Tag: family

Jingle Tales: Helen’s Story

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I still remember when my sister broke the news. We were downstairs in the basement of our childhood home, watching the Simpsons. During a commercial break, my sister leaned over and said, “There’s something I need to tell you.” 

I looked at her, seriously. 

“Santa isn’t real,” she said. “It’s just mom and dad bringing down the presents.”

I said nothing, turning back to the TV. The commercial break ended, and we returned to watching The Simpsons. It was the episode where Homer is downhill skiing. He starts losing control as he picks up speed. He tries to recall what the ski instructor taught him earlier that day, but his thoughts quickly turn to having seen his neighbour Ned Flanders in a skin-tight ski suit. As he flaunts the new suit, Flanders famously says to Homer, “It feels like I’m wearing nothing at all!” 

As Homer continues to pick up speed, he can’t get the image of Flanders’ perfectly sculpted ass out of his head. He grimaces.

“Stupid sexy Flanders.”

When I looked up that episode to see when it aired, it was the year 2000, which means I was 12 years old when my sister revealed the cataclysmic life-changing news about Santa. I think we can agree that 12 is probably a little old to be believing in Santa Claus, but also that it’s kind of beautiful that my parents and my sister let me go on believing for as long as they possibly could before it became, like, really socially unacceptable.

Like, you would probably assume that having received said news, any reasonable 12 year-old would spend a few days mourning the inevitable loss of their childhood and then move on. Dear reader, this was not the case. I continued believing in Santa until I was 17 years old. 

With every passing year, I insisted that we keep the tradition alive: demanding that all of us kids sleep under the tree to see if we could catch Santa in the act, even going so far as to leave him cookies and a glass of milk (though by that time, my parents had gently suggested that Santa might enjoy a splash of Bailey’s).

I imagine that psychologists would have a field day with this particular childhood obsession, which, when I look back, feels a little embarrassing. But, then, I consider why it was I stopped at the age of 17 believing in Santa. What was happening at that time?

When I was 17, I decided to pursue a career as a pastor in a conservative Evangelical Christian denomination. While most girls my age were getting high and sneaking out to have sex with their boyfriends, I rebelled against my parents by becoming a raging fundamentalist. 

When I announced to my church friends that I wanted to become a pastor, they told me women pastors just didn’t exist. For a lot of people this lack of support and outright discrimination might kill your dreams, setting you on a different path, maybe even turn you against the career you’d been hoping to pursue. But, what my fundy friends didn’t know was that I had 17 years under my proverbial chastity belt believing in “something that didn’t exist.” I just blinked and went ahead and applied to become a pastor anyway. 

It turns out that believing in something that really probably doesn’t exist, well it turns out this is a critical skill for anyone wanting to go to seminary. After four years, I graduated from the Canadian prairie bible college known as “Bridalquest”. I was unmarried (spoiler alert, I never really had a problem with the girls dorms being separate from the boys). I went on to pursue a master’s in theology at a much more reputable and accredited university. I was ordained an Anglican priest and a year into my first parish, I came out. 

Once again, friends and mentors from my fundy days wrote to tell me being gay was nothing more than make-believe. This time, I realized that between believing in Santa Claus and believing in the God of white Chrisitan Evangelicals, that I actually had a combined 34 years of believing in “something that didn’t exist,” that is, a mythical old white man with a beard who keeps a running list of your bad behaviour. 

There’s a line from the Christmas carol, “Santa Claus is coming to town.” It goes, “He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!” 

Is it Santa? Is it God? I mean . . . 6/7.

By sharing this story tonight, I don’t in any way want to underplay the very real discrimination that we experience as queer people both as we seek out career paths and as we make ourselves known in the world. I was blissfully naive for a lot of those years, and there were still some really shitty things that happened that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. 

I want to say, though, that there is something beautiful, something queer about believing in Santa Claus or whatever mythical story it was for you in your childhood. That something beautiful, that something queer is the ability to imagine a world, an existence for ourselves that others might not be able to or might not be willing to picture for themselves. This is our holiday magic. 

Jingle Tales: Randy’s Story

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I have often said that no one loves the Xmas season as much as I do. That may or may not be true, but I definitely give other competitors a run for their money.

