Four Long Months: Masquerade

Halloween 2011



Most people spend the majority of their life trying to fit themselves into the role they believe society has written for them.  Personally, I have worked my entire life to be the professional that I am now. I never once questioned if that was my one true calling or if I would be happier doing something else altogether.  I just followed the lead of my parents and siblings before me and put my nose to the grindstone, buckled down and worked my life away following the dream that I was told to have. The few times I tried to break from that predetermined path, it was by half measures and I resisted the breaks as much as my family and friends discouraged them.  One will always fail if one is determined to fail. My one success was Calista; I spent a lifetime training her to follow her own path and define success by her own terms.  I truly believe she understood that happiness is defined by yourself, rather than what society tells you it should be.  A favourite line I used to say to her was "Mozart is probably the most famous musician of all time and yet he died a pauper, owing money to everyone. Don't define success by wealth".

I like to believe that Calista's infatuation with fashion statements and costumes mostly stemmed from her effort to constantly redefine "Calista".  "Calista" was not one constant person, Calista was an constantly evolving character who never felt bound to fit into anyone's peg hole. Calista was independent without being contrary. She did not feel obliged to flow against the tide or march to the beat of a different drummer just to to be "different". When Calista followed her own current it was because it served her own sense of destiny. She also never really felt obliged to drag anyone along with her. She was neither a leader nor a follower, she was just Calista.




I know we dressed her
this way, but that outfit was
really a favourite for years.  That
"Please Mom" stuff was pricey
but durable.



 

Holidays were always a big deal around our house. Not so much from my end of things, but Roni really liked to go overboard on the seasonal decorations. Christmas was a six week affair with every form of decoration imaginable filling every corner of the house. It was as if I had my own little North Pole elf who dedicated her life to making my home into Santa's work-shop.  Easter was no different, nor was Thanksgiving.  We have several very large, very full Rubbermaid Totes for every season filling our basement.  Halloween was not overlooked by any means; we have ghosts and ghouls, tombstones and bats and, yes, numerous costumes collected throughout the years. Even quiet and demure little Roni has a few costumes packed away, some of them really quite questionable for public consumption (her "Loreena Bobbit" costume was always a big hit with women; not so much men though). Calista looked upon Halloween as her special day; she could wear anything she wanted without anyone so much as blinking.  She took full advantage of that nearly every year right into adulthood.


Halloween in Regina is always a difficult celebration to plan. Typically the winter snows hold off until November, but the sub-arctic cold that comes with the prairie winter usually strikes just before Halloween. October 24th you can be outside comfortably in shirt sleeves and Halloween night it can be minus fifteen degrees Celsius with a blistering North wind that takes the wind-chill to minus twenty or lower. There is precious little loitering outside done on Halloween; "Trick or Treat" campaigns are more of an exercise in physical endurance than fun. One thing a parent learns in the prairies: always have two costumes planned: one for school or parties and one that fits over a snow-suit for doing the neighbourhood rounds. Lots of kids just surrendered to the cold and traipsed about dressed as "Skidoo Racers" (read that: just put on the bulky snow-suit and a helmet, grab a handy pillow case and run before the little kids get all the candy). We quickly followed suit once we learnt the "Tricks and Treats" of Halloween in the prairies. Of course, sometimes it was hard to separate costumes from regular clothes with Calista; there tended to be a lot of overlap with that girl.

 

Not a costume: she dressed
herself this way

Hats were always to be worn
sideways, Gansta-style. For years.

 

 

That smile: it was always there
Sometimes with more teeth,
sometimes with less teeth.

 

The fetish for cheap sun-glasses started
early.

Road-warrior Calista. Escaping the Yukon
in December 1995.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Roni found this one.
Note the winter cover-alls on me.
It was minus-fifteen Celsius with the
wind chill that year.

Disney-couture junior-sized.

Some of the costumes we put together were more elaborate than others, and I am afraid some of them were more about helping Uncle Walt Disney make a profit on his latest video release than they were about being creative.  One year "Esmeralda" of "The Hunchback" fame was very popular. The difficulty that year was not getting her into the costume; it was getting her out of the darn thing.  She wanted to wear it to school before and after Halloween and I think she actually was caught dancing around the house as "Esmeralda" into the new year.  I think that was the period during which she was sure she could sing: gypsy tambourines and off-key singing was oft heard in my house for months after that.  Calista never could carry a tune, nor did she ever have much sense of rhythm; all those years at the dancing academy were pretty much a bust.

 

One Halloween was particularly memorable, if only because Dad got overly involved that year and tried to ruin it for everybody. 

 

Anyone that knows me understands that periodically I will get a bit obsessively creative and just start some massive artistic project with little or no planning and absolutely no capability. My wife has learnt to just tolerate my "Mr Toad" moments over the years, but I know a few people along the way who have thought me just a little mad at times.

 

One Halloween it crept into my head that I could build a pair of angel's wings for my girl that would be so far over the top that the neighbourhood would talk about it for years.  My inspiration came from the John Travolta movie "Michael"; I thought I could do at least as well as Hollywood when it came to giant angel wings. I didn't actually consult either Calista or Roni if they thought it was a good idea; I just ran out and started gathering supplies...without a clear plan on what I was doing.

