Tag Archives: separation

2013 The Year My World Changed

2013 started out with good planning for my daughter’s University, comfortable in my job and secure financially, no committed man in my life but hey who needs one right I had a comfortable part time relationship with a good reliable friend.  We hung out together when it was convenient for us both without any strings.  So it was all good until March.

First, my daughter’s step dad decided that his child support was going to cease in April once she turned 18 and he was NOT going to contribute any funds towards her university even though he has been the only father this child has known and our agreement stated that he would support her as long as she was in school.  He was not even man enough to tell this to my face.  I had to email him several times to get him to finally tell me his plans, which gave me no time to plan for the shortfall.

I have drawn up the papers for court and have been assured that if I were to purse I would win the support for my daughter, but at the same time that I was chasing to get answers from him I was advised that my lung cancer had returned and this time because both lungs were affected surgery was not an option as it had been in 2011.  In other words I was terminal.  The cells were too small to biopsy so a wait and see approach was taken.   I was also to be laid off my job due to a down size.  So, I needed to focus my energy into survival mode.

By end June financially I lost three quarters of my net income per month with my credit cards maxed to get my daughter to university, pay for my car loan, insurance, credit card debt and by September food and housing.  Then at September found out I had a stage 4 cell in my neck which was why I could not stand for any length of time causing horrific pain.  Immediate radiation was required. At which point finding work was impossible.  So, my Employment Insurance status had to change from being able to work which I would have maintained until April, 2014 to only 15 weeks on sick benefits, which means at end December, 2013, I had no guaranteed income.

So, where do I go next because the reality after working for nearly 35 years is that I could be in a month without any income and potentially homeless.  There is something wrong with this picture.   I was forced out of a job in the 1990’s by corporate layoffs and restructure and unable to secure permanent employment because of age and the change in the way corporations hired, only contract positions were available.  Leaving me and many other early boomers open to future financial insecurity, no corporate RSP’s contributions or health benefits and such salary reductions making it difficult to take out personal contributions or benefit plans. As a boomer, I and many others were literally living from pay cheque to pay cheque to survive.  So to meet with a serious health crisis and unable to work you have no recourse but turn to the government and social programs for help.

Well let me tell you the difficulties with that.  First there are the applications both federally and provincially.  When you are ill it is very hard to get out and have the energy to pick up and complete these multi-page forms.  In the case of the Canada Pension Disability Plan the wait could be up to four months.  The Ontario Disability Support Plan will not even allow an application until unemployment insurance is exhausted and by then you could potentially have zero income waiting a decision and all this to receive less than $1,065 a month.  How people are supposed to live on that is beyond me.  I can’t even add Old Age Pension because I’m not 65.  Not a fitting end after 35 years of working.  So people will say but you should have paid into a pension plan and put money aside.  I say to them try doing that as a single parent and keep in mind that the cost of separation takes its toll and unless you jump into another relationship you never fully recover.  Fortunately, my daughter is building her life at university and becoming independent, so a little less stress for me.  Although, as a mother the debt she is incurring without any financial help to purse her studies is worrisome.

So for me my reality is that I’m a new empty nester about to potentially lose my car, my life insurance and I need to look for cheaper housing.  This situation not of my own making now makes me one of the country’s poor.  A first for me but somehow I will survive this set back as I have survived so many other adversities in the past.

First I have to kick some cancer butt and fight to live.

 

Marriage No. 1 … but who’s counting?

ringsAs I mentioned in a previous post during the mid 70’s I was being treated for Hodgkin’s disease. I was nineteen and had just lost my baby Cory, seven months old to a crib death and within six months was told that I had cancer which landed me at the Toronto General Hospital with Dr. George Scott. Over the next, few years I was in survival mode being treated with massive doses of radiation and chemotherapy. I was still in school, holding down a job at the Le Coq D’Or Tavern, the heart and soul of Toronto’s disco era on Yonge Street and still doing a few modelling shows all while taking treatments. The modelling helped me keep some focus on my appearance and health and I was always a clothes horse, a pair of shoes for every outfit in my closet. Lost all my beautiful hair but was able to wear very lavish wigs to cover the baldness. I remember waking up one morning and finding streams of hair on my pillow and feeling my head which was so soft and totally stripped of even the hair follicle. It was terrifying especially, because no one told me that this would happen.