I am a confirmed atheist, so it’s never been about the religious aspects of the holiday, but the things that colour the season – the lights, decorated trees, the ever-present holiday music, the parties and gatherings, the customs and traditions: Charlie Brown, multiple iterations of the Grinch, Frosty, Rudolph, Ebenezer Scrooge, George Bailey & his wonderful life, Ralphie and his beebee gun, Will Ferrell as the most sincere elf in existence, and the Clark Griswold family Xmas disaster. Did you notice that I never said gifts and shopping?  I participate in that and do take pleasure in finding someone a great gift, but I truly would enjoy the entire season just as much if I never received a gift or had to buy one. Anytime I hear someone complain about how commercial the season is, I suggest they spend less time shopping in stores and on-line. There are at least 150 ways that someone can enjoy the season if they are compelled to, and most of these do not involve standing in line in a store.

In our house, we love Halloween. But honestly, once the decorations are put away and the jack-o-lanterns are composting, my lovely husband understands that there exists a chance that I might be playing occasional holiday music. It evokes so much happiness for me, that I have always found the expectation that Xmas music only be played within a week or two of December 25 to be really limiting. What I find amusing is that, because so much of the holiday music we listen to is rooted in childhood traditions, the musical artists involved can be so very random. This can truly be the only time that Glen Campbell, Charlie Brown, Don Ho, The Muppets, New Kids On The Block, Sia, Ella Fitzgerald, Run DMC, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir can be heard side-by-side, and no one really finds it odd.

Xmas traditions come and go, but one that is key for me is giving back. I’m a big fan of outreach and charity work. When my son was just 4 years old, Drew and I felt strongly that he should have a sense of perspective about how much we have, our place in the world, and how we should never take any of that for granted. About 17 years ago, I joined a grassroots outreach group called Potatoheads that serves fully-dressed baked potatoes and other food at Pigeon Park in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, one day per month. I would bring Jack with me each time, and he stuck with it until the pre-teen years kicked in, around the time that I took over the group’s coordinator role.  To this day, Potatoheads go down to Pigeon Park in the heart of the DTES every month to serve food and give out second-hand clothing and other essentials. At Xmas, we fundraise to buy items for gift bags that include food, socks, hats, and toiletry items, and are usually able to make and give out well over a hundred of these bags.

When I first started going to the DTES on a regular basis, I had some concerns. Obviously, my son’s safety was the primary one. But I came to realize over a brief period of time that, while it’s a very surreal atmosphere, and I am always keeping my eyes open, the residents are generally kind, appreciative, and open to chatting and jokes. Many seemed particularly impressed that my son was there, and they told him so. One day, someone gave him a Loonie for his efforts, and I told the gentleman that while it was a much-appreciated gesture, he likely needed the money much more than Jack did. He told me in no uncertain terms that he was giving it to my son, and not me. I understood at that moment that he probably felt great to show my son his appreciation this way, so of course, I left it at that. Over the years that Jack came with me, he ended up with further funds, a few Hot Wheels cars, and advice like, “listen to your parents!” and “stay in school!”

It’s deeply satisfying to be able to give food and supplies directly to end users. Over time, I occasionally become skeptical and wonder what difference is truly being made. But it always comes down to two things:  1) people need and 2) I have. And during the holidays, when so many of us are swimming in abundance, the motivation to give feels like the right thing to do. So, we keep doing it.

This extends to our annual holiday party that we throw at the beginning of each December. At our front door, we will have two donation boxes – one for the Vancouver Food Bank and one for the BC SPCA. People are allowed in even if they don’t contribute, and we will treat them just as kindly as the people who do. We promise.

In summary, I love the holiday season for a bunch of reasons. It’s amazing how sensory it all is. The smell of a mandarin orange or a cut Xmas tree can connect me so easily with how blissed out I was every December when I was a kid. Or the first 20 seconds of my favourite Xmas TV special. Or an incredible light display. Or track one/side one of the cheesiest vinyl holiday album that has ever existed, which still manages to make me almost as blissed out as I was when I was little.

I love socializing with family, friends, and neighbours on the 24th and 25th, and opening the doors of our house on Boxing Day to whoever wants to join us for leftovers and further hospitality. When I say that everyone here is invited, I’m quite serious. Talk to me after for our address.

Every December, I’m reminded of how lucky I am, not just in what I have, but in what I’m able to share with others. What makes the holidays meaningful for me are: the joy, the socializing, the nostalgia, and simple acts of giving. All that wrapped together with the soundtrack of Charlie Brown Xmas playing in the background can somehow make the world feel a little kinder.