 

First thing I did was build a frame out of heavy-gauge (number 9) wire. My angels wings were going to be 4 feet high and wide. I ignored the fact my child was barely four foot two at the time (or I more likely I did not even think about it).  I then started layering the best quality paper-mache mix from "Michael's" with stolen newspapers ( I hope my neighbours did not notice the missing recycling stacks from their garage).  I managed to build up a pretty impressive set of wings over several sleepless nights hidden away in the basement.  Once I had the basic form completed, I contoured the wings so they had an arch to them. I thought they were pretty darn cool at this point. It was about this time that Roni and Calista caught me puttering away at my creation down in the dark recesses of the basement.  They immediately started finding problems with my creation.

Roni's first criticism was that wings usually have feathers; my wings had paper-mache and white painted newsprint. The second thing Roni pointed out was that the wings weighed a minimum of twenty-five pounds and stood four feet tall. Calista at this time was only about sixty pounds and about 4 foot 2.  Calista then asked how I planned to mount them on her back.
 

Well, I am usually a reasonable person, but when I am in one of my obsessively creative moods, you just cannot discourage me.  The plumage was a minor issue as far as I was concerned; nothing that a few bags of craft feathers from "Michael's" and twelve hours with a glue gun would not cure. The weight and height issue was waved off as "minor"; my Calista was far stronger than she looked. The mounting issue was the fly in the ointment.  How to get those suckers to stay on Calista's back.  She declined my offer to just staple them on.

 

I finally settled on butchering a perfectly good nylon back-pack to make a harness for my wings of glory and I conquered the height issue by mounting the wings really high on her back so the tips did not drag as she made her rounds.  Roni solved the feathers issue by giving up a night's sleep to glue about ten thousand pink feathers onto my paper and wire monstrosity.  Needless to say there were very few smiles coming my way for about two weeks.

 

Before the angel fell.  I was just a little out of control \
that year.

The costume would have been a great success if the weather had held for just one more day. Unfortunately that brutal north wind coming howling down on Regina about 5 o'clock Halloween night, clocking in at about 50 kmh with gusts up to 100 kmh.  Who would have thought that a 60 pound child with a four foot wing-span could fly that far on one gust of wind?  We only made it half-way around the neighbourhood that night, most of it dressed as a "Fallen angel" because one of the heavy wings broke during a particularly lusty winter gust.  I was lucky the cold wind kept the trick or treat crowds to a minimum that year; we ended up with lots of left-over candy to compensate Calista for her practically empty pillow case.
 

 That was the last year I was allowed to get creative for Halloween

Always have two costumes. This
was a simple outfit for a school party
on the infamous "wings of glory" year.

She stopped doing the "trick or treat" rounds
quite young. It was always about the costume and
never the candy for her.  She answered the door dressed
like a neon purple witch one year.

.

Before I give you the impression that Calista in costumes was just about Halloween, I should move right along to high school.  What would high school be without costumes? It would be just a routine education, and there was never anything routine about Calista.

Calista really embraced her years at Martin Leboldus Catholic High School. I think she was on student council three out of four years, dedicating much of her time to elevating school spirits by...wearing crazy clothes?  Some of the best pictures Roni and I have of that kid involve something termed "decades week".  It was a real blow to Roni's ego when her closet was raided for "vintage" clothes for a costume.  Roni never quite saw her wardrobe as memorabilia.  That being said, Calista really seemed to be in role when she was dressed to mimic those big-hair days of the eighties.  I guess Roni had all sorts of "eighties" memorabilia (of course neither she nor I consider the eighties all that long ago; I guess that ages me.)  One thing I really have to emphasise here: Calista never considered herself to be "too cool" to jump right into whatever was going on at school with both feet. Her absolute rabid zest for living life fully started to come out during those four years. There is a lesson here;she showed us all that it is better to act and live with the consequences that to sit idle and live with regrets of what could have been.  I doubt she ever regretted much of anything (though that God-awful pink rubber wig left much to be desired when it came to tasteful decoration).

future Calista.  I'm not
sure why the pink rubber wig, but
it got lots of laughs.

Super-hero Calista. I guess cat's-eye glasses
and a cape make you "super"

Don Johnson and his posse during 80's week. Big hair Calista
was aided by the queen of big hair, Roni.



Easily my favourite picture from her high school years. I think this
was supposed to be a "hippy costume", but this was, again, one of those
areas were reality and fantasy blurred.


.






"Jackie-O" Calista.  I'm not sure this was actually
a costume. There was always a fine line between dressing
and dressing-up.







We still have this mask stuffed in a box in the basement.
Just another piece of flotsam and jetsam from a life cut
short.

One year, when she was in Grade 11, Calista became convinced that one of their proms should be a masquerade ball along the line of a Venetian celebration with masks and everything. She already had an elaborate Venetian mask, feathers and all, on her wall and I must admit I thought it was a superb idea. Unfortunately her colleagues on the student council did not share her vision. Some of her choice comments about the affair had to deal with a "control freak vice-president"; I kind of thought the term "control freak" was a little like the pot calling the kettle black at that time in her life, but smart fathers know when to keep their mouth shut.

