0:00

When life ends, there's loss. But

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nobody deserves to lose their life to suicide.

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gun that was bought or rented within the same

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0:32

This is a CBC Podcast. Hi

0:35

there, I'm Gavin Crawford. I'm a writer,

0:37

an actor, and a comedian. You might

0:39

remember me from the Sour Is 22 Minutes or

0:42

CBC Radio's Because News. Or

0:45

you might not remember me at all, if

0:48

you're my mother. That's

0:50

what my brand new podcast series, Let's Not Be Kidding,

0:53

is about. It's the true story of

0:55

my life as a comedian, my mom,

0:58

and dementia. I used to talk

1:00

about my mom all the time. She

1:02

was my champion and

1:04

my friend and the source

1:06

of a lot of my material. But once

1:09

she got Alzheimer's, I found myself joking around

1:11

about her less and less. It

1:13

wasn't that she stopped being funny, it's just that

1:16

when you joke about Alzheimer's, it just makes

1:18

people sad. Which is

1:20

a shame because there's a lot of hilarious moments

1:22

you do want to talk about. You

1:25

know, like the time she asked me to

1:27

her high school dance. Or

1:29

when she became convinced that my husband had

1:32

somehow invented the Christmas tree.

1:35

If comedy is tragedy plus

1:37

time, what happens

1:40

when the tragedy moves so slowly that

1:42

the comedy has no choice but to catch up?

1:46

Find out on Let's Not Be Kidding.

1:49

Here's the first episode. My mother

1:51

had a weird thing always growing up.

1:53

She would always say the part that

1:55

you're supposed to say loud, soft.

1:59

and the part that you're supposed to say soft,

2:02

loud, for some reason, and I don't know why. But

2:04

going to a restaurant with my mother was always completely

2:07

humiliating because

2:09

she would talk very quietly

2:11

to any service person. The

2:13

waiter would come and say, like, what can I get

2:15

you? And my mom would always just be

2:17

like,

2:18

well, can I, I guess I'll just have

2:20

a Coke and maybe like the

2:23

sandwich, I guess, maybe the sandwich.

2:25

Like, and constantly the servers

2:28

are like, I'm sorry, pardon me. I just

2:30

didn't quite catch

2:31

the end of it. And you would always have to be like, it's

2:33

the sandwich, she'll have the sandwich. Not

2:36

because she had dementia, just because she, for some

2:38

reason, ordering made her voice go

2:40

completely quiet.

2:42

But then as soon as the waiter would walk away from the

2:44

table, my mom would look at

2:46

a woman across the restaurant

2:49

who had, you know, some kind of like spiky

2:51

purple hair or something like that, and then say

2:54

very loudly, like, how do you like to have hair

2:56

like that?

3:00

And you're like, what, it's backwards, mom. Like,

3:04

you can be loud for the sandwich

3:07

and quiet for the, that

3:09

woman's got too many kids. But

3:12

I don't know. So that was, that's the voice

3:15

she used. My

3:22

name is Gavin Crawford. I'm

3:25

a comedian and actor and a writer.

3:28

I came up through Second City. I had my own

3:30

show on Comedy Network. I was

3:32

on The Sour Esse 22 Minutes, a sketch show

3:34

for a number of years. Now

3:36

I host a comedy quiz show on CBC Radio.

3:42

You might remember me from all of those

3:44

things, some of those things, or

3:46

you might not remember me at all if

3:49

you're my mother. And

3:54

that's what this podcast is about.

4:05

So what is this going to be called? I don't know. I

4:08

was calling it Let's Not Be Kidding because that's something my

4:10

mother always, whenever she's like

4:13

laying it on the line, she's like, you're

4:15

not getting the part in that play. Let's not be kidding.

4:20

That was her laying it on the line. So I'm tentatively

4:22

calling it that, but I don't know. Most

4:24

of the people I know are entertainers

4:26

in some fashion.

4:28

And so I didn't set out for it to be

4:30

a like, here's comedians talking

4:32

about sad shit. It's like

4:35

comedians in cars getting caught. It's like comedians talking

4:38

about Alzheimer's. Maybe that's

4:40

what you should call it. That's basically what

4:42

it's turned out to be. I know. This

4:45

is Rachel Matlow, podcast

4:47

producer and author of the memoir, Dead

4:50

Mom Walking. Just a lot.