I was at the last stages of my radiation treatments for this period. So, I was functioning and one night decided that I was going out to listen to some music, dance and just hang out at the club. I can still see the outfit I wore. Baby pink bell bottom pants, halter top and fuzzy baby pink bolero to hide the radiation marks. I wore my long wig and I was looking pretty hot and it is in this outfit that I met my first husband Glenn.

He was this six four black American up from Buffalo, New York. I spotted him as soon as he walked into the club, and he spotted me. Took him about half an hour to work his way over to my table with an opening line of “hey, pretty lady why are you all by yourself” my quick response was “I’m not all by myself I have a room full of people.“ He then proceeded to sit down and we talked about him mostly. I wasn’t about to get to personal about myself after all, I was just covering over a very sick shell playing at being well. We danced, and I truly enjoyed his height and aura of dominance. He was a Vietnam vet and at the time of him telling me about it I thought how exciting and romantic to have gone overseas and fought a war. Little did I know?

Our relationship progressed from that chance meeting to several dates over a few months and everyday telephone calls. He found me exotic, different and very sexual and I found someone to take me away from the insanity of what had been my life up to that point. I was in love with being in love and believed for once here is someone who is going to take care of me and protect me from all harm. For a girl who had never travelled it was so exciting traveling back and forth between Toronto and Buffalo. My best friend Di and I would even hitchhike between borders. [There are some very interesting stories on hitchhiking for another day]. When three months later, Glenn asked to marry me… OMG the dream of a lifetime to be married isn’t that the normal progression of a normal life how could I possible turn that down.

GMThe day of my wedding, I’m sitting in my mother’s kitchen bawling my eyes out and thinking to myself, I am making a serious mistake, but it was too late to change this course. I was not prepared to be whisked of that day to Buffalo to live and when I arrived it was culture shock. His mother hated me; I was not one of crowd. She was very skin colour conscious and in her mind I was a high yellow, stuck up slip of a girl with no street smarts. We lived just outside the projects. After a few months I realized that Glenn and his friends had some very serious mental health issues due to their tour in Vietnam. As veterans they were all very messed up. They all suffered from serious (PTSD) Post-traumatic stress disorder. A mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event such as war, symptoms included flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. He and his friends drank and did hard core drugs a lot, just to cope with getting through their days. They talked about the shooting, and killing of the Viet Con all the time, his best friend Bennie who before going to war was in med school and was a medic during the war shot and killed himself shortly after our wedding.

After about eight months, our relationship became very strained and I suspected another women. I also did not follow the rules of black community, instead of working downtown Buffalo where every other person of colour worked, I got a job in white East Aurora, NY. Glenn was always suspicious and paranoid about everything especially when he drank and one evening after coming home from work I walked into his fist and ultimately the hospital. I told him before getting married that if he ever put his hands on me that that would be the end and when this happened, a week after my recovery I packed up my dog and few belongings and told him to drive me to Toronto. He dropped me off at a friend’s home and that was the last I ever saw of him. His parting words were “I hope you are kidding” and then three or four months later I received a notice of divorce on grounds of abandonment which I did not contest and was free again… Lots more happened during that one year period, being assaulted coming home one night, seeing a man get gunned down in the middle of the street, refused an apartment because I was black and just generally not understanding and being overwhelmed by the American black white conflict. I came from Canada, I was off mixed race and racism existed but it was subtle, with American’s it was in your face front and central. I wasn’t tough enough for that world and I realized it and got out. End of marriage number one and upon reflection it was a marriage of desperation on my part, I wanted so to be loved, cherished and normal with the husband, little white house with the picket fence and 2.5 children. The Barbie dream… but I’m no Barbie and this marriage was a lesson learned and I was quick enough to not become a victim for years as so many other women of that time did. Marriage number one ended but who’s counting….