It was with great pride that I read one comment in Calista's high-school year book the other night: she was voted the girl with the most unique fashion sense in her graduating class.  In this progressively more bland world where independent thinkers are often pounded down by the logo-covered  homogeneous masses, ``my unique`` girl was applauded. Her honour roll diplomas were not nearly as satisfying.

I know it's not a costume, but
doesn't she look like some Hollywood
starlet.  Very Marilyn Munroe.

In the scant three years she survived after high school, her sense of "self" changed dramatically.  Without the peer pressure of grade school constantly chipping away at her individuality (we all remember those horrid years of high school; the bullies back then were most likely to be wearing designer jeans and wearing only this year's colours), Calista started to blossom into a person who could and did get away with wearing truly original outfits.  That line between dressing and "dressing-up" was fading with each passing month.  I wish I could have seen the final result; Hollywood stars would have been impressed.

Marie Antoinette.  She painted a red "cut here" line on
her neck.  And I am pretty sure she did not bend over
often in that dress; it was very short. Dad was not there to
council on proper dress length. Not that she would have listened.

A self portrait while she was putting together
her "pin-up girl" look.







Roni and I still cannot figure out how she did
this by herself. That is all her own hair. She did it
because she could.  You have to love a girl who
would do something so silly "just because".


 

Just to show you two things: costumes are for
everyone and I have the easiest going cat
in the world.  Calista did this just to show me
she could. Merry Catmus.

I believe that Calista was more than just a girl who liked dressing well and dressing up. I could see a maturation process happening, especially over that last pivotal eight months. I am positive she had embraced the concept that you create your own reality and you define your own happiness.  She tattooed "Believe in the Impossible" on her left shoulder and she was certainly trying to live that way.  Calista was  destined to be successful but not necessarily because we (society) saw her that way, but because she defined her own success. As one of her friends so epically tattooed on her left side in bold letters "Life is too short to be anything but happy``. She certainly seemed happy. And her life was short.

 

The seasonal decorations will stay in storage now. Originally we started the decorating for our daughter and she loved it. As she matured the decorations became part of the family tradition and, for Calista, coming home for the holidays meant coming home to decorated ambiance.Unfortunately, for us, home is where our daughter is and the decorations will just underscore her absence.  Lots of things are stored in our house these days. The remnants of an entire life actually.

 

 

She was about fourteen. I took this with my old Canon Rebel with a telephoto while sitting at Spanish-West in Vancouver. I loved this picture and still do. It sat above my desk at work for years. You can almost see her West-Coast Dreaming.



Three Months, Three Weeks: Tattoo You

Tattoos really are a unique art form that carry so many connotations both good and bad that I am sure entire text-books have been written on the subject.  Many cultures condemn tattoos and at least one time in human history having a tattoo could get you killed and skinned to make lamp-shades. On the other hand in some cultures having a tattoo is absolutely normal and often considered a rite of passage into adulthood. Certainly the Polynesians of the South Pacific believed that every great warrior should be heavily tattooed; that it would give him some magical protection in battle.  There might be some truth to that too; the frequent mild infections that resulted from old-school tattoo methods likely stimulated that warrior's immune system against many common bacteria. In Western Culture being tattooed has always been contentious and remains so today, despite the apparent popularity of tattoos lately.

In my parent's day only the sailors, soldiers and juvenile delinquents had tattoos.  I know both my mother and father tended to look down their twinned noses at people with tattoos and probably refused to even deal with people that had extensive skin-ink.  There was just that assumption that "those" people came from the wrong side of the tracks ( That term actually meant something in my parent's day. Hell, there is still that stigma attached to many Prairie towns: if you are a born North-ender from Regina, you are from "that' side of town. Same goes for Lethbridge, Alberta.).  I actually have a friend from Atlanta Georgia who, as a corporate executive, would refuse to hire people simply on the basis of having visible tattoos. He believed anyone who felt obliged to display skin-ink was far too much of an individualist to function well within a corporate environment.  And there is the stigma that really does accompany the ownership of clearly visible tattoo work: the belief that getting tattooed is some sort of rebellious act.

Perhaps over the last ten years getting a tattoo has become more acceptable and maybe even popular. I am not sure this is a good thing and I suspect that the cloistered subculture that revels in skin-art find the new popularity of tattoos quite irritating much of the time.  The fresh-meat newbee who proudly flashes his tiny tribal art or oriental kanji "flash" tattoo (stock and trade fodder off the parlour wall) hidden high on the fleshy part of his arm is basically just some Johnie-come-lately jumping of the popular band-waggon. Let's just ignore that most of the people sporting oriental kanji tats have no idea whatsoever if the kanji actually means what they were told it represents. There is a lot of mystical and meaningless nonsense etched on the bodies of the XYZ generations.

 On the other hand, all tattoo collectors started somewhere and all those first "tats" are small, trial balloons. My own trial balloon was a tiny "yin-yang" sign hidden on my left pectoral. In truth, while tattoos have definitely become more acceptable, the true tattoo collector who has "full sleeves" or a "full shirt" retain their original mystique. The person that has extensive skin art really is just a little different or unique; once your tattoo work starts overflowing your clothes you can consider yourself a member of the tribe of the committed. Tattoos really do hurt; nobody would get extensive work without being truly committed.