4:51

It is a lot. Where's your mother at

4:54

right now? She is in Lethbridge

4:56

in a home

4:59

in a care facility. But besides the location,

5:02

where's she at in her head? I don't

5:04

know. Where she's at in her head is

5:07

she's sort of forgotten how to walk. She doesn't

5:09

talk that much. There's

5:11

a lot of staring off into the distance. Occasionally,

5:14

she'll sort of know who you are by

5:17

just do a lot of like holding her

5:19

hand until she gets annoyed and then wants to like push

5:21

her wheelchair around in a circle for a while.

5:23

Yeah, so it sounds, yeah, she's further along

5:26

than my dad. I mean, I find myself just

5:28

joking, making jokes because...

5:31

For the last eight or nine years, I've

5:33

been navigating life with my mother's

5:35

increasing dementia.

5:38

And I decided to make this podcast because I realized

5:41

that I just don't talk

5:43

about my mom anymore, which is a shame because I

5:46

used to talk about my mom a lot because

5:48

A, she was kind of my best

5:50

friend for a long time. And also

5:53

she was just incredibly funny and fun to

5:55

be around and just an endless supply

5:58

of ridiculous comedy.

6:02

But then I hit a point where people would be like, you

6:04

know, how's your mom? And I would find myself

6:06

saying like, oh, you know, we're,

6:09

she's fine. We're fine. Next subject. Anyone

6:12

seen any good movies lately? Do you want a coffee

6:15

or something? How about a snack?

6:18

Just to change the subject because

6:20

I couldn't talk about it because I didn't want people to feel

6:23

sad. I don't want to make

6:25

people depressed. But you

6:27

know, I also want to talk about it because

6:30

I don't want to forget, you

6:32

know, how funny my mom was.

6:37

I always used to find it funny the way that my mom would swear

6:40

because you would swear, but she had a trick where she

6:42

would drop the word out and she was very

6:44

good at it. Like one time she was getting very flustered

6:47

about trying to find the spice rack was

6:49

very disorganized and she was very flustered. And all

6:51

of a sudden she just threw the spices down. She was like spices.

6:57

Like she would do, she would just do that. She was like, oh,

6:59

for fakes, Gavin, what, what

7:01

I have to put up with this book. She

7:04

would just self censor herself, you

7:07

know.

7:10

I remember once we were driving back from

7:12

Cape Breton after my husband,

7:14

Kyle's sister's wedding and my mom had gone and done

7:16

the flowers for it. When we were driving back

7:19

across Canada, we had stopped at

7:21

the IHOP somewhere. Somewhere in Quebec

7:23

there was an IHOP. This was way early

7:26

on, like back when I was still kind

7:28

of like the interloper that wrecked his first

7:31

relationship. That's

7:34

Kyle.

7:36

My mom and he had a pretty tight relationship.

7:38

But we were at the IHOP

7:40

and we were just looking at the video and she's like, oh Kyle, you

7:43

might enjoy the rollover fruit slam. And

7:46

everyone was like, what?

7:48

Mom? And then she's like, what?

7:51

It's got strawberries and blueberries. I

7:53

know Kyle likes that. Everyone

7:56

was laughing. You

7:58

can't tell with her if she. She was just, you

8:00

know, making a suggestion

8:03

genuinely or she was, you know, being a... Yeah.

8:07

I tend to think it was intentional.

8:10

But she would always play innocent. It was her favorite thing

8:12

to do. I remember my sister walked

8:14

in kind of bedraggled after a party one time

8:17

and my mom, there was a lot of people sitting

8:19

in the living room and my mother just said,

8:22

wow, you look like you've been rode

8:24

hard and pulled away wet.

8:27

And everyone was kind of like, mom. And

8:30

she's like, you know what, like a horse, you know. But

8:33

you could tell from the twinkle

8:35

in her eye, she knew what she was saying.

8:41

She really did have shitty luck when it came to

8:43

health and like had like a lot of cancer

8:46

and stuff. Like

8:49

she never liked to be like cooped

8:52

up. She always loved to like be able to go and

8:55

do like what she wanted.

8:58

This is my youngest sister, Regan, who

9:01

personality wise is probably the most

9:03

like my mom.

