My name is Gilles and this is my journal.

To start with let me say that I have missed coming around here. I made some good friends here last winter, Taz, Lilliebet and Blast just to name a few. You people not only helped me with my computer problems but also encouraged me to take an active role on the site. Life being what it is however I dropped out of sight a few times.

One thing I have come to realize is that I like to write about stuff that matters to me. In fact, I started a blog entitled "Stuff that matters to Me" but I tired of it rather quickly. Why ? Because blogging is just a wee bit difficult. Sidebars, links, etc. That's not for me. When I want to write I just want to sit and write, period.

So I've decided to keep a journal here, where I have made some good friends. By the way, I know it's supposed to be a journal, and journals normally mean you write stuff and people read it and leave it alone. Well, if anybody wants to comment on anything I write go ahead, that's fine by me, in fact I'd love it because then I'd know somebody's reading.

So this is my first entry. More to come.

It's Sunday night and as I write this my wife is driving our son back to the hospital. Hopefully he'll be home to stay soon.

It seems like ages ago, hard to believe it was only a week ago last Thursday that we took him in. It started when I got a call at work from his school guidance counsellor. She said my son was in her office and either I or his mother should come pick him up and take him to the hospital. I said I would come right away but I would also try to call my wife as she had the car and could probably get there faster. Then she asked me if I wanted to know what was wrong or would I prefer to wait until I got there. Up to this point I thought it was something to do with his diabetes but the way she asked the question left no doubt that something else was going on so I told her to fill me in.

I will remember her next words for the rest of my life. "We have your son here and he wants to kill himself and he has a plan for doing it".

The rest of the day passed in a blur. We picked him up, took him to the hospital and got him admitted. He was assessed and we were told he'd have to spend a week or two.

The next week was the hardest I have ever gone through. My son was on the "psych" ward, and my wife and I were back and forth to the hospital asking questions and not getting any answers. He's sixteen you see, so the staff don't have to tell you everything. That's damn hard to accept when it's your son, the kid you raised and thought you knew. Suddenly he was a stranger to us and nobody wanted to tell us anything. My wife was incredible through all this. She antagonized the staff something fierce but she got the answers we needed.

The first time I went to visit him alone was so incredibly sad. I wanted to talk to him but he was just so sad and I was sad for him and we both cried and then we felt awkward and spent the next hour looking at our watches. By the time I left I just wanted out and I cried all the way home thinking that he wanted to kill himself and nothing I could say could stop him from doing that. After everything we'd been through together it was the worst thing I've ever felt. You've heard the expression "like a knife through the heart ?" Well, it's true, you can feel that way because I felt that way for days. Still do.

Anyway, he was home for the weekend, and now he's gone back, but hopefully he'll be home to stay in a few days. He's got a lot of work to do, and we have a lot of work to do but I love him incredibly, wildly, unimaginably, hugely, and every other "ly" you can think of and I don't want him to die.

My father used to say "you do what you have to do" and I guess that's what I'll do.

Think I'll tell a little story then take a look around, see what's changed.

The day after my son was born I went to visit him and my wife at the hospital. My wife had been in labour for 36 hours so she had quite a go of it. During that time she often asked me to massage her back and I did so, a lot, a real lot !

The next day when I went to visit my hand was so sore I couldn't move my fingers. I mean, it really really hurt.

I mentioned this to my wife, expecting some sympathy. I didn't get any.

I wonder why ?

My son is supposed to come home from the hospital today and although I'm excited I'm also scared.

He's been in hospital for a little over a week but he isn't really well yet. What do I mean by this ? Well, here it is.

He's gone through a few things in the past and there was always something concrete to point to, some test, some result, something I could look at and and say "this needs to be fixed so let's find someone who can fix it."

When we went through the brain tumour scare several years ago the doctors pointed at a picture and said "There it is. We need to fix that". When he was diagnosed with diabetes in the spring the doctors pointed at a test result and said "his blood sugars are high, we need to fix those."

This isn't like that. Apparently he isn't suicidal right now. How do the doctors know this ? They asked him some questions and he answered them and they said "okay, you can go home."

Did they take a picture of his brain ? No.

Did they do a test and say "take this and you'll be fine now ?" No.

Did they say "you have been fixed, go home and forget this ever happened ?" No.

What they said was "you're okay for now but you'll need a lot of help to figure out what brought you to this point, and unfortunately we're not equipped to offer you that help so go home and find someone who can."