Jingle Tales: Andi’s Story

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When I travel home for the holidays, I typically fly into Winnipeg. My family picks us up and we drive two hours to an acreage in the middle of nowhere. Icy roads, snow drifts, the smell of diesel in the early mornings, curling bonspiels, New Year’s socials, and having the breath knocked out of you when you open the door to go outside. No, these are not ‘a few of my favourite things,’ but the elements that make up a typical Christmas season out in the Prairies.

But this is not that story. This story begins in a rented Villa in sunny Cabo, Mexico after my parents decided we should all meet up for Christmas somewhere warm. What we thought would be a relaxing holiday getaway didn’t exactly turn out as expected.

On the day we arrived, my parents and brother had flown in a few hours earlier, and thus, my wife and I were left with the smallest, street-facing room, while everyone else sprawled out into their king-sized pool-view rooms. “Sucks to suck!” As Graeme, my brother, would say. But we were happy to see everyone and grateful that our schedules aligned. We caught up and began planning our excursions. My dad mentioned how we should all avoid one of the bathrooms for the time being, as my mom shouted, “Because your dad plugged it up!” Awesome.

The home owner, “Rita,” would send over her handyman/boyfriend to fix the situation dad had created. “Ooof, wouldn’t wanna mess with that guy!” My Dad said. “Why?” Chalking it up to some kind of prairie ignorance. “His name, it sounds like he’s in a gang.” Graeme and I just rolled our eyes. Turns out – let’s call him “Diablo” and Rita – owned two properties and were residing in the villa next door.

Throughout the trip, my mother, a retired nurse, would warn us of ingesting unbottled water. We reminded her that we had all been to Mexico before and knew the risk. I guess it was a helpful reminder, but for the most part, I generally stick to beers on holidays. Plus, I’m a tough farm kid with a gut of steel, right?

Well, one night we decided to go out for a fancier dinner to celebrate the holiday season. We dressed in our finest travel shorts and headed down to an Italian-style restaurant. I figured that I should try to eat at least one healthy meal on vacation so while everyone else chose pasta, I opted for the salad.

Later that night I began to feel the intensity of my gut in distress. At 3 am I ran to bathroom and was reintroduced to that $45 salad. I thought “at least I’ll feel better after this, I’m probably just hungover!” I did not, in fact, feel better and by 8am I realized I was in pretty rough shape.

“Mom, do you have anything for nausea?” “No, I don’t. You don’t look too good.”

“I’ll be alright, I’m just waiting for this to pass.”

By 2pm, my mother was putting a cool cloth on my head and my wife was urging me to take a sip of some sprite. As I did, I could tell my stomach was about to reject it and within a minute I was back in the bathroom. At this point I was severely dehydrated. I leaned over the porcelain throne and everything faded to black.

“Wwweeeeeeeeooooooooo“

Here came the ambulance, letting everyone and their dog know that some dumb tourist had to be transported to the hospital!! But this was no ordinary ambulance! It was the beach ambulance labeled “Bay Watch!” The paramedics helped me into the back as I noticed Rita and Diablo stepping out of their house towards my Dad, likely to ask what was happening.

I told myself “everything’s going to be okay. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

The wheels started moving and as they began to turn faster I was made aware of how uneven the cobble stone streets were. “Give me a bucket!” I yelled as I bounced from side to side on the stretcher. As we turned on to the main road it was clear that the back window of the ambulance made my performance quite visible to the traffic behind us, but at this point I no longer cared.

At the hospital, my wife proceeded with the paper work. I was able to see a doctor immediately. After about 4 different scans I was wheeled into a state of the art hotel room… I mean hospital room. Despite feeling like death was knocking, I couldn’t help but notice how new and fancy the room was! “If I’m gonna die, at least it’ll be in luxury!”

I was given IV fluids, which made a world of difference; however, as my wife would describe it, it did not stop the extremely rigid exorcist-style dry heaving. I was getting used to the routine, but I would have preferred to be in a better state for all the blood tests I was about to be put through. I have a really hard time with needles, so we’ll skip over that part!

Of course this also meant that I would have to stay the night in the hospital to wait for the results. While I was enduring this bodily punishment I was very much aware that I was supposed to be flying out the very next day and that check out from the villa was at 11am.

