From Grief to Gratitude: A Daughter's Farewell to Her Father
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From Grief to Gratitude: A Daughter's Farewell to Her Father
Honoring a Father's Legacy: Love, Loss, and Laughter
In this heartfelt episode of Suicide Zen Forgiveness, Elaine Lindsay tackles the complex themes of grief, loss, and memory, reflecting on her father's recent passing at the age of 92.
Through touching anecdotes, she shares his profound influence on her life, from his deep love for her mother to the cherished traditions and humorous moments that defined their family.
Elaine also highlights essential mental health resources, emphasizing the importance of breaking the stigma around suicide and mental health issues. This episode takes a special detour from its usual focus to honour her father's legacy, celebrating a life well-lived and the indelible mark left on those he loved.
00:00 From Grief to Gratitude: A Daughter's Farewell to Her Father
01:29 Introduction and Overview
02:34 Remembering My Father
04:55 A Love Story: My Parents
17:17 Family Traditions and Humour
23:46 Earl the Dead Cat
32:45 Final Reflections and Farewell
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Meet Earl
Transcript
Suicide Zen Forgiveness.
2
:Shattering stigma, igniting hope.
3
:I'm Elaine Lindsay, and my mission
is to end the silence, the stigma,
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:the shame surrounding suicide,
ideation, and mental health.
5
:We talk about the hard stuff,
because asking for help should
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:be as easy as ordering a coffee.
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:Here, we share real stories from
those who've lost someone, survived
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:an attempt, live with ideation, or
battle mental health challenges.
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:Why?
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:Because sharing your burden
can lighten the load.
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:Please note, Suicide Zen Forgiveness,
the podcast, is for education only.
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:Some of the subject matter could be
tutoring for those who are either
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:grieving or having mental health problems.
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:If you're in North America, you
can text 988 for immediate support.
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:And if you're elsewhere, please
reach out to your local suicide
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:hotline for mental health service.
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:You matter.
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:My aim is to normalize the
conversation so you feel safe
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:enough to speak up and ask for help.
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:So now, let's start the show.
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:It's good to be with you once again.
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:Normally, this show deals with suicide
loss, ideation, and mental health.
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:This show will be a little different.
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:It was prompted by death.
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:It's going to be about memories,
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:not suicide related.
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:Not per se.
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:It's simply about the
pain and grief of loss.
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:Just last week I talked about the grief
train, and I find myself re boarding
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:too soon, as even when you know it will
eventually come, it's always too soon.
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:Let me start by saying that I honestly
feel I am blessed to have had my father
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:until after he had his 92nd birthday.
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:I don't think anybody in our
family has ever lived that long.
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:See, my dad was diagnosed with dementia
a few weeks before his 90th birthday.
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:I feel very blessed about that.
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:Just
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:a year before, we lost my younger
and only sister in October of:
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:Things
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:got a bit muddled for my dad,
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:in this last year, things
have really changed.
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:Dad.
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:Now.
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:He has such a short term memory
that he often asks a question,
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:and before I finish the answer,
he's asking the question again.
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:We got to a point where he
would phone a few times a week
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:to ask where my mother was.
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:My mother died in 2012, and although
deep in dementia, they say it's cruel
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:to make people remember, he wasn't
far enough gone for me to lie to him.
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:I wanted to maintain the trust that we
had because I absolutely adore my father.
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:I have to say, I am somebody
who has absolutely no patience.
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:Okay, I know the universe is always
trying to teach me to have patience.
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:And the funny thing is, for my dad,
I have all the patience in the world.
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:See, he's my hero, and yes, I
know I say that in present tense.
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:He was such a good man.
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:He adored my mother from
the very day he met her.
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:My sister and I grew up watching
this incredible love affair.
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:And we saw all the good things.
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:That a man can do and say
for the love of his life.
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:Sometimes people say, children will
cement a marriage and they need the
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:children to keep things together.
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:We weren't needed.
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:We were a bonus and felt very loved.
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:Yet, we saw every single day
this incredible love affair.
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:My mom and my dad,
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:and it made a great impression, but
sadly, for my sister and I, it meant that
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:we had insanely high expectations for
anybody we went into a relationship with.
