our CAS course, so perhaps we waited four years. But it was late October 1994 – about a month before our baby was born – when we got a telephone call from a doctor/friend who said, "I have a patient who will be giving up her baby for adoption. Are you still interested?"

We thought it over for about five minutes before we said, well, of course we are. Within a couple of days, we went to meet the mother of our baby. Together with the doctor, we had breakfast together and talked about our lives. She had two other children and a job that enabled her to raise them comfortably; she felt that a new baby would be an addition to her life that would upset a balance she'd been able to construct.

We told her about our jobs, our house, our neighbourhood and some of the values we held that we thought would be relevant to child-rearing. In fact, our values – the importance of equality for all, of alleviating poverty, of eliminating discrimination and racism – extended into our work: I was (and am) a writer and broadcaster working mainly for alternative media but I was also a regular TV and radio political panellist. Our baby's mother had seen me on TV and felt she knew something about me already. Dan is a longtime senior worker with the NDP and was much respected – as was his party – in Nova Scotia politics.

Two days after our meeting, the doctor/friend called and said, "She likes you. She wants you to adopt her baby."

There was a little confusion about the due date but it was thought that the baby would be born in about a month. So did we wait four years? Or did we wait – with some trepidation and superstition – for about 30 days?

* * *

Our baby was born in the middle of the night, November 29, 1994. We got the telephone call just after 7 a.m. Dan was already downstairs and took the call; I sneaked quietly partway down the stairs so I could hear his end of the conversation.

I'm not quite sure what I was thinking. I knew that we were committed to the baby – sight unseen, condition unknown. That was cause for a little apprehension. I knew we had respect for the mother and, although I didn't think she had changed her mind, anything was possible. I couldn't discern anything from Dan's end of the conversation: "yes", "no", "oh really." Until he hung up and I went down the stairs and he said, "It's a boy." I burst into tears, of course; I'm sure I would have burst into tears no matter what he had said.

* * *

In Nova Scotia, adoptive parents are required by law to be accompanied by someone during the first 15 days of the baby's birth. The law was enacted to protect birth mothers from being coerced into giving up their babies during a very vulnerable period. We felt no resentment at the law and Lynn was very happy to be with us as we went to get our baby from the hospital.

(We had – superstitiously – avoided filling the house with baby clothes, baby furniture, toys; we had even been careful about telling people. However, there were some things that had to be done in the month we had before the baby was born. We hired a lawyer. We notified the Community Services Department and learned the steps that would have to be taken to start the adoption process. We identified parents , friends of a neighbour, who were willing to be foster parents until the baby's mother signed the Consent to Adoption, enabling us to take him home.)

* * *

Just before one p.m. we step off the elevator onto the pre-natal floor. Donna, the baby's birth mother, and Jennifer, her three-year-old daughter, are in conversation with one of the nurses.

"Hi Sharon," Donna says, softly but quite cheerfully. She acknowledges Dan, our friend Lynn, and Liz, our lawyer. We last met her when she was eight months pregnant; today, she is tiny, slim, and doesn't look like a woman who has so recently given birth. "Donna and Jennifer will go in first," the nurse says. "I'll come back and get you."

I am nervous and shaky and don't know what to say to anyone. We all stand around reading the health posters on the walls. The nurse comes back in ten minutes and tells us we can go in.

Donna is holding the baby, bending over so Jennifer can see him. "Look at the little hands," she says. "Isn't that sweet?"

Jennifer is shy and not too interested; they're going directly from the hospital to see Santa Claus at the Mall. Donna looks at the baby affectionately and smiles. Then she passes him to me.

"I'm giving him to you now, Sharon," she says. I am so moved I can't speak, but she understands. It seems like a ritual to me, a small ceremony she's planned to make it easier. It's something that reassures me during the waiting period, that she has made her decision carefully and is unlikely to change her mind.

Getting baby dressed

Ready to go (with lawyer Liz)

Within an hour, we are hurrying across a snowy runway to board the plane for the short flight back to Halifax. I'm carrying the baby. It is December 1, 1994. The baby is 58 hours old. I am just over 50.