The next morning I felt a bit better, I had been prescribed 3 medications and the initial scans were clear of any serious issues. A nurse brought me a lovely breakfast of which I tasted some porridge and drank a bit of water. Enough energy for me to intensly stare down the ticking clock.

Finally, at about 10:20am I was discharged. I felt like I had been hit by a train, but at least I was going home! I couldn’t wait to fall into my own bed and sleep for three days straight. Back at the villa, we rush-packed. I threw everything into my suitcase and jumped into our Uber. The 45-minute drive to the airport was very hazy, and upon arrival, I felt distracted and still very much out of it. I walked up to the check-in counter and realized I didn’t have my phone. I left it in the Uber.

Ever try to log-in to your email on a different device for it to ask for a verification code that was sent to the phone you don’t have? Well, that’s how I spent the remaining two hours in Cabo. You see, I had recently started a new phone contract, which included the phone itself. If I lost it, I’d still have to pay for it. Now, both exhausted and panicked, we boarded our flight back to Vancouver.

Five hours is a long time without a screen or a book. At 30,000 feet, all I had was my wife and my restless leg. However, she had gone to the bathroom, and I hadn’t seen her in some time… I stood up and noticed a long queue for the bathroom.

“Oh no….”

The nightmare continues. Eventually I see her slumped into the very back row. When I reached her she tells me shes very ill, but not quite in the same way I was.

The flight attendant was aware my wife was coming down with something, so when I explained that I had just come from the hospital with a similar illness, the cart service was immediately halted, and all staff began donning their masks.

“Hello ladies and gentlemen, due to an onboard emergency we will ask that you remain seated on the aircraft until the paramedics have assisted one of the passengers off the plane.”

My wife whispers to me “I don’t think I can stand.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

“No, I think if I stand, I’m gonna pass out. Love, can you promise me something? If I pass out and happen to shit my pants can you cover me up so no one sees?”

“Yes, of course.”

I should have put that in my vows.

When the airport paramedic greeted us and I explained she couldn’t walk, we all collectively learned how to set up the aisle-sized wheelchair, as no one had ever set it up before. My wife recalls this part as the wheel of shame, as she was pushed from the back of the plane to the front for all the curious passengers to observe.

At 1am, after touching down at approximately 7pm, my wife was discharged from Richmond Hospital. We patiently waited for our Uber to take us home to the North Shore. Without my phone, without our bags, and without our dignity, we collapsed into our home and stayed in bed for the following few days.

I wish I could say the story ends here, but it does not. I ended up connecting the Uber driver with Rita to figure out a plan to get my phone back. Not only did it require a lot of translating, but due to certain laws, it could not be shipped to Canada. Eventually, a friend of Rita’s who lived in BC offered to bring it back to me. When I finally got my phone a month later, I had another big surprise! Someone had been using my phone and had synced their Google account to it. The name? Diablo.

My Dad’s instincts about Diablo would soon be proven correct as I came across multiple inappropriate messages he had been sending to random young women, photos of other people’s IDs, videos – or should I say evidence – of his affairs that I wish I could unsee. I immediately confronted Rita over text, and her response was:

“I don’t know who you’re talking about and honestly, I have no more time for this”

I felt a hot surge radiate across my face. Multiple message logs would not only prove the level of their relationship, but also the schemes they ran, the thread their financial situation was held by, and the toxicity between them. Before blocking both of them, I made sure to send her a few images of “proof” of their affiliation as well as her boyfriend’s extracurricular activities.

The following days entailed resetting and taking apart my phone to scrub it both literally and figuratively of any trace of tampering.

This all happened exactly one year ago, and only last month did I receive communication from the travel insurance company. As they often do, the company is attempting to refute my claim, stating I owe them $22,000 (it really was a fancy hospital!) As shocking as it may sound, it only comes down to a bit of missing paperwork.

This year we’re very much looking forward to a less eventful Christmas, because sometimes sticking to the familiar rhythms of the holidays and weathering the cold is a walk in the park compared to the never ending Cabo story!

And folks, I’m very proud to say that my wife successfully did not shit her pants!

Jingle Tales: Catrina’s Story

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I found my voice in an unexpected place: along my uncle’s bar counter on Christmas Eve, 12 years ago.

Our annual Christmas Eve gathering is often shrouded in hilarious, wine-fuelled chaos: think melted chocolate flying onto walls, ceilings, and holiday sweaters, and elbows knocking for space on the meat-lined hot plates in the centre of the table.