9:05

So at least she has a disease

9:08

where she doesn't really remember that feeling.

9:10

Or if you're going to be locked in a home

9:12

during a pandemic, probably you want

9:14

to have a condition like that

9:16

as opposed to maybe something

9:18

else where you know and you want

9:21

to go see your family or you can

9:23

remember people. So you're actually missing

9:25

people. Like

9:26

she's not missing anyone because she doesn't

9:28

remember anyone. So that's kind

9:30

of lucky for her in

9:32

a sense.

9:37

What's happening now is surprising

9:39

only in the fact that my mom has

9:42

been through so much already.

9:43

She always seems slightly unkillable.

9:46

We used to joke like

9:48

at the end of everything there would be like cockroaches

9:51

and Cher and my mom because

9:53

she had like polio when she was

9:56

eight and then recovered from that. And

9:58

then she had cancer.

9:59

for the first time I think when I was in university

10:02

in about 1993 and then beat that and

10:04

then it came back

10:06

again in like 2003 and she

10:09

beat it again and then it came back in 2008 and she

10:12

had a stem cell transplant. I think when

10:14

she was like,

10:15

I don't know, maybe 64 or something just

10:17

on the cusp of when you were still eligible to have

10:19

a stem cell transplant, but

10:21

it worked and since then she's been

10:23

cancer

10:24

free. And

10:26

I think that's one of the reasons why it took us so

10:29

long as

10:30

a family to kind of really face

10:32

up to what was actually happening.

10:35

I mean, my mom would definitely forget things, but,

10:38

you know, she had a full stem cell transplant

10:40

and she would just chalk it up to something they called chemo

10:42

brain. So we

10:44

just kind of rolled with that idea for a long time,

10:48

probably way too long.

10:54

In this podcast, I'm trying to find a way to talk

10:56

about the harrowing and the hilarious

10:59

things that we've been through over

11:02

the last eight or nine years. But

11:05

before I get to that, I should probably paint

11:08

a bit of a picture of what my mom was like

11:11

before she was like what she's like

11:13

that. My

11:19

mom, Donna Jean Anderson, was born

11:22

in 1944 in Fort McLeod, Alberta,

11:24

which is a very tiny prairie town.

11:26

If you want to have a picture of what it looks like,

11:29

it's where they filmed Brokeback Mountain

11:32

in Fort McLeod. So if

11:34

you picture one main road with a few little houses

11:37

and erase the hot gay cowboys,

11:39

that's Fort McLeod.

11:43

My mom was always really cosmopolitan.

11:46

For someone who grew up in the tiniest

11:49

of southern Alberta towns, she

11:51

had a real cosmopolitan air about her

11:53

and she always liked to be just ahead of

11:55

the curb. She could make anything. She could

11:58

sew anything. So.

11:59

She sewed a lot of her own clothes. She sewed her own

12:02

grad dress. She made a lot of our clothes when

12:04

we were growing up. I

12:06

don't know how she developed such a cosmopolitan

12:09

air coming from where she came from.

12:12

I guess it was magazines because my mother, she

12:15

loves a magazine. She still loves a

12:17

magazine. Except now she

12:19

likes to riff the pages out. She

12:25

was awesome. She was cool

12:28

and hilarious and irreverent

12:32

and incredibly

12:35

caring without being

12:38

a smother. This

12:41

is Carrie Sackney who's known both me

12:43

and my mom since grade six.

12:46

I mean your house was where all the

12:48

kids went and if any kid was having

12:50

trouble they were always living

12:53

at your house. Every time I

12:55

went over there there was some new kid living in the basement.

12:57

We always had strays. But

13:01

she was not necessarily like other mothers.

13:06

She always had fun stuff to show. She

13:08

always had interesting things to say. She

13:11

always had a story.

13:14

She was great to hang out with if

13:16

you had stories

13:18

to tell because she would

13:20

become more and more animated. But if

13:22

you didn't feel like talking you could just

13:25

sit back relax and enjoy the show. That's

13:28

true.

13:33

Yeah, my mother wasn't big on silence.