Everyone remembers their first tattoo. My own little yin-yang was unplanned really; I did if for love rather than desire.  Roni, Calista and I were vacationing in Maui, Hawaii when Calista was about 13 months old. I mentioned to Roni that an old friend of mine had got one of his tattoos at a well known parlour in Lahaina called "Skin Deep". Immediately Roni took it in her head that she wanted a flower (hibiscus I believe) on her left shoulder.  I had no issue with a small flower on her shoulder so I agreed to drive the thirty minutes down the highway to Lahaina. I would take Calista, do some window shopping, catch some rays and Roni would get punctured by a razor sharp, ink covered needle thousands of times.  Seemed like a good deal to me. Little did I know that Roni thought I would be a knight in shining armour and act as the guinea pig: I had to go first.

I guess she talked me into it somewhere between Kihei and Lahaina, because when we arrived at "Skin Deep" I was the one that stepped up to the desk first. I could see the contempt in the young Australian artist as I picked the first colourful "flash" out of the catalogue: a tiny "rainbow" yin-yang I thought would be subtle enough that my mother would not disown me if she saw it.  I guess the implication of the "rainbow coalition" flew right over my head (or did not exist back then?)  Anyway, I think the obviously irritated tattoo artist was half-way through the tattoo before Roni realised that I was never going to admit to her whether it hurt or not (the entire point of me being a guinea pig).  I think she kind of knew that it did hurt; the rigid smile on my face hiding my gritted teeth was her first hint that being punctured by needles repeatedly was not nearly as much fun as it sounded. No, if I was getting skin art, she was too. It was her damn idea anyway.

Calista was instantly taken by the new skin art. At thirteen months of age Calista had very few recognisable words at her command; Daddy, Mommy and a few choice curses to embarrass us in public. For some reason "tattoo" (pronounced "dadoo") was immediately assimilated. Her fascination of tattoos was just about on par with her interest in wall art; she could spend half an hour tracing the new and quite sensitive tattoos with the tip of her finger.  I am not sure she ever actually lost that fascination with skin art. As long as I can remember she had a collection of fake tattoos stashed in a treasury in her room. Over the years the subject matter matured with her from "Care Bears" to "Skull Candy" as her tastes changed, but they were always there on her arms or in her room.  Roni and I realised early on that we had to set some ground rules about skin-art when it came to our baby. Like it or not, she considered her body just another painter's canvass.

Right off the bat, the first time Calista mentioned getting inked, we said absolutely no until she was eighteen. I always told her that I was never going to give my consent, so she was going to have to wait until she didn't need my consent.  It was never about any prejudice against tattoos; it was about maturity.  I wanted my daughter to have enough life experience behind her that she knew what she was all about before she made a permanent personal statement with her skin. And that brought us to the second rule Roni and I set with regards to tattoos: any art she got done had to be deeply meaningful to her at the time and hopefully for her entire life.  I  forbade (or at least loudly derided) anything stupid like a boyfriend's name or initials. People come and go in your life, some with more grace than others. Nobody really needs a red heart with "Buck" in the centre of it unless "Buck" was a treasured childhood pony. I kind of suggested that, as an artist, she should consider designing her own tattoos or at least having a lot of input into every piece.  Tattoos should be deeply personal and I tried to convince her to make them so.

Something must have stuck with her because her eighteenth birthday came and went and there was no sign of any appointments at the tattoo parlour. What she did do was take her tattoo design and selection seriously. I saw many hand drawn designs; dragonflies were quite popular for several months. Many of the designs were serious efforts presented to either Roni or me for approval while many others were little more than marginal doodles pencilled while a particularly boring lecture at university played out. Calista had fully embraced the idea that tattoos should be an important personal statement; to the day she died she scoffed at anyone that would select a "flash" off the wall or out of a catalogue. Real tattoo aficionados designed or directed their own work and it always meant something.

Calista's first "tat" was the memorable saying "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" that I have previously discussed.  She had that piece done on her right fore-arm when she was living on her own in Regina after Roni and I had moved to Powell River. I never really discussed it with her but now, of course, I wish I had.  I really would have liked to know her reasoning for the selection of that particular passage, especially in light of her death.  It was big and bold, but hardly as fancy as I expected from my colour associated artist. To tell you the truth I was a wee bit disappointed.  But then, disappointment is common in impatient, ignorant people that cannot see the forest for the trees. She was not finished.

She wrapped the quote.



Inscription from Regina, Snitch from
Ink Nation Tattoo, Courtenay

She wrapped the "dwell" quote with her third tattoo, a massive "golden snitch", a golden winged ball who's capture wins the game of "Quidditch" in Harry Potter. Her version was very attractive, done in a gold and bronze colour pattern. This was a very impressive tattoo and I recognised my daughter had a plan and I should just keep my mouth shut.

Black Rose Tattoo, Courtenay BC.

Just before the "golden snitch" tattoo she snuck  a beautiful but under-appreciated butterfly from "Black Rose Tattoos" in Courtenay onto her right shoulder.  I cannot say I even noticed that tattoo until the last weekend she was home. I remember being shocked when I first saw it and having to cover my ignorance when she told me it had been there for months.  I never really looked at that tattoo closely and to me it was "just another butterfly". It was not until I started thinking about this post that I looked at that art piece closely and I realised what a superb job the tattoo artist had done on it. The bronze shading with the black gives an almost antiqued look to the butterfly and the fine line work holds up well even under close scrutiny with magnification.  This artist really knew what they were doing.