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:Dad wrote poetry to my mom.
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:He bought her gifts for
every and any occasion,
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:and he was sent off to Aden, Saudi Arabia.
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:Two weeks after they met.
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:He wrote to my mother
every day for 13 months.
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:When he returned, they
began to plan their wedding.
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:And when I was only a few
years old, my father and mother
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:chose to emigrate to Canada.
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:Now, I just have to say here, for
the record, Nobody consulted me, and
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:some of me is still a bit miffed.
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:See, my heart will
forever be in Edinburgh.
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:My parents, they gave up all
their material belongings.
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:Instead, using those funds to bring
my gran and my aunt with us to Canada.
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:Because the one thing I've been
taught my whole life is family
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:is the most important thing.
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:My whole life was lived by that principle.
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:It meant that my father,
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:when he got older, had only one wish, and
he repeated it a lot after my mom died.
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:He would stay in the house he and my
mother had bought, and he was only
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:leaving, in his words, boots up.
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:My job, as the now only
child, was to honor that wish.
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:Whatever it took.
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:And I am proud to say that's exactly
what I did with the help of my
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:husband and my son and my nephew.
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:Now,
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:we are in stasis.
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:Several factors have come into
play that require time and waiting.
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:And I must also honour this
lack of forward motion.
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:This is how I'll honour
my father while we wait.
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:I am not good at waiting.
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:Not for much, and it seems I pass
that on to my daughter and her kids.
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:Not wanting to wait for holidays,
birthdays, Christmas, etc.
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:It's taken to the extreme.
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:One year, she had us celebrate
Christmas on December 3rd.
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:But I digress.
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:My father died on Sunday, March the 9th.
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:In the wee hours of the morning,
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:being the only child left, and it feels
so weird to call myself a child, I'm
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:69 years old, yet that is the fact.
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:I am the only child.
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:We spent the day from that morning,
hubby and I, mostly waiting.
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:First, waiting for the doctor.
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:to call back so he could
come and pronounce my dad.
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:The doctor was with the palliative
care team and could not have
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:been a nicer human being.
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:We were also waiting for the priest.
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:My father converted to
Catholicism in:
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:Not as people presumed in order to
marry my Scots Irish Catholic mother.
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:He actually converted because he wanted
to become a Catholic since he was a boy.
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:My gran, his mum, was Catholic.
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:But she married my Church
of Scotland granddad.
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:And I don't know if she ever
got to practice religion openly.
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:My grandfather, I learned later
in life, was banished from the
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:family home for this offense.
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:Religion to this day is, can
be, still a great divide.
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:Now my father is the
epitome of a model Catholic.
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:They say that sometimes happens
with people who convert.
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:When my father and mother returned
to Ottawa at the end of the 70s, they
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:had been posted to London, England.
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:They settled in East End
in a place called Orleans.
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:The new development area didn't have a
parish of their own, not an English one,
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:and my father joined the committee that
built the church and the school in what
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:was now called New Divine Infant Parish.
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:One of the most important things
to my dad was that he found it
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:essential that he get last rites.
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:That was why we waited for the priest.
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:I have to tell you, waiting's
such a thing with me.
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:In 2012, when my mom died, it was
very sudden, and we were not ready.
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:And I ended up, because it was so
important to my father that my mom get
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:last rites, I actually sent two people
to the church to kidnap a priest.
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:That's a story for another day.
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:Waiting, again, we were waiting for the
funeral home to come and pick up my dad.
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:The
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:young men that came, eventually,
were very kind and considerate, and
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:one of them saw a Legion photo and
asked if my father was military.
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:When we told them yes, they made a point
of going out to get a Canadian flag
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:and his stretcher was draped with the
flag on the trip to the funeral home.
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:Which has become now for
us a marathon of waiting.
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:I was also waiting for a
return message from my nephew.
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:He was on vacation with
his family in Mexico.
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:I told him to go, but I was loathe
to contact him as I didn't want
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:to interrupt their vacation.
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:I didn't want to leave my nephew,
his wife, and their young teens
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:with a lasting dread of happy times.