13:36

But she did

13:39

really champion the underdog. We did

13:41

have strays at our house all

13:43

the time. So much so

13:45

that once I came home and there was a guy sleeping on the couch

13:47

and I thought it was my sister's friend. My sister

13:50

thought it was my friend. But it turned out it was just a man

13:52

who wandered into our house and took a nap on

13:54

the couch. And nobody even batted an eye.

13:58

Eventually like a day later we were like. like, what

14:00

was your friend doing here? And everyone was like, that's

14:02

not my friend. But

14:05

that was my mom. She was just kind.

14:08

Kind almost to a fault. At

14:10

least if you were one of her children.

14:16

I found an old journal of my mother's

14:19

where she talks about my eighth birthday and

14:21

is somehow blissfully unaware that

14:24

I wasn't enjoying the party because

14:26

she had actually invited all of my school

14:29

bullies. This

14:31

is her journal entry from my

14:34

eighth birthday, April 2nd,

14:38

Today is Gavin's eighth birthday and cooking

14:40

a special roast beef dinner. We use

14:42

the new China. Gavin was very

14:45

pleased. He said,

14:47

dinner by candlelight. My birthday

14:49

must be pretty special, eh? Tomorrow

14:52

we will have a birthday party for his class. This

14:57

is the entry from the day of the party.

15:00

Today was the day of the big party. 12 little

15:03

boys make you happy that you've had a few girls.

15:06

Due to the fact that I put money in

15:08

the cake, there wasn't a crumb left.

15:11

Gavin for his part liked the party

15:13

enough, but he sure doesn't seem to like

15:15

noise and hassle for very long. He

15:17

was very happy to call it quits and

15:19

go to his judo lesson.

15:23

Yes,

15:23

that's right. I took judo. Not

15:27

of my own choice. That was

15:29

during the phase where my parents were very,

15:31

I'll make a man out of you. And my dad put

15:34

me in tee ball and baseball and

15:36

hockey and judo, hoping any manly

15:38

thing would stick. Uh, it

15:40

did not.

15:45

When you're going through something, talking

15:47

to someone really helps. If

15:49

you know someone going through

15:51

a difficult situation, asking them how they're feeling

15:53

can really make a difference. Our problems

15:56

tend to seem big, but when shared

15:58

with others, we can

15:59

always find a path forward.

16:02

To learn more about how to help someone in a

16:04

crisis, call 988 or

16:07

visit OhioSPF.org.

16:09

Brought to you by the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation.

16:12

For a lot of us indigenous people,

16:14

Buffy St. Marie is the musician, the

16:17

icon, and she's been standing up for us

16:19

for decades singing our names

16:21

and our nations when people thought we were extinct.

16:24

I was made aware of the fact that I was an Indian and

16:26

that that could be good or that might not be so

16:28

good depending upon the way I handle it. And it's time

16:30

you heard the whole story. I believe

16:33

that if the record-buying public

16:35

ever heard our music, it

16:37

would be like the first time that white people

16:39

heard the blues. Buffy

16:42

is a new five-part

16:42

series from CBC Podcasts

16:44

available now on CBC Listen or wherever

16:47

you get your podcasts.

16:50

My mom and I are really alike in a lot of ways.

16:53

One of the ways we are alike is that neither

16:56

of us exactly fit in

16:58

rural southern Alberta. Here's

17:00

a clip of me, long after I left, appearing

17:03

on CBC's The Hour with George Strombolopoulos.

17:08

Welcome to the show, man. It's nice to see you. Thanks for having

17:10

me on the program. Alright, so when

17:13

you were going to, did you fit in in your hometown?

17:15

Did you have a moment when you looked around and I got to get out of here? The

17:18

things that I want to do, this isn't working for me here. Oh no, there's

17:20

tons of little gay kids in southern Alberta.

17:23

Like, you know, I'm the only kid probably that like asked

17:26

for the soundtrack to Evita for like my 12th

17:28

birthday. And then like

17:30

when the girl that I liked at the time didn't

17:32

go out with me, you know, I would drive around like

17:35

at 16 driving around be like, don't cry

17:37

for me Sarah Miller. The

17:39

truth is I never liked you.

17:41

And oddly that did turn out

17:43

to be true. I liked her brother Paul. What

17:47

can you do? What happens that way?

18:00

Because of the pandemic, I wasn't

18:02

able to travel back to Alberta for almost 18

18:05

months. So I wasn't

18:07

able to see my mom at all

18:10

in the care home.