Its not a painting: welcome to the wonderful world of Calista,
where even a photograph takes on Impressionist flavor.
Ink Nation, down on 5th, Courtenay. At the bridge.

Sometime in the late winter, in early 2012, Calista was given a photojournalism assignment to highlight a local business. She decided that a tattoo parlour would prove to be rich ground for a budding photographer, so she ingratiated herself to the staff  at "Ink Nation' down on 5th in Courtenay and settled in for a long haul.  Van, her primary model, had seen photo students come and go over the years and generally considered them a great raging pain in the ass. Calista surprised him by staying in the background, discussing his art form and generally showing a real interest in the entire subject.  Van got the impression that Calista was considering trying her own hand at tattoo art. I now believe she was playing with the idea, but more as an illustrator rather than an actual "scratcher".  Calista visited the studio repeatedly over several weeks and eventually became one of the regulars that congregated on the very comfortable leather couches in the spacious front lobby. Her  fourth tattoo appeared sometime around this period; I have the impression that it was done as a favour for all the quality advertising photographs she showered on them after her assignment was completed. It was, again, something from Harry Potter; it was the semi-religious sign for the "Deathly Hallows".  The "Deathly Hallows" are three magical gifts bestowed upon the first true wizards by the Death himself.  Is this yet another omen from a girl living on limited time?

I don't actually have a picture of it on Calista. I never found the'
time. Why do we always think we are going to have more time?

Her last tattoo. Now there is a loaded statement. Some parents would be relieved to say their child had finally outgrown tattoos and had settled down.  My daughter never got to outgrow anything.  I suggest those parents that pray their children would just grow up and quit the kid-stuff need to change their priorities. Love everything about your kids because time will pass and all too soon these will be remembered as the golden days.  I just wish Calista had all sorts of opportunities to get more tattoos. Hell, more life in general is what she deserved.

"Believe in the Impossible". Now you know
where the phrase came from on her memorial card.

Anyway, her last tattoo was "Alice" of "Alice Through the Looking Glass".  She worked on this for months, lifting images from the Disney websites, modifying them to fit her vision and then redoing the entire "flash" while sitting on the couch in our front room.  At one point, when she had the image almost perfect, she decided to redo the entire cartoon to make some major revisions.  She liked the general form but did not want to start from scratch, so she had to find some way of tracing her existing image exactly.  Calista visited me at the veterinary clinic and pretty soon she had commandeered one of my X-ray viewer light boxes and had talked me into carrying the heavy unit out to her Smart Car.  At the time I was under the impression she was using it for her photography and was quite happy to lend a hand. It was not until I got home and found her camped out on the couch with the ungainly unit perched on the coffee table that I learnt the true purpose of the light box.  I remember laughing and being impressed at both her ingenuity and the resulting cartoon.

She never got to finish this tattoo. She had the black outlines done just before that last weekend home and she had an appointment with Van at Ink Nation the Tuesday following her death.  I had to call Ink Nation and tell them she would not be making that appointment. I had no idea how much a part of their group she had become, so I was a little shocked when Trish broke into nearly hysterical tears when I told her.  Van was close behind.  Van later did a wonderful eulogy for Calista at her memorial.

I now believe I know where all this was leading. Van tells us that she was working on "full sleeves" and certainly there was a theme happening. Her right arm was going to be themed on Harry Potter while her Left arm was going to be themed on "Alice". She had a couple of ideas on the board when she died and that butterfly was never part of the mix.  I guess her shoulder was far enough from her arm to be considered an entirely different canvass.  Calista had two links on her iPhone Facebook application that makes me think she had some aspirations of either making it onto the cover of a tattoo magazine or joining the ranks of the retro "pin-up girl" models.  Certainly she had the attitude to pull either off. Lord knows my Amazon was never going to make it as a long-legged anorexic fashion model; she liked her chocolate way too much and she was never going to be considered "skinny" by anyone.

You would think that would finish the all the tattoo business for Calista, but every life creates waves in front of their passage and leaves wakes behind them. There have been many memorial tattoos, some of them on family and some of them on people that I now consider extended family.  Each of those tattoos represent a little piece of Calista held here on Earth where she really belonged for probably another fifty or more years.  I have records of a few of those tattoos but many I just know about in passing.  Her cousins, who had come across two provinces to attend her memorial, had tattoos inked the day of her memorial. Both had scripts done about love and family and one had Calista's initials woven into the script.  Calista's uncle followed those two into the chair for a Celtic cross. Then there was Jared and his very upset Mom, Debbie. Debbie had a four-leaf clover tattoo done, each leaf representing one of her immediate family. A fifth leaf was done falling from the clover to represent that special girl we will all miss.  I hear from Debbie periodically; she followed up that tattoo with a jasmine flower; Calista's middle name was Jasmine. I guess the jasmine flower is quite rare; it seems fitting.  And there have been others, some of which I have only heard about through the grapevine (otherwise known as "Facebook" these days).  Here are a sampling of the few I have photographs of, explanations will be attached:

The Golden Snitch on my right pectoral. After
a twenty year hiatus from tattoos, I got two in
two months. Meaningless memorials really, but
when you have lost what Roni and I did, everything
makes sense, even madness.

