The Call

My parents on a hike in January 2021.

Armed with the knowledge that Lumpy wasn’t a tumour, I knew what I had to do. It was time to call my parents.

If you know my mother you know she worries. I don’t think she would mind me telling the world this because it’s just fact. The sky is blue, mom worries. The grass is green, mom worries. Unicorns aren’t real (sorry) and my mother worries. About big things. About small things. About things that aren’t even things. And certainly… she’s going to worry about this mother fucking thing.

So I soaked up the sobs from my pity party with my sister, put on my big girl pants and dialed the number I’ve called since I learned my home phone number when I was in kindergarten — or whenever you were supposed to learn that. The number my two oldest friends still remember by memory, as I theirs. Our brains. They’re fascinating.

I took a deep breath (thanks yoga) and picked up the phone. It went a little something like this:
“Dani?”
“Hi, Mom! Is dad there, too? Could he get on the other phone. I have something I need to tell you both.”
”Gary, it’s Dani she wants you on the phone, too.”
“Dan?”
“Hi, Dad! Okay. So, remember how I told you my body has been hurting all over and I can’t close my hands very well. And I’ve been seeing Marcelle for a few weeks.”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, what I didn’t tell you is the first time I saw her… she found a lump. I’ve since had an ultrasound and bloodwork. The bloodwork is all clear and I found out yesterday the lump is a swollen lymph node. My doctor said it could mean anything. Usually a swollen lymph node isn’t a cause to worry.”
“Okay”
“But… it’s huge. Like it’s the size of a ping-pong ball so even though we know it’s not a tumour, which is good, it still needs a biopsy so we can get to the bottom of it. So… I’m sorry and you’re welcome.” I ended my spiel with a little humour as I’m wont to do and my parents chuckled as best they could.

I can’t remember all the questions but I knew I felt worse for them than anyone else. Once you have kids, you realize all you want is to protect them from harm, from illness, from everything you can. But you just can’t. And there’s a helplessness to that. Especially now in the midst of a pandemic where everyone wants to help, but real help would be watching the kids and now I’m super immunocompromised and it’s just not a risk we can take.

The older I get the more I reflect on the lives my parents have led and just how much trauma and difficulty they had to come through. And how sad I feel for so many generations of children who didn’t really have one-on-one time with their parents. Who were seen and not heard. Or who weren’t seen as who they were, as fully formed humans, meant to be guided gently, not demanded in this direction or the other to fit whatever mold society said they had to be in.

The Brothers Family, 1981
(with 12 of 14 children)

Back row (L to R): Reg, Lawrence, Arthur, William (Bill), Ford;
Middle row (L to R): Patricia, Florence, Marie, Ann, Shirley, Gordon and Elizabeth (Beth);
Front row: Clifford and Dora Brothers

My grandmother on my maternal side, was a force of nature, which she passed on to every woman in my family. There is not a wilting flower among us. We are strong. Capable. We love with our whole souls and this love crosses oceans and divides and is deep. My grandmother had 14 children. That’s right: 14. F O U R T E E N. Her 12th and 13th children were a set of twins (which has not skipped a generation) and her last and 14th child was my mother, Shirley Margaret Brothers. Making me the youngest of 58 grandchildren. The baby’s baby.

My mom grew up on one of the Grey Islands off the coast of the North East shore of Newfoundland (Groais Island specifically). She was the only baby born in a hospital (St. Anthony). Planes came to bring the mail. They had a cow named Daisy. They took fish out to the flakes to dry. A priest would come every once in a while and all the Catholic children on the island would have their baptism, first communion, confirmation, etc. all at once. She didn’t see a television until she was 16-years-old and you better believe she was never called by the right name. In her home there was love. There were three meals a day. There were loving parents and there was joy.

That my mom went on to become the only university graduate in her family, to have a very successful teaching career and a pair of pretty fucking fantastic kids is a testament to her perseverance, bravery and strong-will. I’m grateful she’s mine and I’m sad to put her through so much worry right now.

My dad, Gary with his long-lost brother, Keith in 2012.

Keith Fackrell (L) and Gary Hitchcock (R)

As for my father, Gary, well he was dealt a hand of cards for sure — and it wasn’t a flush. He was born in 1944, nearing the end of the second world war. He had a charmed life compared to my mom in some ways. Growing up in York (what would become part of the City of Toronto) he had access to all of life’s luxuries. Televisions, streetcars, subways, bicycles, community centres, you name it, it was there. Despite all those needs being met, his emotional needs were far less cared for. As was the story at the time for many men of my dad’s generation.

At 18, he embarked on an adventure in the navy, a lifelong dream. Mid-way through lessons in the middle of the Great Lakes, my father was confronted by a superior. Apparently his name wasn’t Gary Nelson Hitchcock after all, it was Haakon Emil Nilson, Jr. and they were declaring him an imposter. Imagine. You’re an 18-year-old-boy, on a boat with a bunch of strangers, in the middle of open waters having some person you don’t know from Adam tell you “hey guess what, your father isn’t who you think it is and this isn’t even your name.” I’d say that’s enough to mess with your psyche for the rest of your life.

In an amazing twist of fate nine years ago, this story turned into a beautiful miracle and was printed above the fold in the L I F E section of the Toronto Star on Thanksgiving weekend. So I’ll let an actual writer tell more of my dad’s story here: Half-brothers meet for the first time thanks to Toronto Daily Star article.

The long story short is: my parents have been dealt some hands. Like any of us humans, the cards weren’t always good — but you make the best of them. You take what you have and you run with them. You sink or you soar. That’s what they did. And that’s what I do. So, for me to be giving them something potentially serious to worry about in their 70s. Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, not cool Lumpy. You prissy little bitch. Haven’t my parents had to deal with enough?