18:11

Until July of 2021, when I finally

18:14

made it back.

18:19

We'll have her finish this right up. Some

18:24

point it tastes good. Or

18:27

has it? Up.

18:35

This time. Last

18:39

bite here? What's

18:42

going on? Want

18:44

to try this juice? When

18:48

I finally get to Alberta, a lot has changed.

18:52

Even in just a year and a half, she's pretty

18:54

quiet now, and

18:57

she doesn't remember how to walk anymore.

19:00

And the stupidest thing is that

19:02

she's wearing a pastel pink hoodie, and for

19:04

some reason, this is what upsets me the most.

19:08

Because who is this lady? I

19:11

think that's about it.

19:17

Like, I've never seen

19:19

her wear a hoodie. No,

19:21

it's good. In my entire life. Someone

19:23

get that lady a cheetah print and a leather

19:25

cap. My youngest

19:28

sister, Regan, again. She doesn't

19:30

want that. You need to get her a cashmere sweater

19:32

because she doesn't wear hoodies. If

19:35

she's cold, she gets a sweater. Probably

19:38

cashmere. Turtle

19:40

neck? Yes.

19:42

Scoop neck? No.

19:45

Do you have to think really hard to remember

19:48

before mom? I

19:50

mean a little, but I still do

19:52

remember, but... It's

19:55

very vivid what she's like now, but

19:57

it's just not her. Do

20:01

you think of them as different people? I

20:04

think of her as like she's like trapped

20:06

in there and she's super pissed. No,

20:11

I really do. I can see on her face

20:13

like she's like she's not there. She's

20:15

a vacant stare, but I also think like if she

20:17

like she would be so pissed.

20:21

That the only way she could cope is just

20:23

to like completely like she's like a zombie.

20:27

This sounds terrible, but in my brain mom's kind

20:29

of unkillable. Because

20:33

she's already had like cancers,

20:36

a stem cell. Like

20:38

I feel like she could live to be like a hundred and

20:40

ten.

20:43

I mean, I yeah, kind of.

20:45

But like this

20:48

is like just she's

20:50

already killed. So

21:08

that's where we are now in the present

21:11

where I'm meeting this woman

21:14

and I'm thinking this woman is not my mother,

21:16

but also I know that she is my

21:18

mother.

21:21

And sometimes I can tell it's her from I don't

21:24

know an eye roll or a look in her eye.

21:27

It's just

21:29

a certain look that says let's not

21:32

be kidding. My

21:36

mother was a very waspy woman. She

21:38

was very socially appropriate. And

21:44

she didn't really like to talk smack about

21:46

people, but she did like to let you know

21:48

that she saw it all. And

21:52

the way she would do that is she would sort of weaponize.

21:54

Let's not be kidding. For instance, if I

21:56

was in a play and

21:58

was a woman, I would have to be like,

21:59

a particularly good play, my mom would say,

22:02

you know, well, I thought you were great, but let's

22:04

not be kidding. And then

22:07

not elaborate any further than that. Or she would

22:09

say about one of my father's friends, like, you

22:11

know, oh, John's a fine fellow, he's

22:13

friendly enough, but let's not be kidding.

22:16

It was just to let you know that she knew

22:19

the lay of the land. The

22:21

only other consistent thing about my mom is that she was also

22:24

always freezing. Once

22:26

we were driving through Death Valley, and she was like, can

22:28

we just warm it up a little bit?

22:32

We used to call her frost fingers. We always

22:34

used to joke that like, if my mother went to hell, she'd

22:36

be the one person wandering around being like, is

22:38

there management in here? Can we get the thermostat

22:41

turned up just a titch?

22:44

Like, mom, we're literally on a lake of fire

22:46

right now. Well, you think that they could heat

22:48

it. We're

22:52

gonna have turkey and sweet potatoes

22:54

and turnip puff. Do you like turnip

22:56

puff? Yeah, it sounds

22:58

really good. When

23:02

I finally got back to visit my mom after the

23:04

lockdowns ended, we brought

23:06

her out of the home and back to my dad's place

23:08

or what was our childhood home and

23:10

sat her down in front of her roaring fire. And of

23:13

course, she was still freezing. Do you

23:15

want your hands in this blanket? Are

23:18

they cold? This can go right up

23:20

over your chin. Yeah, is that what you want?