Until now, whenever it came to his health I always felt I could fix things. Not me personally but somebody.

Last week, for the very first time I said to my wife "I can't fix this" and it scared the hell out of me.

A couple of summers ago, my daughter, who was 5 years old at the time developped a fascination for bees. Bees were the greatest, they were our friends and she loved to watch them. Trouble is, she didn't understand that they sting.

One day while we were playing in the back yard I noticed a huge bee. You know the kind, big, black fuzzy thing about the size of a helicopter. Anyway, I called her over so she could watch it as it was buzzing from flower to flower.

She walked over all excited and upon seeing it asked me to catch it for her. Not wanting to tell her it would sting me if I tried that instead I told her that I didn't have a net to catch it with. She said we had a bug net in the garage and I should go get it. Again, not wanting to scare her I told her that I could not get to the garage and back fast enough because, you know, daddy can't run that fast and it would probably fly off first. She came right back with "Okay, you entertain it, I'll run and get the net".

Have you ever stopped to think about all the things friends do for us ? I mean, really think about it ?

I've been away from work a lot lately dealing with stuff. My boss, who is also my friend, has been very kind and compassionate throughout. This morning she came by my desk and offered to take some forms to our HR department for me. She didn't have to do this, it was up to me, but she did it anyway.

When my wife and I were at the hospital the last few weeks a friend picked our daughter up from the bus several times, often keeping her for hours. She even kept her overnight once. With everything else that was going on it was a great relief not to have to rush back home every afternoon and to know that she was always in good hands.

Other friends brought food and called or came by to ask how we were doing or if we needed anything.

One of my son's friends, to whom I will be forever grateful, took the initiative to let the guidance counsellor know when he told her he wanted to commit suicide. She probably saved his life.

Pretty awesome.

The OldGuy and the Little Blonde Kid
- a story
- see blog

http://oldguy.castlecops.com/

About 5 minutes after I submitted the story about the old guy and the little blonde kid I started to sweat. Here I was submitting a children’s story. People would think I was nuts, gonzo, completely crackers. I was tempted to go back and delete it or write something else instead.

The more I thought about it though the more I realized that I wanted the story to stay. Why ? Well, here it is. At the top of this journal I said that I had started a blog entitled “Stuff That Matters to Me” where I was going to write about (drum roll please !) stuff that matters to me. Stuff that has happened to me, stuff that has impacted my life, stuff that I enjoy doing, stuff that I struggle with.

This story matters to me. It matters to me because it made my daughter laugh, it matters to me because it made me feel good to write it, it matters to me because I’m proud of the effort that I put into it.

A couple of days ago I was chatting with Liz and we got to talking about why we enjoyed writing. Liz said she did it because it made her feel good about herself, she felt she had achieved something in the actual writing. Didn’t matter if anybody read it, she did it and that was the important thing. I commented that while I enjoyed it for much the same reasons it was also important to me that people read what I wrote. Not because I’m vain, not because I want to be able to say, “hey look, I’m up to 687 reads, pretty good eh ?”. I want people to read it because I want them to feel something, joy, sadness, whatever, as long as they feel something. Now don’t get me wrong either. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me when things go wrong, or think I’m loopy when I write about some silly little incident that made me happy. What I want is for people to read the journal and say “that’s too bad, hope things get better” or “that’s funny, I can just picture him trying to do that” or “yeah, I remember when that happened to me, what a time that was." In short, I want to stir an emotional response in people or call up an old memory for them.

So sometimes I'll write about stuff that happened today, sometimes I'll write abour stuff that happened years ago, sometimes I'll just write about stuff that I think about, but I'll always write about stuff that matters to me.

Think I’ll leave the story where it is.

I'm not up to waxing philosophical today however I couldn't finish the week without mentioning the good things that have happened so I'll just list them:

- found a wonderful psychologist for our son; hopefully they'll "click"
- got an offer of help from a friend here; I was surprised and overwhelmed but then that's what friends do isn't it ?
- won the bi-weekly draw at work; not a lot of money but enough to take the family out to dinner
- logged into CCSP from work and got fast page loads for the first time in several months

All in all, a pretty good week.

I’m adopted. This fact never really mattered much to me because I was adopted at a very young age ( 3 months) so as far as I was concerned the people who raised me were my parents. Also, I always knew I was adopted, that is to say, I was raised knowing about it so it wasn’t like I found out one day and it was a terrible shock.