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:I wanted to give them the joy
of vacation and wait to break
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:the news until they came back.
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:There was nothing that they could do.
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:that couldn't wait until
the following weekend.
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:Sadly, my son didn't wait.
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:He and my nephew had already
discussed this possibility.
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:And as this wasn't the first time
we lost someone in the family, while
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:one or both of them were unavailable,
my son called and told him.
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:Time seemed to stand still.
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:When I spoke with my nephew, we agreed
that he wasn't going to tell the kids.
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:Until they returned,
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:which was only a week away.
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:Better for them to enjoy their vacation
and not associate it with the loss
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:of their darling great grandfather.
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:All the grandkids called him GGD.
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:Time seemed to stand still
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:while we waited.
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:We left my dad's finally to come
back to our home at 8 in the evening.
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:We basically came home to wait.
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:While waiting, I started to go through
the photos, and I brought home the one
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:pet of whom my father was very proud.
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:I'm really excited, actually,
to introduce you to Earl.
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:Earl is my dad's cat.
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:Now, Earl came into our lives in 1985.
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:In fact, I bought him for my dad.
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:for Christmas.
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:He's dead.
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:I'm talking about Earl.
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:Earl is the dead cat.
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:Earl actually came with papers.
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:He came with an information booklet
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:and a death certificate.
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:Now I realize in all good conscience, I
can't leave that sentence hanging here.
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:Yet, let me go back to the beginning
and explain things a little bit.
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:Our family has a long history of giving
odd gifts, gags, and always going for
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:the laugh, the punny line, the old joke,
beating the horse long after it's gone.
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:It actually started with my Aunt Kathleen.
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:She was my godmother.
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:And she often said, when I was a
kid, that I would turn into an olive.
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:Because I was forever in
the fridge grabbing olives.
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:By age seven, I would get a jar of
olives in my stocking every Christmas.
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:My father would get a magazine
that we weren't allowed to look at.
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:And it was tsk tsked by the other adults.
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:And they were always laughing in
kind of a weirdly embarrassed way.
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:My father always looked
totally embarrassed.
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:But it was all in good fun, and my
mom would get some odd frilly oven
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:gloves or a spatula with eyeglasses
or some other such nonsense.
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:And it was just good, clean fun.
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:By the time I was 12, I
wanted in on the action.
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:From a mink stole made for
a Barbie, to silly hats, odd
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:socks, kinds of weird things.
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:A number of years, the little
silly gifts and olives continued.
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:In March of 1976, I was already
married and out of the house.
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:And my father was sent off on
a peacekeeping mission in Gaza.
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:I had my accident.
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:And my poor father had to wait by
the ham radio for three full days.
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:As they promised, the minute
I died, they'd put him on
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:a transport back to Canada.
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:I can't imagine having to wait,
but I was no longer Dependent.
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:And that's how they do it in the military.
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:Later that year, when my father finished
his tours, he was transferred to London,
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:England, where he, my mom, and my sister
stayed for more than three Christmases.
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:We spent them apart.
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:We fell off the joke wagon.
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:That is, until they came back to Canada.
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:Late in 1979.
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:Only two weeks after they came back.
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:My godmother, aunt Kathleen,
my mother's only sister, died
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:on holiday in Pennsylvania.
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:My father immediately got on a
plane to repatriate her body and
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:returned my grandmother to Canada.
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:My mother was totally devastated
for Christmas that year.
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:I decided to restart the goofy gift
tradition, to try and cheer up my mom.
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:Although I don't know how much it would
cheer up my mother, I don't know that she
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:ever really loved the silly gift thing.
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:My father, who of course adored
my mother, and worked each
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:day to try and make her happy.
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:I guess he, too, thought the
tradition required reinstatement.
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:I got olives in my stocking.
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:Thank you, Dad.
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:And that was the year I bought
my parents a 39 foot yacht.
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:Now, I didn't win the lottery.
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:Think of a little plastic yacht,
about 10 inches long, and it had
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:39 plastic bare feet underneath.
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:I thought it hilarious.
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:Actually, the whole family did.