23:22

Right up. Nice, cozy,

23:25

warm. All right,

23:27

there we go. How's that?

23:29

Don't know if that's anything

23:32

you want there or not. Now

23:35

you're like a burrito. You're

23:39

making it into a momrito. I

23:45

guess part of what was so startling in returning

23:48

to Alberta after all that time was to see

23:50

this new person who's just

23:52

kind of sitting there staring off into space

23:55

or

23:56

kind of pushing her wheelchair around

23:58

the hallways in an effort. to keep busy

24:02

and knowing how frustrating that must be for my mom because

24:04

she never sat still. My

24:07

mom was always busy. My

24:12

mom had wanted to go to art school but according to her, my

24:14

grandparents wouldn't fund that so she ended up becoming

24:16

a teacher. She got out of the deaf school, also

24:18

at the school for, I'm going to say, troubled

24:21

kids while she was putting my dad through dental

24:23

school. There's five kids in my family. My mom had

24:25

five kids, eight pregnancies. That's the

24:28

way she always used to say it. She was just breezing

24:30

it through. She was like, well, I have five kids, eight

24:32

pregnancies. She was always working on some project,

24:35

whether it was doing flowers for someone's wedding,

24:37

funeral designs, the lights for my sister's

24:39

dance recital.

24:40

She ended up at one point starting an interior design

24:42

business with one of

24:43

her friends. She was always doing something.

24:47

So we called her a stay-at-home mom but we

24:49

were all kind of latchkey kids. So

24:58

that's before mom and

25:01

I can't really pinpoint the exact

25:03

moment when she started to change.

25:07

What was the moment and should

25:09

I have noticed it? Did I notice it?

25:12

And did I just pretend not

25:14

to notice it like everybody else?

25:21

I would talk to my mom on the phone at least once

25:23

a week, probably twice a week, pretty much

25:25

throughout my whole life.

25:28

She would phone up just out of the blue

25:30

or I would phone her and just be like, hi,

25:32

Gav. Just, it's just

25:34

me. So

25:37

she always introduced herself. I'm like, yes, mom,

25:40

I've known you my entire life. You

25:42

don't have to tell me. It's just you.

25:46

But there

25:46

was a point where sometimes my phone would ring

25:48

and I would answer and I would say

25:51

like, hello. And

25:53

my mom would be like, oh, oh, Gavin.

25:56

Hey, it's just me.

26:02

And I knew that she was trying

26:04

to call someone else. But

26:08

she would recover from it incredibly quickly

26:10

and be like, you know, I just

26:12

thought I'd call and I'm

26:14

like, were you, are you sure? And sometimes at the

26:16

end of the phone call, I'd be like, oh yeah, did you have

26:18

another phone call that you needed to make mom?

26:20

She was like, oh,

26:22

I don't know. Maybe I should probably call your dad.

26:27

Let's see when he's coming home from hunting or whatever.

26:44

Suffice to say, we should have known it was coming,

26:48

but it took us all a while

26:50

to see it. You know, there came a point

26:53

where I was watching

26:56

her, like, and I don't think

26:59

anyone, I think

27:02

they were kind of in denial

27:05

about it.

27:06

This again is Kyle.

27:08

I would say to Gavin, like you gotta, this

27:11

is something's, you know, she

27:13

can't remember where she's

27:15

supposed to be going or I feel like

27:17

I can't leave her alone anymore. And

27:20

I felt like I was the only one saying

27:22

there's something happening here when it was starting

27:24

because I was with her and I saw her not

27:27

be able to navigate shopping.

27:30

It's funny that that's the thing that

27:33

really drove it home was

27:35

the shopping.

27:37

Anyone that spent any time with my mother knows

27:39

she loves to shop.

27:41

She shopped like a detective. She didn't

27:43

really ever buy anything. She just needed to find

27:45

the clues. She was like the Columbo of

27:48

shopping. She would always turn back at the last

27:50

second and be like, ah,

27:51

just one more thing. She

27:53

was so frustrating to shop with

27:55

because she would never buy anything. She

27:58

would just I'd just be like, please.