Some people go searching for their birth parents later in life but I never did. Oh sure I would get curious about my birth mother once in a while, and ask myself where she was now and did I have brothers and sisters out there that I didn’t know about, who wouldn’t, but it was never more than idle curiosity. Never was this curiosity strong enough to become involved in the bureaucratic nightmare that is the search for a birth relative.

Because being adopted was not important to me I always thought that when I had children some day I would feel the same way about them whether they too were adopted or were my biological children.

All that changed when my son was born. I don’t know why but it was like he was “my blood”, “my kin” as they say in the movies. I never really understood that expression before he was born but I did then. It just felt like he was literally a part of me.

I’m not saying that adopted children are not deeply loved by their adoptive parents, certainly I was. It’s just that I now felt different about the whole thing. A couple of weeks ago I said to one of the people at the hospital “you need to understand, HE’S MY SON, MY BLOOD”.

I guess that’s why I feel as deeply as I do about him and my daughter. They are my blood and for some reason that is so very important

I was on the bus on my way to work this morning and saw a beautiful sight.

It’s a very cold day and the river is starting to freeze over, with patches of ice covered in snow. There was a mist over the river and because there’s no wind today it just hung there obscuring the hills behind. The whole scene looked very calm and peaceful.

I started to think about it and realized that if you really look around you see things like this all the time, you just have to be paying attention.

Years ago I took a photography course. One winter morning I got up early to take some pictures down by the river. When I got there the sun was just coming up and the effect was awesome. Several branches had ice hanging from them and every few seconds the sun would catch one, creating fantastical rainbow effects. First this one, then that one, sometimes several together. It was like being surrounded by tiny prisms, every one of them reflecting the sun. I sat down and watched until the sun had moved enough that it was no longer shining on them.

Here’s another one. Again, winter time. Funny, I always complain that I don’t like winter but maybe secretly I do !. Near our old apartment there was a field that had one tree in it, just one. It wasn’t much to look at in the summer, but in the winter after a fresh snowfall it never failed to impress me. As I’d go by there on the bus in the morning I’d look at that old tree in that field and think to myself “still hanging in there eh, good for you.”

A couple of summers ago we went to a friend’s cottage for the day. That evening after the sun went down the fireflies came out in the field. I hadn’t seen fireflies since I was a kid and it was a wonderful sight. Hundreds of little blinking lights hovering over the field, moving this way and that, like Christmas lights in the summer. Needless to say I just had to go back in and get my daughter to come out and watch. She absolutely loved it.

Want to see something really fantastic ? Go into your children’s rooms at night after they have fallen asleep and watch them. It doesn’t matter what age they are, just watch them sleeping. This will make you feel good every time. It’s especially wonderful if you’ve had a bad day or the children themselves have given you grief that day. Watching them sleep reminds you of why you love them.

My daughter and I love to do silly stuff together. You know, like see who can burp the loudest, or change the words to a song so it's funny.

A few weeks ago, when things were rough at home, I came home from work one day and after saying hello to my wife and son went to play with her. After a couple of minutes we were both laughing together and it felt good.

When I thought about it later I realized that I had needed to laugh, it was the only way I was going to make it through the rest of the day.

When I was putting her to bed that night we started up again and after a few minutes we were once again laughing like fools.

I wanted her to know how important it had been to me that she made me laugh that day so I told her "you make me laugh."

For the next few days every time I felt lousy I would play with her and sure enough, after a few minutes I would get laughing again. And at night when I put her to bed I would again tell her "you make me laugh."

The first couple of times I said it to her she would respond something like "yeah, whatever" because she didn't understand how important it was to me that she had made me laugh.

Then one night I said it to her just before she feel asleep and she looked at me and smiled and I knew that she had understood that she had made daddy feel better.

When I was growing up we had a tradition in our house that I still remember to this day.

Every New Year's day we would ask my father for his New Year's blessing. My mother probably asked for us when we were very young but once my brother and I were old enough we were expected to do it.

Every New Year's morning we would figure out whose turn it was and then one of us would ask him for the blessing. We would then gather in the kitchen or the living room and he would say a prayer and bless us and wish us health and happiness for the upcoming year.

I never realized how important this tradition was to my father until one year when we forgot to ask. Later that day my mother came to us and said that my father was waiting. I can't remember which one of us finally approached him but I do remember that his face lit up then he got very serious while we knelt before him and waited.

Now that I look back on it I realize that my father saw the blessing as his duty and his New Year's gift to us; his way of asking God to watch over us while also reassuring us that he would do the same.