* * *

When we arrived back in Halifax, we took the baby directly to the foster home. For the next 15 days, Baby William Daniel (named after my father and his own new father) stayed in a small warm home with a young couple who had two children of their own and who – believe it or not – looked forward to having a newborn in the house again, if only for a few days.

I visited William several times during the 15 days and finally, we decided it would be okay to buy some baby clothes, some feeding equipment, some bedding for the beautiful antique cradle that had been lent by a friend.

William's foster parents loved taking care of him and assured us that he was an easy and good-natured baby. At the same time, for us, they looked forward to the happy day when he would go home with us – as we all did.

That day was December 16. The foster parents had everything ready for us to move him out; they had arranged a babysitter and planned a dinner out for themselves. We had the baby seat ready in the car. All day, into the evening, we waited for the phone call from the lawyer that would say everything was fine. Every half hour, we called the foster parents to say, "not just yet – but you go."

It was after nine when our lawyer called: "Go get your baby!" she said. We only heard later that she and the birth mother's lawyer had been missing each other all day to sign the final papers and had finally caught each other at a Tim Horton's. The call to go get our baby came to us from a fast-food pay phone.

And William's foster parents – in their going-out-to-dinner clothes – had waited for the call as well and were with us as William began the short journey to his new and permanent home. It was nine days before Christmas, 1994.

* * *

All of this happened almost exactly two years ago. For William's first Christmas, we had a lot of relatives and friends come over to see our beautiful tree – and a new baby. We were happy that so many of them brought books, dozens of books, for such a tiny baby!

With Alexa McDonough

That's John Holm, talking with Dan and Alexa. John got to hold the baby too.

With John Holm

With Ralph Surette

His foster parents were right. From the beginning, William was – and remains – a good sleeper, a good eater, a little fellow who seems to enjoy life. He cries only when he's hungry.

He was lovingly baptized on Easter Sunday, 1995, by Monsignor A.M. O'Driscoll, then-rector of St. Mary's Basilica in downtown Halifax, who had affectionately performed our marriage ceremony seven years before.

With Lynn, Baptism Day

* * *

Dan and I have never had any questions about whether we did the right thing. That just goes without saying. Our closest family – Dan's mother and brother, my sister, her husband and kids – all think this is a miracle for all of us.

So many of our contemporaries, sending children off to university or awaiting grandchildren, envy us this wonderful adventure – not because they're unhappy with how their children turned out; just because they think they'd do it differently now.

I too think that there are as many advantages as disadvantages in being mature parents. If we lack something in stamina, perhaps we have gained something in knowing what's really important in life. If we hate the music young people listen to, maybe we've been around long enough to know that good music (by all parents' definition, the music that we listened to) will come back. We don't feel that life is passing us by; we have friends who range from their 20s to their 80s and we know that William has something to gain from knowing all of them.

But there are still questions. For example, how do I feel when people ask (and they do!) if I'm William's grandmother? More to the point, how will William feel when they ask him if I'm his grandmother? (And they will.) And did Dan and I jump the queue? Is private adoption fair? Is international adoption positive – not only for children and families, but for societies and communities? We continue to look for answers.

But for now, we're looking forward to Christmas. Dan and I – even before William joined us – have always been Christmas people. We love to decorate, to cook, to entertain, to listen to the music, to go to Church. Last year, for the first time, we put our Christmas tree on a table to protect it from a completely unreasonable 13-month-old.

Tree on a table!

This year, I think we'll have a big tree again – bearing in mind that we still have those three cats and have always tied the tree to the wall with fishing line anyway.

We'll try to explain the birth of Baby Jesus and what that has to do with Santa Claus bringing toys. We'll teach Away in a Manger while knowing that we can't avoid those reindeer and wondering if he'll confuse them with the animals in the stable where Jesus was born.

Mostly, we'll be happy to see our own families' Christmas traditions carried on – the old stories, the old ornaments, the old recipes. And the most important – we'll teach that we should try to be together and enjoy it together and love one another.