27:59

Please buy something to make it worthwhile that

28:02

I'm coming with you. She's

28:04

just looking and she was never sure. She's

28:06

like, well, I'll come back. I'm like, well, you're not going to come back.

28:08

And I think she just liked the process

28:11

of shopping. Like it was just her

28:13

fun. It wasn't like she never needed anything.

28:16

I mean, to just give you an example, once I

28:18

was at a mall where there was a gas leak and my

28:20

mother stayed in the store while they

28:22

were carrying people out on stretchers

28:24

and

28:25

I was yelling at her in the change room that we

28:27

had to go because there was a gas leak. And she just

28:29

kept yelling back from the change room. Oh, for

28:31

God's sake, Gavin, you'll say anything

28:33

to get me out of this change room.

28:36

Give me a minute. Here's

28:43

when I knew we

28:45

were at the Eaton Center. Maybe 2060.

28:50

My parents had flown from Lethbridge where they

28:52

live to shop and

28:54

spend a few weeks with myself and my husband,

28:56

Kyle. As I said, normally

28:58

we don't shop together. Normally my mother

29:01

finds me annoying and we separate

29:03

and she doesn't like to be rushed. So

29:06

it's just let's meet by such and such

29:08

fountain at such and such a clock.

29:10

And we basically have an understanding

29:12

that my mom will eventually come

29:14

sauntering up to that fountain probably 45

29:18

minutes to an hour after she's agreed to

29:20

meet us.

29:21

And she'll have one

29:24

small bank. Anyways, that's

29:26

normal. That was normal. But

29:28

that day in 2016 was the day that I realized

29:31

there wasn't a normal anymore.

29:35

So we're at the Eaton Center. It's probably around

29:37

Christmas time. The decorations are up.

29:40

We make the usual plan. We'll meet by

29:42

the giant Christmas tree at 3.30

29:45

and Kyle goes off to

29:47

buy Christmas presents and I

29:49

go off in the other direction to buy whatever

29:51

it is that I want to buy. And

29:55

as I leave, I kind of notice my mom's

29:57

just sort of lingering by the tree.

29:59

Yeah, ostensibly, I guess,

30:02

deciding which direction she wants to begin

30:04

the treasure hunt in. So

30:07

we come back a couple of hours later, and I

30:11

find my mother already waiting

30:13

for us by the big tree. And

30:17

I say to Kyle, oh, my mom's early.

30:20

And Kyle looks at me and says, Gavin,

30:22

I don't think she ever left.

30:28

When I came back, she was at the same table.

30:31

I think she'd probably been circling

30:34

it for the

30:36

whole time I was gone. It was just impossible

30:38

to me that she went

30:41

elsewhere and came back. She just was kind

30:44

of like, this table is where I'm staying. Now

30:47

I don't believe this. So I just shrug

30:49

and say, no, I mean, you know,

30:52

there's no way my mom just

30:54

stood there for two hours in the middle of the

30:56

Eaton Center with all these stores around. She's

30:59

probably just finally on time

31:02

for once. And

31:04

Kyle says, she has no bangs.

31:09

So I said to Kyle, that's not unusual. She never buys

31:11

anything until the third trip

31:13

anyways.

31:16

But even as I'm saying that,

31:18

I know that he's right.

31:29

So now we know. We

31:31

know what it is. We know how it

31:33

started. And we know basically

31:36

where the ride goes.

31:39

But I guess what I'm looking for here

31:41

are the peaks in

31:44

the roller coaster that only goes down.

31:48

I mean, they say comedy is tragedy

31:50

plus time.

31:53

But you know, what do you do when the tragedy

31:55

unfolds so unbearably

31:58

slowly that the

31:59

Comedy has no choice but catch

32:02

up. ["Ave Maria"]

32:15

It's been kind of strange processing this, trying

32:17

to figure out how do I talk about my mom, especially

32:20

with the kind of brain that wants to turn everything

32:22

into a joke. I mean, anyone that's

32:24

been on this journey or has dealt with this kind of long

32:28

grief knows there are jokes

32:30

to be had, and you kind

32:32

of need to have them.

32:34

But it also feels wrong. Over

32:39

in the next six episodes, I'll sort

32:41

of track the progression of my mom's Alzheimer's,

32:44

and I also talk with friends

32:46

of mine who have experienced or are

32:49

experiencing similar things with

32:51

their loved ones.