My wife and I had an experience in customer service (or rather lack thereof) yesterday that was quite unpleasant.

My wife made an appointment with a certain office in December and called back later to cancel it. Through a series of miscommunications the office was not made aware of the cancellation so was trying to get hold of us about the appointment. Anyway, long story short my wife made contact with the office yesterday, two days before the appointment to say that she had cancelled the appointment some time ago.

Here’s where things get interesting. A couple of hours later the secretary called my wife and proceeded to berate her for canceling the appointment at the last minute and for not returning her previous calls. She told my wife that she did not understand how the system works and that she (the secretary) would see to it that my wife never gets an appointment again from anyone in this city. She then said a few other choice words and hung up.

Throughout the entire conversation my wife was attempting to explain her side of the story but she never got the chance. When she got off the phone she was shocked, angry and visibly shaken. I was quite upset as well.

I called the office back and left a message for the secretary to call me back, which she did a few minutes later. She tried to bully me the way she had bullied my wife but I would have none of it. After several minutes on the phone she finally, grudgingly, apologized and promised that we could call back for an appointment at any time. If the time ever comes I intend to hold her to her word.

So what is the crux of the issue here ? It was the way the secretary treated my wife. Period. Nothing else. Nada.

Why do I say this ? Well, I have been in customer service for more than 10 years now and I can assure you that if I had ever treated someone that way I would have been fired on the spot. I don’t care who said or did what before this, the treatment my wife received was absolutely shameful. Not only that but the whole incident wasted approximately 1 hour of our and the secretary’s time. We were also left with a very bad taste for this office.

Now, I’m not blowing my own horn here (well, maybe a little) but if I had been on the other end of the phone this whole issue would have been resolved in five minutes and everybody would have gone away happy. How do I know this ? Because I do this sort of thing every day and I’m good at it. I even train other people how to do it, and I’m good at that too.

Here are a few important concepts to keep in mind when dealing with people. They’re not that hard to remember and they fix almost any problem; tact, courtesy, diplomacy, discretion and professionalism.

Too bad some people have never heard of them.

I’m not a television addict but I do like to watch a few hours a week. Takes the mind off things for a while, allows me to relax. Or at least it used to.

The problem is finding something good to watch. The last couple of years have seen the rise of so called reality shows and these now fill the airwaves. Every time I turn on the tv, or telly as some folks refer to it, (that reminds me of Telly Monster from Sesame Street; now that was a good show, lots of big stars and great skits. But I digress) I’m treated to scenes of people eating bugs or building campfires on remote islands so they can cook an itty bitty fish that wouldn’t feed an infant or walking a tightrope between tall buildings. Or sometimes it’s a beautiful woman or a handsome man trying to decide whom he or she will spend the rest of their lives with. Or the next few weeks if they eventually realize they can’t stand each other.

And speaking of spending, there’s usually money involved. Big money ! Like a million dollars if the winner eats the bugs, doesn’t get thrown off the island, gets the girl or guy, stays in the haunted house for a night, or whatever.

I saw one a couple of years ago where the contestants had to answer questions and if they got the wrong answer John McEnroe would fire a tennis ball at their heads. Well, not at their heads exactly but at a net hung near their heads. After all, can’t have people getting hit by tennis balls traveling in excess of 100 miles an hour. They might sue the network, maybe even sue John .

Does anybody remember “The Weakest Link ?” Now there was a fun show. Get a wrong answer and a woman in a long black coat who looked like a reject from an old Hammer film (gosh I used to love those, Dracula, Dracula has Risen from the Grave, Bride of Dracula. Classics all. But I digress again) heaped verbal abuse upon you. Maybe teachers should try this technique in school. That should get our kids attention eh ?

Of course we have the dysfunctional families too. Can’t forget them, makes us feel like we’re not alone. “Hey Dad, look, they’re just like us !” You know who I mean, the rock star who has trouble putting two words together and his brood and the mobster’s daughter from New York and her merry band.

The list goes on. Some last forever and some get axed within a couple of weeks, only to be replaced by something equally bizarre.

So what’s wrong with these shows ? Most of them are so far removed from reality, at least my reality anyway, that they should be called science fiction. My reality does not consist of eating weird foods, spending days and nights on remote desert islands or applying for a job with Trump Enterprises. My reality consists of eating chicken nuggets and fries, maybe steak on weekends, going to the same job every day and coming home to my family at night.

I’d rather watch a rerun of MASH or Doctor in the House than one of these shows any day.