First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
Illustration by April Dela Noche Milne
“It’s an old people store, I know,” she says loudly as we walk in, much to the amusement of the sales associate standing nearby. “I look for the patterns here, anyway. Oh, and the short skirts.” Oma gestures down at her tanned legs. Today, she’s wearing a cheetah-print, scoop-neck dress that ends just above her kneecaps. Oma moves off to begin scanning the racks, her eyes searching out loud prints or anything in purple, her favourite colour.
At 15, I wanted nothing more than to wear what every other teenager in 10th grade was wearing. But my Oma – with her brown hair dyed auburn (“I always wanted to have this colour”) and clashing prints (often an animal print paired with a bright floral) – existed in a world of personal style that I could not possibly understand. And yet, as she pulled out a few skirts and held them against her legs – no doubt to ensure they were short enough – I couldn’t help but envy her confidence.
As I grew up, I came to realize that what I thought of as confidence was actually more of a playful self-love. She gave herself the freedom to express herself exactly as she desired and the enjoyment of doing so. Once her husband, my Opa, died, she embarked on her own personal love journey that showed itself in daring fashion, carefully maintained hair colouring and styling, and bright pedicures every two weeks. In her early 80s, Oma shopped and primped with the excitement of my 10th-grade girlfriends, just minus the self-consciousness and with a lot more self-compassion.
Aside from encouraging me to wear my favourite colours every day (“Black does not count,” she told me) and paint my nails in my spare time, Oma took great care to check in on me – often. While we spent time together in the summer months, most of my adult relationship with her was long distance. She was in Kelowna, B.C., while I was at school in Vancouver. Many a day while I was at university, with a pile of books on my desk and a half-finished essay on my computer screen, I’d sneak a peek at my phone to discover two missed calls and a voicemail.
It was often Oma: “Caitlin, call me back so we can chat, please. I hope you’re having fun right now. I love you!”
It was in these conversations that I discovered another expression of Oma’s self-love, which was the time she dedicated to connecting with others and encouraging their own enjoyment of life. She would call me several times a week to ensure I was happy. One particular day, she told me she had spent the whole afternoon on the phone, calling each of her relatives in Germany, her neighbour from her old home in Calgary and my young cousins as well. Her voice was croaky from talking so much and still she made sure to ask me: “Well, homework aside, are you making time to have some fun?” Sometimes I was having fun, other times I wasn’t, but each check-in was a reminder to myself to pencil “enjoyment” into my schedule. (I will note that Oma’s ideas of me enjoying myself did tend to include either meeting an appropriate boy to “go steady with” or going to a dance, but she always seemed gratified to hear “Yes, I went skiing yesterday!” or “Well, I really enjoyed this chow mein I had in the dining hall.”)
As she got older, my Oma never lost sight of the need for self-love. Though she was no longer going to the mall to scout for cheetah-print skirts, to the hairstylist to have her hair touched up or to the nail salon to have her toenails painted glittery purple, she adapted to a new form of self-compassion. This time in her life mirrors the ways we are relearning to enjoy ourselves, particularly in the past few years, as we’ve found and rediscovered pleasure within our own homes. One of the last phone calls I had with my Oma was about the things that she was enjoying doing every day at home. She giggled as she admitted she put on her favourite loungewear in the afternoon, even though it “feels like I’m wearing pyjamas all day!”
When I asked about the helpers who were checking in on her in her townhouse, she lowered her voice; “They won’t let me eat the dark chocolate squares in the fridge … but I’m going to have a nibble once they leave.” Sitting in my room as I talked to her on the phone, I couldn’t help but realize that I, too, was in my pyjamas (not purple but bright green), watching a guilty-pleasure show on my laptop, and had been eyeing my own dark chocolate stash all afternoon.
At the time, I’d wished her good luck sneaking a square, but in retrospect, I wish that I’d thanked her for all of the wisdom she’d been passing on to me throughout all of my adolescent and young adult life. If it hadn’t been for her lessons in self-love – her guidance in caring for myself and enjoying life in all of its stages – who knows if I would’ve been wearing my comfiest pyjamas and eating my favourite chocolate while I talked on the phone with her that day?
Caitlin Jones lives in South Surrey, B.C.
Sign up for the weekly Parenting & Relationships newsletter for news and advice to help you be a better parent, partner, friend, family member or colleague.