32:53

One of those people is singer-songwriter Jan Arden,

32:55

who's been very open about her mother's

32:57

journey through Alzheimer's. Here's

33:00

how she put it. I

33:02

came to understand that my mom was

33:04

in two places, and she's straddling two places,

33:07

but she's in this physical body. She said to me one

33:09

day, your body's your spaceship

33:12

and your soul is your pilot. I

33:15

was like, what? And

33:17

it still sticks with me. Well,

33:20

you can't take your body with you where your

33:22

soul goes, because you can't breathe

33:24

up there. I'm like, no,

33:27

you can't. But

33:32

your mother's on a journey, and wherever

33:34

she is in that realm that

33:37

we can't access,

33:39

she's fine too, and

33:42

it's her journey to make.

33:49

Jan and I have occasionally been texting back

33:51

and forth over the last four

33:54

or five years, just

33:56

offering each other support. She

33:58

sent me this one funny text.

33:59

just checking in, you know, how

34:02

are you doing? How's your mom? And

34:04

I just texted back,

34:07

I should try and find it because it was funny.

34:09

Hang on, what's the, I need to find that

34:11

thread

34:12

because you said something very funny.

34:14

This is from 2020. Just

34:17

saying I've been thinking about you through all of this

34:19

and I can't fathom the lockdown. That's

34:22

the worst part of all of this. And

34:25

I just wrote back, I'm listening to a lot of records and

34:27

having, you know, sudden crying jags in between

34:30

and trying to write jokes, so that's fun.

34:33

Thanks for checking

34:35

in. It's just nice to know

34:37

someone else knows the deep fuckery of this.

34:40

Twitch Jan just wrote, it's

34:42

beyond shit.

34:44

And then wrote, the beyond shit

34:46

burger.

34:50

Which is exactly what it is. So

34:54

I guess what I'm trying to do here is look

34:57

for the corn in

34:59

the beyond shit burger

35:02

to see if there's something good that

35:04

we can pick out of all of this.

35:12

So this is probably gonna be a sad

35:14

story, but

35:17

it also has its funny parts. As

35:21

my mom would say, let's

35:23

not be kidding. So,

35:42

coming up next time on let's not be kidding. How

35:45

long has it been for your mom? She's still alive and she's,

35:47

but she's... How long has it been?

35:50

Since she started to descend.

35:51

You said eight years. I think it's about eight years. It's

35:54

been about eight years when it was like, more

35:57

than just the occasional sign.

35:59

Then there's... the years where she replaced

36:03

her moisturizer with bronzer and

36:07

just would come out of the bathroom with like an Oompa

36:09

Loompa, like a circle, an orange circle

36:11

of Oompa Loompa because she thought she was moisturizing

36:14

and she'd be like, ready to go to the store. And you're like,

36:16

no, you are not. Oh,

36:19

that's so- I see a really good

36:21

gay son would have put the moisturizer

36:23

on his face and said, see mom, now we look the same. Then

36:25

you go- How dare you

36:27

gay son shame me. But

36:31

gay sons and their demented moms, certified

36:34

mother's boy.

36:35

That's next time on Let's Not

36:37

Be Kidding.

36:42

You've been listening to Let's Not Be Kidding from

36:44

CBC Podcast. The show is written and

36:46

hosted by me, Gavin Crawford. David

36:48

Carroll is my producer, story editor and

36:51

sound designer. Emily Canel is our digital

36:53

coordinating producer. Original music

36:55

by William Lamoureaux. Our

36:58

senior producer is Damon Fairless. Executive

37:01

producers are Cecil Fernandez and

37:03

Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is

37:05

the senior manager of CBC Podcast and

37:07

Arif Narani is the director.

37:12

That was the first episode from the brand

37:14

new series, Let's Not Be Kidding. You

37:17

can listen to more episodes right now on the CBC

37:19

Listen app

37:20

and everywhere you get your podcasts.

37:23

It gets funnier too in two and three.

37:26

I promise. Then it gets pretty sad

37:29

again, like around four, but

37:31

then I think five is pretty funny.

37:34

You gotta just find out. I

37:36

can't tell you. It's your feelings.

37:38

You gotta

37:39

have them. For more-