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:I had always said I wanted to, do
things for the family, and this was
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:my idea of a joke about doing things.
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:For the next few years, I mixed it up.
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:One year, my mother and father came
home from a summer vacation to a
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:full cemetery in the front yard.
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:I had made headstones painted
cardboard, and They said things
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:like, Here lies dear old Fred.
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:A great big rock fell on his head.
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:There was one that said, R.
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:I.
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:P.
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:Old Ma Walker.
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:Non stop talker.
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:Ran out of breath.
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:Talked herself to death.
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:Another was, Here lies Johnny Yeast.
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:Pardon me for not rising.
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:I still think they're funny.
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:And my fave was Pastor Prime.
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:Now,
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:a couple years later, after an
incident with my brother in law
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:and peas, I absolutely hate peas.
259
:I thought my mother or father
had put one on my plate.
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:And when my mother finally
sat down to dinner with the
261
:rest of us, I threw it at her.
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:Yeah, I know that's not a really
adult thing to do, but I am who I am.
263
:We finally worked it out.
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:And next Christmas, guess what?
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:Can of peas in my stocking.
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:Still got my olives, though.
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:Which was great.
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:I think by now you get the bent of where
we are on the weird humor spectrum.
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:So let's get back to Earl.
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:My father grew up in a rather
poor area of Edinburgh.
271
:It was called Lower View Craig Row.
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:Now, not the posh area.
273
:Not glamorous.
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:It was actually known as the slums,
in an area known as the dummy dykes,
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:and it was near Hollywood Palace,
and the park, Hollywood Park.
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:There were cats.
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:Lots of people had cats.
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:They were the working
kind, they weren't pets.
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:And my whole life, my father never
understood anybody having a pet cat.
280
:He believed they were working animals
that kept the vermin population down.
281
:Ew.
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:In all honesty, we didn't
have vermin here in Canada.
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:And I so very much wanted
a pet when I was a kid.
284
:In my mid teens, I did
finally get a rabbit.
285
:My dad really liked him.
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:He was smart and he came
when you called him.
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:But it's not the same.
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:Anyway,
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:I
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:was finished all my shopping, pretty much.
291
:And I was in an area downtown
that's called the Byward Market.
292
:Back when we first came to Canada, it was
a lovely bustling little outdoor market.
293
:There were butchers and bakers
and utilitarian clothiers And
294
:a few bars and lots of stalls
selling fruit and vegetables and,
295
:in the spring, fresh maple syrup.
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:They had all forms, from little
shaped houses made of boiled syrup
297
:to jugs of the sweet amber liquid.
298
:Funny thing is, I never
really liked the maple flavor.
299
:Although getting a tiny sheep
that was sweet, that you could
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:just suck on all day was neat.
301
:In my 20s, the Byward Market had
lots of lovely boutiques, little
302
:boutiques and specialty shops along
the streets on the outside of the
303
:main area where the market mall.
304
:Or the market stalls were.
305
:And one of those little boutiques
was a place called the Pepper Pot.
306
:So I was with a couple of
friends and basically finished
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:with my Christmas shopping.
308
:We were just wandering through some of
the boutiques when I spied this flat,
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:splayed out form of the most amazing
And best, in my mind, gag gift ever.
310
:This was Earl.
311
:He had papers attached that
said, Earl, the dead cat.
312
:And on the papers, there was a tagline
that said, The last cat you'll ever need.
313
:He just screamed a present for my dad.
314
:He came with an actual Death Certificate.
315
:It says, Certificate of Death, Keddieville
Department of Health, Division of
316
:Vital Records and Health Statistics.
317
:And his is Certificate Number 429.
318
:His full name of the deceased,
it says, is Earl the Dead Cat.
319
:Sex is neutered.
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:It says his race is gray,
date of death was August 13th,
321
:1985, and his age was unknown.
322
:Name of the hospital of death, I don't
think I've ever seen that before.
323
:It's the Kittyville Cat
Clinic, all spelt with K's.
324
:And the name of father of deceased
is Horace, in brackets, Alley Cat.
325
:His birthplace is in
the Catskill Mountain.