Calista had planned this for herself
It works with either Harry Potter or
Alice.  It is meant to be the "Patronus"
guardian angel of one of the Potter
characters. Roni has this on her left
forearm.



Its on my left pectoral, over my heart. It also covers that silly
little Yin-Yang put there nearly twenty years ago.

It has an "unfinished" feel to this tattoo because that is how
it is meant to feel.  This was a preliminary sketch that my girl
was playing with in early winter.  She was putting something together
for her Godmother, Sherry.  Her mother has it on her right forearm.



I won't add a name to this since it is not my story to tell,
but the owner of this tattoo added "RIP Calista Fleming"
when she posted it on Facebook. Touching, really touching.
It probably hurt a lot too.

The first memorial tattoo, done within days of her loss.
Jared: well done and we won't forget this touching

memorial. It's bold.



This is unlikely to be my final memorial to my girl.
I wear it all the time now; its a whale tail. And something
more. Much more.

There has always been something mystical about tattoo art. Even I, a person who openly derides "new age" anything, has my superstitious side when it comes to my tattoos. For years I had three tattoos: one on each shoulder and one on my left pectoral. Somehow this arrangement always seemed wrong, unbalanced or incomplete. I always intended to get a fourth tattoo, but years extended to decades and pretty soon I was pushing fifty and it just seemed somewhat immature for a middle-aged professional to get fresh ink.  On the other hand, when Calista died the only appropriate personal memorial to my artistic daughter who loved tattoos was to get that magical fourth tattoo.  There was the illogical, unjustified superstition that by filling that last quadrant, I could hold onto the essence of Calista.  I am not sure it worked; I felt obliged to return for another tattoo just four weeks later. The camera-cover-up idea came to me late one night. My original plan was to get a photo-like reproduction of Calista's treasured Canon 40D and have her name replace the Canon logo. Van was willing, but pointed out that he just could not do that justice with the available canvas of my ageing (and sagging) left pectoral.  The final tattoo is great, but there remains that crazy thought that if I had got that Canon reproduction something of her spirit would manifest itself physically. And that brings me to the whale tail.

 

The silver whale tail is more than just a bit of flash to decorate an old man's neck. It is actually a tiny depository for a pinch of Calista's ashes.  That's right; the ashes of my cremated daughter hang on my neck as I type this.  I was a little sceptical when Roni suggested the miniature silver urns, but now I cannot pass a day without mine.  I actually dread to take my necklace off for fear that whatever spiritual essence of Calista it may hold will depart in the short time I neglect "my precious".  When I sleep I hang the small necklace on her large urn that sits in our bedroom; somehow it makes sense.  Its as if by putting the necklace over the larger urn it can "recharge" its spiritual powers.  I know that all sounds absolutely insane, but each of us create our own reality. My reality is that I would believe anything if it would give me more time with my daughter, even insane things like believing that pulverised ashes in a silver necklace embody her spirit.

 

Of course, I am not really addressing the bigger metaphysical question: do I have the right to try to bind Calista's spirit to this plane of existence? Why do Roni and I believe she would choose to remain here with us?  Perhaps there really is a better place for her just beyond the limited horizon of this Earth. Maybe by trying to trap her spirit here I am just subjecting her to a form of insufferable purgatory.  These may be valid thoughts, but, for now, I just want to be selfish and try to call her back to Roni and I.  She should come back to at least Roni, even if just for one good hug.

Three Months, Two Weeks: The Little Things

 

 

The photo above pretty much embodies everything I loved about my daughter. It was certainly not her most popular photo and it did not even make it close to her portfolio, but it deserves honourable mention regardless.

 

The photo was created for her "Creative Explorations" class at NIC.  Throughout the semester the students were given a series of assignments, each of which had different demanding requirements but all of which had to reflect that student's particular course theme.  The student's got to pick their own theme while the instructor dictated the terms. When Calista told me about it I thought it sounded a lot like she was going back to her "Improv" days where the actors were given unlikely story lines and situations and had to improvise scenes on the fly. The trick to that little game is to have consistent themes that can be adapted to any situation. Calista's semester theme was "Alice Through the Looking Glass", which was perfect since it certainly lent itself to adaptation and creative thinking.

 

Calista was assigned the above project while Roni and I were down in Las Vegas.  One evening I got a text message from her with a huge attachment which my poor phone could barely handle (and I ended up paying brutal roaming charges on).  The photo was a late Renaissance-Baroque painting of a young woman shocked to find her yellow canary dead upon the floor of it's cage.  The girl was likely European nobility or of the wealthy merchant class and the overtones of the painting were clearly religious; the young lady had her hand held in the classic "hand of God" position seen in many of the period religious paintings. 

 

 Calista was asking my opinion of the meaning of the hand position.  Now why the hell she would ask a simple veterinarian on vacation in Las Vegas the meaning of  a four hundred year old painting I don't know. I guess I should be flattered that my little girl still thought daddy was omnipotent and knew everything.  Needless to say I dropped the ball; I was standing in the middle of an overpriced shopping mall stretching between two overpriced hotels and their obligate casinos at the time and I did not have a faint clue what that painting could mean. I replied with some load of garbage about checking out what the "hand of God" implied and hoped she would get better advice.  Calista gave her typical reply: "K" and left it at that.  I did not hear anything more about it until after she died, when her friends regaled Roni and I with the crazy story of how Calista created that photo.

