Shania's Greatest Hits

Today was a rainy day in PEI.  We were all cooped up in the cottage with ‘nothing to do’ which quickly turned into multiple episodes of Franklin, a jigsaw puzzle trifecta, play forts in the bunk beds, rounds of mastermind and battleships, reading the newspaper on the ipad (s) and a Henry spa.

That killed an hour.

Slowly we adjusted our “on the go” vacation speed to slow and lazy rainy day speed and settled into the rhythm of jigsaw puzzles.  We had 3 on the go – a 20-piece Dora one, a 100 piece Harry Potter one and a 1000 piece PEI landscape one.  Can you GUESS who was doing which one?

While all this was going on, Rob decided some music was in order and turned on the CD player to the one of 5 CDs they had left for us at the cottage: Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits.

Some of you may groan at the idea of country music; some of you may launch into song at mere thought of one of her catchy tunes; some of you may smile at our patriotism.  But I bet none of you get that gut wrenching nauseous feeling as the memories of the Sick Kids ICU comes flooding back.

Shania, as some of you might remember, was what we listened to, ad nauseum, in Toby’s ICU room.  All because one day, for one brief second, our ventilated, unconscious and perilously sick 10 month old tapped his foot to the tune of “Man I feel like a Woman”.  It was the first sign of life we had seen from him in days.  It was the first glimmer of hope we had received in our long and arduous journey.  It was a sign we all desperately clung to until something more tangible was available.

We played song after song hoping that Shania’s voice - whatever it was he liked enough to tap his little 10-month-old toe to – would continue to lift him and us out of the dark hole we were in.

At the time I found the music uplifting.  I remember people writing to me on our care page about listening to Shania at home and thinking of us; I remember Natalie typing out the words to “From this Moment” and noting how applicable it was.  In addition to my hopeful visions of getting Toby off of life support, taking him home, watching him recover enough to eventually take his first steps and then grow up healthy and unharmed from his arduous stay, I also envisioned myself writing to Shania and thanking her for her inspirational and uplifting music.  I imagined her writing back to us and giving us free tickets to a show that I would take a healthy, much older version of Toby to before dragging him back stage to thank her personally for writing a song that inspired him to tap his little toe and offer his desperate mom, dad and grandma that small glimmer of hope we so desperately needed that day.

We did get home.  He did recover.  And he did take his first few steps shortly thereafter, but not to the beat of any Shania Twain.  Removed from the desperation of our Sick Kids ICU room, I suddenly wanted nothing more to do with anything we had just been though.  I just wanted normal life.  I didn’t need reminders.  Every Shania song to me was nothing but a souvenir of being in a place I did not want to remember.

Have you ever been in a place that was so abysmal that it caused you to reflect longingly on the past and frantically on the future, impatient for it to come and rescue you from your current situation? 

Have you ever been in a place where your ONLY solace was a Shania Twain CD?

It’s not that I haven’t heard her since.  Every now and then a familiar one comes on the radio and before I get too far into my dark fantasy I find myself switching the station.  It’s automatic.  I’m like my own emotion regulating DJ.  It’s just never a ‘convenient time’ to be driving around in my own private therapy session.  It’s for this reason I put her greatest Hits CD in the back of our CD console one day.  Life has moved on. 

And then today, on some rainy day in a cottage on the coast of PEI, we come face to face again as my husband naively and cheerfully puts her CD in the player and cranks up the volume.

“OH…” I say as my stomach flops upside down and my hand reaches, from the other side of the cottage, for the imaginary ‘off button’.  “This CD…”

Rob looked at me puzzled.    I looked at him with equal measures of puzzled amazement.  Oh the bliss of a bad memory.

I reminded him of it and he gave an “Aha!  Oh, yes THAT!” that you would give to being reminded of a funny story from someone’s wedding.

And so we listened to Shania.

At first, I paid close attention to every word and was reminded of something different each time a different song came on.

But here’s what I learned from taking a walk down memory lane today in the safe place of serene PEI in the presence of the 3 (fantastically healthy) people that I love the most:

1.  It is much, MUCH more normal to dance to “Man I feel like a woman” with your daughter than your son.

2.  In hindsight, it seems kinds of creepy that I DID dance to “Man I feel like a woman” with my 10-month-old son.  Why did no one point that out to me?

3.  Not EVERY song on that CD is tarnished by a memory.  In fact, MOST of the CD isn’t all that applicable to where we were.  Like, “Whose bed do your boots lie under?? “ What could I have POSSIBLY found to relate to with that one??? And “You’re invited to a party- a party for two.”  That was CLEARLY not about an ICU room party. 

4.  Time heals all wounds.

5.  Despite all the good AND the bad associated with it, Shania Twain is a pretty amazing Canadian artist.

6.  A crystal ball might have been nice.  If only I could have seen us all dancing together while the rain poured down around us.  Our family of four.  Our health.  Our happiness. Our love.  I don’t need to see any further into the future, but I could have done with a brief glimpse of today during those dark days at Sick Kids.

I guess that’s what faith is.

I close with the words to the most poignant of her songs that still send a shiver up my spine.  I suppose it’s ideally suited to a wedding, but I decided today that I’d take this song with me – no matter how much time passes, this will always be the song that symbolizes my bond and promise to my son.  But I’ll leave the rest of them behind.  Especially “Man I feel like a woman”  -- someone else can have that as a “theme song.” 

From this moment

Life has begun

From this moment you are the one

  Right beside you is where I belong…. from this moment on.

 From this moment, I have been blessed.

 I live only for your happiness

And for your love I’d give my last breath

 From this moment on…