Sunday is my mother-in-law’s celebration of life. My husband and my brother-in-law are working hard on its preparations. 

The event is weighing on my husband. Between writing a eulogy and preparing his mother’s ashes— spooning off some into vials for her grandkids, I can see he feels blue. 

Family is flying in for the celebration. We are hosting a few. They are sharing old stories, chewing over past. The fights. The good times and the bad. The divorces and the relationships that lasted. 

Monday and Tuesday my leads and I were in San Francisco training up my replacement. It went well. He is smart and curious. 

One of my guys joked that I am in my lame duck phase. I had a good laugh. 

Work finally feels like it’s winding down. I’ve encouraged my team to think through their parting requests. What conversations do they wish someone would have but won’t because it’s career limiting? What do they want to blame me for when I’m gone? I’ve been through enough reorgs to learn that you can hide a mistake every time management changes. You can’t hide too many mistakes because that looks like excuses and finger pointing. But one well chosen mistake… go for it

“This project is coming in late because the old boss didn’t put resources on it quickly enough.” No one would know the truth. 

We’ve been in Calgary since Friday and are now on our way back home.

Friday evening, we had dinner with my friend SJ who coincidentally was here on business. 

Saturday, we went on a long ebike ride along the river. In the evening we had dinner with our friends A&D. 

Athabaska Glacier

Today we hiked the Athabaska glacier. The sense of scale doesn’t come accross in the photos. Everything is enormous. If you zoom in, you will see little black flecks on the glacier. These are people. 

Sulphur Mountain

Banff

The rain has let up so we have been exploring Banff. The view is glorious. 

My sister in law may have pushed herself too hard yesterday. She is stiff and sore today. Hopefully this will go away over the day. 

Johnston Canyon

My sister in law is recovering well! She can go to the bathroom again and, with some assistance, walk.

Things are going well for us in Banff. Despite the rain, there are many things to do. My husband has been catching up with his coworkers. 

My sister in law is recovering. It will be a few days before we know how well. She has a fever and a UTI that are now under control. Sensation has returned to the parts of her body that were previously numb.

My brother is very frustrated and angry at the medical system around him. I’m not sure how to read this. Anger and frustration have always been his main tools for dealing with disagreement. He has not learnt the arts of navigating and negotiating in complex situations. My sister in law may be getting the care she needs. Or she may be in a system that is overtaxed. 

I shut up about my situation. My husband and I are being spoiled in Banff. We listen to my brother vent and try to help him understand the process that’s going on around them. They may both be expecting rapid recovery, though the reality is that recovery will take weeks. It’s not easy to coach patience when she spends every waking minute in pain. 

My middle brother’s wife has had a turn for the worse. She had a surgery to remove a cyst that was along her spine. A day after she was discharged from the hospital, she started to regress. They ended up life-flighting her back to the hospital. An MRI revealed a blood clot and pressure buildup in her spine. She had an emergency surgery overnight and is now recovering. 

My coworkers are planning a retirement party for me. It will just be my local coworkers as most of my group is elsewhere. 

Happy Memorial Day.

Lunch with my old coworker went well. He thanked me for reaching out and lamented that he and his wife are both nerdy introverts, so they don’t have many social opportunities. 

He enjoys being retired. He has to put more effort into finding something meaningful and challenging, but that’s not a bad problem.

After lunch my husband and I drove down to C3 and QJ for an afternoon bbq with the AA crowd. I enjoyed. Too many sweets. 

Tommy wrote...

Your Mother-in-Law, from your description, was a Free Spirit and was directed by her own feelings and desires. Hopefully, her sons share that Spirit of Personal adventure.

My Mother-in-Law was a free spirit. It imparted very different lessons on her sons. While, they do both have a healthy spirit of personal adventure, they also have a craving for the stability and family that they never experienced as a child.  By and large, they are much more balanced. 

This memorial weekend is going well. The weather is cooler and cloudier. Saturday, we went on a long walk along our local beaches. 

Sunday, I am having lunch with an old coworker who is "exploring retirement." We both left the big-tech-company the year before COVID. Then a few months back he was laid off. This story is not uncommon.  

My mother-in-law's celebration-of-life is in a couple of weeks.  My husband and his brother are busy planning. There are a surprising amount of logistics.

She had multiple ex lovers and husbands. At one point her sons started a serious discussion on which of the ex's should have their picture displayed at the celebration. My brother-in-law cracked that he wanted all the exs to be displayed in chronological order. They broke out laughing as they struggled to name them.

My actual birthday was uneventful. The weather was pleaseant. 

My husband was away in Alaska for work.  This was his last work trip before retirement. 

My friend C2 traveled over for a dinner. We ate at a nice local fish-and-chips restaurant. Afterwards we walked along the beach, chatted and let the dog paw at all the smelly things in the sand. 

I was wondering about the long silence. ...Roderick

I am flattered that you were curious. Honestly most days have been routine-- work, maybe errands, meals, a little exercise, a little entertainment.

My birthday is Wednesday. Sunday we hosted my birthday BBQ. It was good to have people over. The cake was delicious. 

My brother-in-law shared an update about his family tree. Usually I don't blog about the lives of others. I'm making an exception here. I love this story. 

For a while I've known that my brother-in-law is only a half brother to my husband, though I’ve never known the full story. There is no doubt that my husband is his father's son. They look very similar. My brother-in-law, however, looks very different. 

Decades ago when my parents-in-law first met, my father-in-law knew my mother-in-law was seeing other men. When she became pregnant my father-in-law married her without question. Through out his life my brother-in-law was treated as a full son, never less. We all have great respect for my father-in-law because of that.

Flash forward to 2018. My brother in law is now sixty and curious about the details of his family tree. He had his DNA tested at Ancestry.com.

The results were unexpected. While his parents were German and Czech, he was 50% Mexican. 

My brother-in-law approached his mother about this discovery. She was embarrassed,  evasive and confused. She claimed she had never dated a Mexican even though the tests said otherwise. Eventually she recalled the name of his biological father who she insisted was Spanish. Not Mexican! Spanish!

 

My brother-in-law did some initial research and found that his biological father had passed away years earlier. With that, he set down his investigation and moved on. 

Over the next few years, Ancestry.com would occasionally point my brother-in-law to potential cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles and other distant relatives. He never pursued those connections.

At one point an aunt reached out to him and said "I'm the keeper of our family tree! I'd like to add you. How do you fit in?"

My brother-in-law responded that he was not ready to be a part of a new family tree. 

A few months ago Ancenstry.com matched a half-brother. The half-brother reached out to my brother-in-law. They started texting and slowly getting to know each other. About a month ago he flew to California to spend a weekend with his half brother and his wife.

As it turns out, their biological father had several kids with different mothers. This is why so many of them were on Ancestry.com. They are all reaching out, searching for lost relatives and building new relationships with those they find. They have welcomed my brother-in-law with open arms. 

I'm happy for my brother-in-law.

The weather has been perfect lately. Pleasant during the day. Cool sleeping weather at night. Wonderful sunsets for just to enjoy should we walk along the beach in the evening.

It sounds like the executives are about to make an offer for my replacement. I've interviewed him. He's a good guy. I'm staying out of the final decision which is fine as I don't have to live with the consequences. 

The org seems to be past the shock of all the departures. There is still some anxiety, but no one is asking "Am I next?" Hiring my replacement will help.