And most recently, TikTok-inspired Christmas games like the one where you waddle around with a candy cane dangling between your legs, as you try to collect other candy canes out of a cup—which has proven to be far more engaging than the yearly new multiplayer story-based boardgame addition that my cousin insists we play, which takes a minimum of 20 minutes to explain. You can hear his sighs of frustration growing louder with each pour of wine as we all become more distracted and difficult to wrangle. Yet, he keeps trying! Our family is nothing if not tenacious!

I’ve brought each of my partners to this night over the years—a test of sorts—to see how they can hang with the family. Will they be a willing participant in the chocolate fondue frenzy? How will they act when my aunt has a couple of glasses too many and starts licking her plate?
Will they show interest in my uncle’s lengthy description of the (many?) notes of his aged scotch?
Can they keep up with the quips that fly across the table between my cousins, my mom and any unsuspecting victim? Will they jump to extinguish the small fire that lights up the front of my mom’s shirt and humour her when she brings it up every year thereafter?!

All of these moments have become the colours that paint a night that we have each grown to love and look forward to as a family.
But not every year was jolly—particularly the first one.

We started this tradition in 2013. My mom, older brother, boyfriend at the time, and I packed up my mom’s famous broccoli and cheese dish—lovingly nicknamed “broccoli thing,” and made our way to my aunt and uncle’s home.
No matter the occasion, going there felt special. I was enamoured by the house and all it contained; their grand piano, the big yard, and of course, the Martha Stewart-worthy holiday spreads my aunt would prepare.

That night, we were greeted by Christmas tree lights and the scent of honeyed carrots and turkey roasting in the oven.
Ever the hosts, boards of fancy cheese, crackers and jams lined the bar counter with a couple of $50 Pinot noirs open and decanting.
The chocolate was slowly melting in its little pot, surrounded by fresh strawberries and raspberries.
And the night took off as it would for years to come: Christmas tunes playing in the background amid crackers crunching and the belly laughter of cousins sitting along the bar counter with a beer or a wine glass in hand.

The adults lingered around us in the kitchen, eager to hear the latest:
“It’s been ages! Too long!”
“How’s school been going?”
“What about work?”
“What have you been up to?”
“Are you dating anyone?”

Mmm. That last one.

My aunt and uncle like to drink. They are big wine people—the kind that have monthly memberships to their favourite wineries and always have a bottle open and ready to share. So when my uncle directed this last question at my brother, he was certainly a few glasses deep: his face a little red, his voice a little louder.

My brother had been single for a while after a devastating breakup. A fairly private and non-confrontational person, he brushed off the question with a casual, “I’m not looking for anything right now.”
My uncle pressed him further. “What do you mean, a strapping guy like you? No girlfriend?”
“Nope, no girlfriend.”
“Well, I think we know what’s really happening then.”
Silence, around the bar table.
My uncle laughed boisterously, “Well, it’s obvious, you must be gay, right?”
My brother, very straight and clearly uncomfortable, just said, “No, I’m not. I’m just single right now.”
But my uncle kept pressing. The tension in the room was a living thing that seemed to grow with each passing second. Eyes shifted but no one uttered a word, giving all the air to my uncle as he laughed, his scotch tilting in its cup, while he continued on this completely inappropriate and brazen tirade he started and couldn’t seem to stop, he sounded off like an unreachable stove top kettle screeching on its red hot element as proceeded to list all of the supposed signs and reasons why my brother must be—

“THAT’S ENOUGH.”

Each head and neck darted to my seat at the island bar. My small, 21-year-old frame quivered with anger, and I joined their wide-eyed surprise that those deep, guttural two words had come from me.

“Can’t you see that you are making him—and everyone else—uncomfortable? That’s enough now. Stop.”
My uncle stared at me, jaw slack in disbelief, as he seemed to almost come-to—or rather, come back down onto planet earth where the rest of us were living.
“Wow, I didn’t know you had that in you,” he said to me.
“Yeah, well…” (Truthfully, neither did I).

The subject changed, the night continued on, but that interaction cut all of us. A wound, surely, but it also cut us open—it eventually forced us to reflect in a way that became healing. And looking back, I know how truly important that night was.

