Today Would Have Been My Dad's 78th Birthday

Today is Mother's Day. It is a day that fell quite often on my father's birthday, May 8th. Sadly my dad passed away almost 20 years ago in his 59th year after a 7 month battle with brain cancer. Nixie was only 11 years old then. She came daily with her parents to the hospital to see her "Papa Eric", as she called him. Papa Eric called Nixie his "Big Chief" because of her First Nation heritage. She was always a loving, healing soul, kind to all those who crossed her path ever since she was a little girl.

Her mother used to come home and find several kids from the playground in her house invited by little Nixie because they looked hungry or being sponged off because she didn't want them to get in trouble going home dirty from the playground.

In the hospital when her Papa Eric was so ill, there were times visitors had to overflow into the family room, provided for those with relatives in Palliative Care. On her way down there to watch television one day Nixie, passed the room of an Alzheimer's patient calling and crying. She stopped in to talk to "Libby" and calmed her down. For the months her Papa Eric was in the hospital, Nixie became a regular visitor to "Libby" who didn't seem to have any family. With the permission of the nurses, Nixie would spend time with "Libby", talking to her, eventually combing her hair and telling her she was pretty. "Libby" was always calm and happy when Nixie was with her much to the gratitude of the nursing staff, patients and their families in this ward where emotions were raw and quiet time is paramount for all concerned.

13 years later, Nixie's great-grandmother, my grandmother was gravely ill from kidney failure as a result of Diabetes and again she was there to love and heal. By then 24 years old, she would visit the hospital regularly sitting for long periods by her great-grandmother's bedside, holding her hand, applying lotion to hands and feet. She came across an absess which had been there a while, pulled a pot of shea butter from her purse, applied it lovingly to her "Mama's" boo boo and not surprisingly to me or anyone who knew Nixie, the abscess healed within 24 hours.

This year, Big Chief has joined her Papa Eric and Mama in heaven taking her place among the angels doing the work of the Great Spirit and being guardian angel her four children, three nieces and one nephew she left behind.

Happy birthday Dad and Happy Mother's Day Nixie, forever in our hearts until we meet again.