 

The first thing Calista had to do was figure out how to apply her theme of "Alice" to the painting.  Well, I guess there is a riddle posed at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party that goes like this (I think): "How is a Raven like a Writing Desk". In the book there is no answer, but Calista tries to provide us with her answer.

 

The next step was to find her props. Calista started asking all her friends where she might find a stuffed dead Raven or Crow in Comox or Courtenay.  Of course there were a few wry comments about "road kill", but nobody really thought she could find such a thing.  Typical of Calista, she proved them all wrong and appeared the following day with a stuffed toy Crow she had found at a craft store for cheap.  Roni and I still have that dead crow stored in a Rubbermaid tote in the basement.  Somehow she also managed to track down an old bird cage (Amanda or Jesse came through on that) and then she dug through all her clothes to find something that could pass for "period dress".  The last item was a writing desk she mocked up using calligraphy pens and ink bottles.

 

Calista then spent two or three hours setting up the shot. Her one glitch was that she could not pose for the picture and shoot the picture at the same time (at least not without giving up some quality). It took her friends, who by this time were a little tired and bored of sitting around watching her, almost an hour to convince her that it was not really cheating to have one of them activate the shutter as she posed. 

 

You would think that her labours would stop there, but a major part of the project was for the students to use unique processing techniques to create a "painting" rather than just a photograph. Now I have to refer to my notes to give you the rest of the process.

 

Once the photo was acquired on the digital camera, it was blown up and printed in negative on a clear velum paper. She then treated the paper with a chemical that creates a cyanotype, or blue image. The paper is then exposed to light for about fifteen minutes. At this point some chemicals are mixed and pigment is added to create a gum bichromate (absolutely no idea what the hell I am talking about now, but it sounds really cool).  Calista decided to walk off the common path now and mixed her chemicals to give a brown hue rather than a blue. The entire mess is now exposed to light once again before being fixed finally. Calista now did what she excelled at: she broke the mould. She pulled out her acrylic paints and hand painted the photograph to give it  the feeling of a painting.  All that work for just one small assignment in just one of her courses from what was a very demanding ten month program.

How can you not love a girl like that?  She was and always will be completely unique.

 

You would think that the big things like her photographs, her bedroom and her car would be the most hurtful things to Roni and I. That could not be farther from the truth. Her photographs which line the walls of our house now are comforting; like there is a little piece of the living Calista still with us.  Her room has become Roni's peaceful sanctum where she can retreat and recover when she is really feeling down. The trusty Smart car always brings a smile to my face whenever I think of how perfect my Calista looked in it as she puttered around town (because all you really can do in a Smart Car is putter).  Its the little things filling Rubbermaid totes in our basement that leave us crying and gasping for air. Those little personal everyday items that were so much "Calista" seem to epitomise a young life unfinished.



Bottle Bird: for those rare occasions when there was no "twist-top"

Tea-Rex: found on 5th in Courtenay. The spoons were
bought just because they were really cute. They came with
matching bowls that are now hidden in our cupboards.



 

 

 



 

Even before the family moved from Regina, Calista was collecting little treasures for the much anticipated first apartment.  To me it was like she was assembling a traditional "hope chest" in preparation for a future betrothal, though, in her case, it was simple freedom she was dreaming of. Each new acquisition was paraded before Roni and I like an expectant mother showing off nursery trappings. Calista was truly excited about her new beginning; the real life full of adventures she always knew was out there waiting for her. Each new piece was selected carefully based on style first and utility second. A dark purple toaster that could hold bagels (though I am not sure how many bagels she ever actually toasted in it), funky mismatched square plates and bowls found at Winners, selected mostly because they were mismatched and therefor unique, and any number of novelty kitchen gadgets that were playful before useful.

 



Roni found this cutlery set; we use it now, but it gets carefully
washed by hand and Lord help the person who scratches those
plastic handles the first time.

Mouse Cheese grater: a Powell River
Prize.

 

 

 

The Ice Cream Walrus
This is the first prize I remember her
acquiring. It might have been a PR find.

Pastasaurus.  The first time she showed me this she made silly
dinosaur sounds as she pretended to attack me with it..

 

 

touCan.  My find after I finally figured out the animal theme.

 

It's a salt n' pepper shaker. Roni rolled her eyes at me
when I finally figured out the trick. The head turns right for
salt and left for pepper





 

 

As I look at each one of those items I can picture Calista using them in her little apartment to make her own meals. Brewing a little Orange-Peko tea with the Tea-Rex to go along with a little spaghetti spooned out onto a funky square plate with Pastasaurus and eaten with her cool yellow handled silver wear. The kitchen utensils are not some idealised Calista or a Calista posing in a photograph, they are the day to day Calista who breathed, drank and ate just like the rest of us. The difference is she always did it with her own sense of style (Pastasaurus indeed!!) The pain to Roni and I comes from the fact we can actually picture her as we knew her, with all her little faults and idiosyncrasies whenever we pick up these little culinary treasures.