Families are swollen with untalked-about power dynamics and histories, aren’t they?
And although our dynamic was inherent and conditioned, both my uncle and I (and likely everyone else in the room) were surprised that night by the forced assessment of our roles in the family. I didn’t think of myself as a role-breaker, but saying those two words gave me confidence that I could be. I don’t actually have to fit myself uncomfortably inside other people’s expectations of me. If I stand up for what’s right, I might be heard. If I speak up, someone might listen.

In the end, my uncle did.

He apologized then, and has apologized since. That incident was the catalyst for years of deeper conversations in our family—and I believe laid the foundation for the support, understanding and care that those same family members, including my uncle, have given me since I came out and married my soulmate (who just happens to be gender non-conforming—turns out, unbeknownst to me at the time, that I was the gay one in the room!).

Although uncomfortable, I am grateful for that night being part of my story. It taught me that finding your voice doesn’t always happen in grand moments; sometimes it happens in smaller ones, in the middle of a crowded kitchen, uttering two words aloud that surprises even you.

I didn’t know it then, but that moment was the beginning of something much bigger. It was the first time I realized that care and love sound like courage—not silence. That it’s not enough to simply know the difference between right and wrong; love lives in saying the truth out loud, with your whole chest—and often to the biggest person in the room.

That lesson has followed me into many more dinners and many more hard conversations with people I love and strangers alike. Speaking up with compassion for those who haven’t found their voice quite yet, or whose voice often goes ignored or dismissed.

So finding my voice didn’t end in that one moment—it began there. And now that I’ve found it? Good luck trying to shut me up.

Season of the Witch: JJ’s Story

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If half of the snake oil remedies my mom believed in were real, the average life expectancy would skyrocket to a thousand years. Minimum.

Her bold statements were frequent  in the Gibb household, always followed by a “I guess we’ll seeeeee,” as if she knew more about oil of oregano than she was letting on; as if she’d been given a top-secret briefing on the all-powerful benefits of celery juicing, to which none of the world’s health authorities had been privy to.

We never know how unique our upbringings were until we’re comparing notes as adults. Like, what do you mean you didn’t come home from school to find large amethysts on the doorstep, charging in the sunlight? Where did your family charge their amethysts?

Okay, but before every meal, you all said grace, right? And then you followed that by three long hums, meant to charge the food with positive energy? You didn’t? So you just ate uncharged food like a bunch of schmucks?! 

How—to this day—she refused to have Wi-Fi in her home because of the negative ions or some wild shit like that. During every visit home, my limited data plan engaged in a Herculean effort to let me browse Instagram on my parents’ couch. Refusing to have Wi-Fi in your home while simultaneously being addicted to your cell phone is a rich combination, but if you pointed it out, all you got in return was the “I guess we’ll seeeeee.”

Well, here’s what I saw: 

The water pitcher on our kitchen table, filled with rose quartzes and other “healing” stones, so anytime you went to pour yourself a glass of water, you were treated to a clink-clanking of gems sliding against the pitcher.

How I confided in my mom that I was self-conscious about the amount that I sweat, and she took me to a naturopath, who told her that she was unloading too much negative energy onto me—though in retrospect, it was more likely a generalized anxiety disorder.

There were appointments with a Nucca doctor, who claimed that re-aligning your neck cures basically everything from fibromyalgia to—in my case—low foot arches. Water bottles filled with homeopaths, YouTube videos playing “healing vibrations,” crystals, mystic channelings in the basement, throwing out the microwave because of the toxicity, naturopath visits, daily supplements from a company named Juice+ (which in my adulthood, I learned is an MLM), enrolling us in weekend-long seminars about the power of attraction, psychic readings where they told her my wife’s name would start with a J.

How she regularly boasted about her three sons being “Indigo Children,” a supposed new evolution of the human race with greater emotional capacity and intelligence, but when you looked up the term Indigo Child as an adult, you learn this was a pseudoscientific term often used by parents to describe neurodivergent children, so they can avoid pursuing a proper diagnosis for their kid.

“Mom, do you think that you labeled us as Indigo Children so you could avoid the reality that all three of your sons had raging ADHD?”

“Oh, I guess we’ll seeeee.”

Yes, my mother, Particia Gibb was essentially the resident witch doctor of Sturgeon Country, Alberta. She grew up on a small farm outside of Barrhead, with my dad’s family on an adjacent farm. They were high school sweethearts, which I think used to be a romantic term. I find it kinda horrifying, the idea of marrying the first guy I kissed. She went to university for teaching, and spent almost two decades as a Home Economics teacher, though after having three Gibb boys–myself being the last, when she was 41—she gave up teaching to stay at home with us.