326
:Mother's maiden name is Martha
Manx and his usual occupation
327
:is itinerant caterwaller.
328
:The kind of business he was
into was alley entertainment.
329
:And the source of information on the death
certificate came from Cornelius Calico.
330
:And then it says, cause
of death, immediate cause.
331
:loss of ninth life due to catatonia and
due to that was due to catting around
332
:other significant conditions
contributing to death.
333
:being let out of the bag.
334
:Describe how injury
relating to death occurred.
335
:He said he was catapulted
from catwalk by projectile.
336
:In brackets, old shoe.
337
:Injury occurred while
singing melon catty baby.
338
:And the place of injury was Katrina's
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Alley Café.
339
:Place of removal, Eternal Catnap
Memorial Chapel and Chinese Takeout.
340
:Remember, this was 1985, not
necessarily politically correct.
341
:To the best of my knowledge,
death occurred at 2 AM, it says.
342
:And the signature of attending
physician is mad dog.
343
:This was certified by
the city of Kittyville.
344
:Somebody put a lot of thought
into the certificate of death.
345
:And On the rest of the little
paperwork that came with him, there is,
346
:it's not a poem, it's just a lot
of little, what the cat does,
347
:rather, what the cat doesn't do.
348
:He doesn't eat smelly cat food, he
doesn't need a messy litter box, he
349
:doesn't shed, go into heat, or chase
cats that are, He doesn't wander
350
:off, so you always know where he is.
351
:He doesn't have to be put out
at night or let back in at 4.
352
:32am.
353
:Doesn't climb the draperies or mistake
the sofa for a scratching post.
354
:There's a whole bunch of other ones
that I will make sure are below with the
355
:transcripts, cause they're pretty funny.
356
:The whole thing was just Such a total gag.
357
:Now, bear with me here, because
I was excited for my dad to
358
:get this and find it funny.
359
:Never in my wildest dreams did
I think that Earl would live a
360
:better life than some people.
361
:Earl is very well traveled.
362
:Earl has been to Mallorca.
363
:He's been to London, Edinburgh,
California, Florida, Victoria and
364
:Vancouver, not to mention Calgary,
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and a
365
:number of other northern states.
366
:He's been to Germany as
well, and we believe France.
367
:And here we are now in 2025, and
it is truly the end of an era.
368
:All of the parents, In my parents,
or all of the people in my parents
369
:group, many of them were Scottish.
370
:Many of them became family of
choice because we didn't have
371
:a lot of family here in Canada.
372
:But we call them the party people.
373
:They love to sing and dance and
play all kinds of silly games.
374
:They've all passed.
375
:My father was the last.
376
:All
377
:I have left is Earl.
378
:He's gonna hang around our house
on the hearth near the fireplace,
379
:ready to inspire a story for
the next guest who visits.
380
:He's ready to gift me with another
stroll down memory lane with all
381
:the chuckles, the giggles, and the
additional stories that seem to pop up
382
:when Earl is the center of attention.
383
:Daddy, you may be gone.
384
:Yet your spirit, your sense of fun,
and that bent sense of humor, I
385
:too possess, and it will live on,
keeping you ever with me in my heart.
386
:I thank you for listening to me today,
387
:and I will of course be taking Earl
with us when we bury my father.
388
:He'll be going with a military send off.
389
:He was in both the RAF and the RCAF,
and also a United Nations peacekeeper.
390
:A piece of my heart will
go with him as well.
391
:I just want to say thank
you for being my dad.
392
:Thank you for showing me what it is.
393
:To live life well,
394
:and what fun is,
395
:and how to make sure
396
:that there's always laughter in
your house, and love in your heart.
397
:And I have to say, I feel incredibly
blessed to have you as my dad.
398
:I appreciate you being here today.
399
:And I want to say, as usual,
thank you for listening, and may
400
:you make the most of your today,
every day, and I look forward to
401
:chatting with you again next week.
402
:Bye for now.
403
:Voiceover: Thank you for being
here for another inspiring episode
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:of Suicide Zen Forgiveness.
405
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:com.
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:Thank you for listening and
we hope to see you again.