Her apartment was an amusing story all in itself. I am still not sure why I was drafted into the service, but I was the designated parent that accompanied Calista over to Courtenay the one day she allotted herself to find her new home for the college year. She lined up several prospects and even arranged appointments with a few of the landlords. There was a nice but expensive apartment near the hospital, a sub-let condo near the college, a couple of other less interesting prospects in Courtenay proper, and a single inexpensive unit in some place with the unlikely name of "The Washington Apartments".

The apartment near the hospital was a complete bust; the manager never turned up to meet us and never bothered replying to my repeated phone calls that morning. We moved on after about fifteen minutes of "acting suspicious" outside the apartment's main doors (probably about 5 minutes ahead of one of the elderly residents calling the police). The next stop along the route was the Washington. I was less than hopeful for it's potential, especially when I saw it. The Washington Apartments was obviously an elderly converted hotel. At one time it might have been an attractive building with a Spanish hacienda architectural theme. Those glory days were long passed and the building was surrounded by barren blacktop parking lots overgrown with weeds and grass and punctuated with several derelict and abandoned ancient cars. I thought we would be stopping for maybe a moment and then moving on.


We found Rob, the manager, sitting behind his large but immaculately tidy desk. The only words one can use for Rob are large and imposing. Even without the numerous photos on the wall behind Rob of him in full combat uniform and armed to the teeth, you would know that he was ex-military. He had that feel about him that nothing much happened in that building without his knowledge and consent. It also helped that he had a massive wall of close circuit TV monitors across one wall of his office taking feed from high resolution digital cameras throughout the complex. Rob happily took us over to one of his units; it was tiny bi level apartment two doors down from his own suite. The suite had been recently completely rebuilt and the paint was barely dry (wet paint signs were everywhere). Everything was absolutely new. Calista was taken immediately and started planning her furniture lay-out as she stood in the entrance to the suite. I was still holding out for something else. Anything else.


We left Rob with a promise to call the following day and started planning out the rest of our viewings. I wanted a cup of coffee and spotted a Tim Hortons in the shopping centre next door. Calista was pretty silent and distracted' she even turned down the offer of a chocolate donut. I was happy because I had realised that our next stop was just three blocks away in a nice, quiet neighbourhood sitting in the shadow of a huge Catholic church. We had tons of time before our next appointment. It turned out that we really didn't need the extra time.


Calista had already decided where her home should be. The Washington Apartments, with it's derelict cars and long expired "best before date" was where her heart had settled. I tried to excite her about the very attractive condo that was next on our list (we were sitting it the Smart Car outside it's door at the time), but she was set. Once Calista had her heart set on anything, you were going to be old and blue in the face before she changed her mind. She wanted to go back and put a deposit down on Number 6 right now, that afternoon, before someone else got the jump on her. I think Rob was surprised to see us back at all, much less the same day. To this day I doubt I would have let my Calista live there if I had not met Rob; he just has that feel of trustworthy about him.


It was a really good thing that Roni was not with us that day and an even better thing that it was at least a couple of weeks before she ever laid eyes on Number 6, Washington Apartments. By the time she saw the rough spun building we were committed and it was too late to find alternative accommodations. It might have been fun though: the battle between Roni and Calista over the apartment would have been like watching two wolverines arguing over American politics. Roni's confidence in my fatherhood was not helped weeks later when my brother-in-law told us that the Washington Apartments was the centre of most of the drug-trade in Courtenay and Comox.

In retrospect, both Roni and I agree that Calista's apartment was absolutely perfect for her. She loved it there and it showed when we cleaned that apartment out: each piece of wall art was carefully selected and placed "just so". Even her stuffed Crow had a place of honour: it sat sentry at the top of her stairs atop a faux-Roman column she had used for another photo shoot.

Cleaning out Calista's apartment was equal parts of labour of love and heartbreak. The big things such as her furniture, much of it hand-me-down pieces from Roni and I or recently purchased necessities were really no big deal: I packed them up and loaded them on the truck with barely a blink. The clothes were another matter altogether. Those items fell into one of two categories: old faithfuls that I saw Calista in all the time and which still had her scent about them and practically new outfits that she never got the chance to wear much. There was one jacket and one dress that Roni knew she had just bought to wear at her first (and, as it were, last) gallery opening. She had spent so much time picking out those perfect pieces and she had barely got to try them on. At least she had removed the tags from them; there were some clothes there that still had tags attached.


Perhaps the most trying thing for me as we cleared that apartment was the containers of unopened food, some of which is still in my own pantry as I type this. She had bought that food just days before her death in anticipation of Roni visiting the following weekend. Those items had been in her living hands just days or perhaps the very day before she died. And she was making plans for the days after her death.....and the weeks after...and the months and years after her death. Calista had a life ahead of her and she damn well had a right to live it.

Its the details, the small things in life that really hurt now. Those small things add up and just emphasise how suddenly her life was cut short. Robby Burns understood this when he said "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" (my apologised for the poor translation from the Gaelic it was originally written in 

 

 

 

A necklace I picked up just for her in Las Vegas.  I never got to
see her wear it, but I am told it reminded her of Slytherin House of
Harry Potter fame.  I would have loved to see her wear it just once.



Her clothing rack collapsed under the shear weight of all her
clothing. Her comment on the collapse?  "Duct tape can't fix everything"
I guess the rack had collapsed at least once before this picture was taken.