Her love for us burned as bright as her anger. The kind of mom who pulled an all-nighter working on a model of Uranus for my grade six science project and sewed us homemade Halloween costumes every year. She was also the mom who frequently “canceled” Christmas, or one time, when the dishes had piled up in the sinks over a week and everyone refused to wash them, she packed all of the dishes into storage bins and hid them from us. Having dishes was a privilege, not a right.

It’s impossible to pinpoint when my mom’s descent into alternative medicine began. It truly wasn’t until well into my 20s that I realized how deep her wellness rabbit hole went, or even that the rabbit hole existed in the first place.

My mom’s belief in the alternative hasn’t always been a harmless secret punchline for my friends. Recently, when one of my brothers struggled with an ongoing psychosis, mom started taking him to an energy healer, convinced it was trauma from a past-life causing these episodes., Ultimately, he needed proper medications. 

Or how my parents always seemed on the brink of financial ruin, yet my mom always had enough money to blanket the kitchen table in bottles of pills and supplements. My mom lets me use her Amazon Prime account, and I see the hundreds of dollars she spends every week on supplements. She’s apparently really into colloidal silver and kelp right now. But I’m a guest on her Prime account, so I honour our unspoken agreement. I don’t ask about the kelp capsules, and she doesn’t ask about my inflatable sumo suits. 

An unintended benefit to having a parent steeped in the alternative health community is I’ve had a front-row seat to the latest conspiracies. For years, my mom has told me she’s going to become a billionaire soon because of this thing called NESARA. Look it up online. It’s this conspiracy theory that’s been around for decades, some people call it a cult. All I know is she’s signed a bunch of NDAs and funneled an unknown amount of money into this. Which is why I don’t feel bad about what I did in the spring of 2021.

During lockdown, when rumblings of a COVID vaccine began emerging, I encouraged my parents—both in their 70s, and in relatively poor health—to get vaccinated as soon as possible

When front-line workers (including teachers) were announced to be some of the first vaccinated in BC, my mom had a grave tone to her. “You’re… you’re not going to get vaccinated, are you?”

“Of course I am, and you all should too.”

“But JJ, it’s so dangerous. It could kill you,” her voice quivered.

A week later, she texted me asking how much the upcoming semester of my graduate program cost, and offered to pay for it as long as I promised not to get vaccinated. 

“Absolutely not,” I said immediately, refusing to give her theories any credibility.

After our phone call, I talked to my friend who worked at the CDC and had been redeployed to the COVID task force. My friend had also been on the frontlines of hearing me complain about my family’s anti-vaxxer shenanigans, and she was naturally my first stop after my mom’s ridiculous offer.

“My mom just tried to bribe me into not getting vaccinated. She said she’d pay for my next semester of school if I didn’t.”

“So you’re just going to lie and take the money, right?”

Despite being in the closet for the first 30 years of my life, lying isn’t something that comes naturally to me. It never even occurred to me I could lie about this; I’d been dead-set on making a stand and leading by example, hoping to inspire the rest of my family.

“How will she ever know? It’s not like she would ever ask for a blood sample or anything, would she?”

So lie I did. I came back with a pseudo counter-offer that I would “delay” getting vaccinated until next year.

“Good,” she said, “by then they’ll know how dangerous that vaccine is.”

“What difference will a few months make on knowing the long-term effects of something like this?!”

“I guess we’ll see…”

She sent me an e-transfer for $1,800, and two weeks later, I got a COVID vaccine.

Writing this story, I set out to highlight all the zany shit my mom practiced and peddled over my life. A borderline cathartic practice of retracing the Gibb timeline, but instead of milestones, they’re snake oil treatments for real problems my family endured over the years.

And as medically disputed as all these practices were, and as frustrating as her parade of “I guess we’ll see”s throughout life have been, I realized something else: that they ultimately come from an earnest place of love. She believed the rose quartzes in our water pitcher helped us, just like she believed that paying a person to perform reiki on me from a province away helped me as well.

Like a new-age pseudoscience miracle drug, we don’t pretend to understand how a mother’s love works, but we believe in it all the same. And how will it all play out in the end?

I guess we’ll see.