Happy Anniversary Aggie

Yesterday was December 28th . . . that would have been 40 years of a very happy marriage with Aggie. For supper I made a pizza, and I had pizza with two glasses of red wine.

The Day After Christmas

Third evening in a row! Dinner with Friends. I spent yesterday evening with the Harders, from Inuvik. They were spending Christmas at their Tagish residence . . . all four families of Harders. Presents, presents and more presents . . . I have never before seen so many wrapped Christmas presents in one place. So many that they had to spread the gift opening over two days. A very nice, very well balanced, happy family. And they always remember the real meaning of Christmas.

And a big thank you to the Harders, and the Lavoies (spending Christmas in southern Alberta and BC), for the presents I received from them yesterday.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and all the best possible for you in the coming new year.

Christmas Dinner

Yesterday afternoon Sandi invited me to Christmas Dinner at her house. It was a wonderful afternoon/evening. Supper was superb and included, caribou, bison, and turkey along with about half a dozen types of vegies done to perfection, and a dessert of fine French cheese, fresh dates, brandy chocolates, and marzipan cake. A good choice of red and white wines were available before, during and after the meal. And something that is very rare these days . . . the meal lasted 5 hours.

And the eclectic subjects of conversation were were also great. I especially enjoyed the pioneer stories by Sybil about traversing the Chilcoot Pass and canoeing and kayaking to Dawson in the old days.

Also, as an aside . . . we all felt the presence of Aggie.

Sandi, you’re great! Thank you.

My Christmas Eve

Yesterday evening I was invited to the Freeman’s residence for supper. Wow, I can truthfully say that I can’t remember ever having baked ham as delicious as we had last night. Everything else was also great. Thank you Shirley and Bob, it was so nice meeting your family and I had a wonderful time.

When I got home, there was a Christmas Present hanging on the outside door knob. Thank you Sheila, thank you Miki, for the nice hair piece, I mean nice warm hat. But you should have stayed awhile.

 

Keep Christ in Christmas

Today is Christmas day. A day in a period where more and more people want to make it a vacation from work, and when the rich always do, even at times other than at Christmas. A time when commercial predators make a large percentage of their sales and many non religious, non christians, and many of faiths where Christmas does not mean much, want to selfishly disassociate Christ from their, and everybody elses agenda.

I am a Catholic. Now don’t think that I dislike people of other religions or that I dislike people that for whatever reason that is their own business, have no religion. Up until 1961 I had never stepped inside a church of any kind. Then, when I was in my twenties, *I chose* to become a Catholic. I am very happy that I did. Since then I have been a lay leader in the Church, I was on two occassions a Grand Knight in the Knights of Columbus and I hold a fourth degree in that organization. I will always be Catholic. There are things I dislike about the Church but that happens with parishoners in all churches. For example, I think, for many reasons, that priests should be allowed to marry. That’s my opinion, but whatever I disagree with, is never going to be enough to drive me away from the Church.

Now, about Christmas. Too many people want to make Santa Clause the spirit of Christmas, leaving out any connection to Christ, the true spirit of Christmas. Love, peace, good will, hope . . . that’s Christmas. That’s the spirit of Christmas that should be kept alive year round. It means Jesus’ birthday, whether some people believe it is only the time of the winter solstice or whether some people believe it is an ancient celebration of the Sun, or whether some people live by the Old Testament, or whether it is not the *exact* day of His birth, or whatever . . . nobody should try to kill Christmas. If you want to worship the Sun or the Moon or if you don’t believe in anything, go ahead, but it is not right for *you* to try to make *me* take Christ out of Christmas any more than it is right for me to try to take the Menorah or other symbol away from you or for me to impose my beliefs on you. Also, trying to create equality by saying that if I display a beautifully decorated Chirstmas tree in my store (if I owned a store) I should also display a Menorah or a whatever, that is a part of other religions, is dumb, stupid and crazy. That is the same as saying “I don’t like Christmas trees, get it out of my sight”. During the Christmas Season, if Jesus calls, he is on *my* list. I *celebrate* the birth of the central figure of my faith.

Regular communication with God, regular prayer time, helps to keep me true to what I believe. If more people believed that the meaning of Christmas included love, peace, good will, hope, all year round, there wouldn’t be any outcry against keeping Christ in Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

(If you don’t like me saying “Merry Christmas”, okay . . . take it to mean whatever you *do* like. I have nothing against that. But I will continue to say “Merry Christmas”)

Aggie’s Finest Painting

There now is a photo of another pastel painting by Aggie in the “Aggie’s Gallery” portion of my website. I named it “Aggie’s Scene” because all her paintings were untitled. In my opinion I think it is Aggie’s finest painting. You can see it here.

403 Permission Denied

The last two days were spent trying to figure out why access to some files on my website, and links on my blog site, were giving me mostly a “403 Permission Denied” error and other files were giving me a “File Not Found” error. The “File Not Found” error was easy but involved changing those file extensions to .html from .htm. The much bigger problem was the 403 error. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with my file permissions . . . and everything there looked proper. This whole problem started for me a few days ago . . . but it may have been obvious to others before that. I recently migrated from Windows to Ubuntu Linux so there were a lot of links with the .htm extension created with the now extinct “FrontPage” program. I recently changed to “Nvu” when I said “Hello” to Ubuntu.

To make a long story short, what I did to fix the problem was change the problem files, with their links, to .html extensions and locally re-saved the problem files with .html extensions. Then re-uploaded to the web host. *Eureka* everything looks fine now. Lastly, I re-linked the blog links with the new .html extensions.

Aggie’s Celebration In Inuvik

Yesterday evening I received a telephone call from Sheila in New Brunswick telling me that Aggie was having a Memorial Mass in Inuvik. I was very happy for that, because at her funeral the Catholic Church was afraid there would be too many Anglicans asking for communion so Aggie was given a combined Anglican/Catholic Service instead of the Catholic Funeral Mass that I had initially requested. Because Aggie’s family was Anglican, most of the people at the funeral were not Catholic. It was however a very good funeral service for which I was very grateful.

So yesterday, at the first anniversary of her death she was finally having her Mass. So, a great big *THANK YOU* to the priest Fr. Matthew, Sheila’s sister Miki (who also called me last night), Doug and Jill; and Heather with her husband and child who also attended the Memorial Mass (I wonder if they received communion). And a big *THANK YOU* from Aggie whom I know was also very pleased. This has bothered me for a whole year . . . now I can put that to rest.

Aggie Didn’t Die

It was exactly one year ago today, in the Inuvik hospital, that Aggie passed on. I was at her side. I had stayed there with her for more than 24 hours straight. Early in the morning more of her family arrived and more friends. Aggie didn’t talk for the last two days . . . every breath was a struggle. At 12 noon Aggie passed away, silently. I was very very sad and I cried loudly, uncontrollably, but at the same time I was glad she didn’t have to suffer any longer. I was ready for this . . . somehow . . . if that’s possible, and I also think that Aggie was ready.

At this time, December is not a happy month for me. However, I believe that before long this will change. It will again at some point be a month of celebrations as it used to be. And every December 19th, will be included as a day for celebration. Aggie was a great woman. She loved everybody and we loved each other greatly. We were always together, for more than 39 years, with only short periods when my work took me away. Everything we did, we did together. Everything we planned, we planned together. Not even one evening, did we ever go to bed with any anger.

Aggie didn’t die. She left her body behind. She had a road to travel last December 19th and she did. When she was here, with me, she could factualy say “I am”, and she can still say that. I know that whatever happens she will go on loving me and I also know that whatever happens, I will go on loving her. The divine plan is life itself. First the plan is life in eternity and second it is life here on earth. Death allows you cross, from one home to another. Aggie’s soul is real, it will always remain. Her soul is *her*. This should be a day of celebration . . . not a day of sadness. Aggie didn’t die.

Aggie is still a great woman. She still loves everybody, and we still love each other.

 

Time Goes On

Here is a psalm I wrote while in Inuvik when Aggie was in the hospital there. Click on the title to view: TIME GOES ON By Roger Ulasovetz.