​Prairie Orchid
Remembering my mother Jess Bowness

My mother Jess Bowness would have been 100 today. She died 10 years ago this month. Her obituary, which I wrote with my siblings, is reprinted below. It still reads well, and by that I mean it does something to capture my mother's indomitable spirit. Finding a way to tell her story more robustly is a near life-long passion project of mine. I am currently working on a novel, my first, inspired by my mother’s life. Beginning in 1970, Prairie Orchid is a fictional take on my family’s early years in Canada after moving from Singapore to Winnipeg. 

Singapore to Winnipeg: there’s a book in those three words.

The obit's call to action regarding Canada's then pending legislation on medical assistance in death (MAID) and the manner of my mother's death garnered attention in local and national media.

One week after my mother died, I got notification that I had received a Canada Council grant toward the book. She works fast; I don’t. The novel is still a work in progress. But I’ve been making good headway recently. Updates to follow.
JESS BOWNESS (née HANAM)
March 17, 1926 - March 3, 2016
[Originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on March 8, 2016.]


“What’s better than a single rose on a piano? Tulips on an organ.” 

In her 80s, our mother latched onto that joke and used it for a couple of years to accost wait staff, store clerks and strangers in elevators. She loved to make people laugh. Better yet, she loved to shock people, make them nervous and make them laugh. 

Frequently misunderstood, sometimes mistreated, ever mischievous, Jess Bowness died March 3 [2016] from complications arising from her decision to refuse insulin. She was 89. Diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, quadruple bypass surgery, neuropathy, memory loss and the very recent discovery of undiagnosed stage four breast cancer... she’d had enough. There wasn’t enough laughter anymore. 

The family supported her gutsy decision to die on her own terms, at least on terms as best as she could negotiate given the legal and medical vacuum that still exists around the right to die. Her death took longer than it needed to; there was more discomfort and distress than needed to be. Changes to the law will come too late for Jess. [The Canadian Parliament passed medically assisted death legislation (MAID) in June 2016, three months after Jess’s death.]

Jess was born March 17, 1926 in Singapore, then a British colony, to Robert and Perimbee Hanam, two Indian converts to Christianity whose families had lived in what was then called Malaya for some time. Details are sketchy and contradictory. It is assumed that Robert had been born into a Hindu family in Penang and was orphaned at some point. Perimbee came from a well-off Muslim family in Taiping, in the Malay state of Perak. Robert became a schoolteacher, principal and lay preacher (Methodist / Plymouth Brethren). The couple married in Singapore in 1913, eventually spawning a large family of strong characters and over-achievers. 

Jess’s education was interrupted by the Second World War; she never completed high school. The Japanese invasion of Singapore occurred on February 15, 1942, one month before Jess’s 16th birthday. She worked as a nurse in a Japanese-run civilian hospital during the three-and-a-half-year occupation. Her eldest sister died in 1945, just two days after the official Japanese surrender of Singapore. 

A ravishingly beautiful young woman, Jess made the most of the post-war years and, later, loved telling stories of her many suitors and glamorous exploits. She met Michael Bowness, a young university lecturer from England, in 1952; they were married December 19, 1953. Their first child, Gerald, died soon after birth. Then came Alun, David, Susan and Gordon. The family immigrated to Canada in 1965. Michael was a professor of biochemistry at the University of Manitoba. The family settled in the Winnipeg neighbourhood of Fort Rouge. Singapore to Winnipeg. Plus 30 degrees to minus 40. Cosmopolitan island state to land-locked provincial city (prior to this country’s embrace of multiculturalism). No extended family, no servants. Just the relentless labour of raising four kids in a strange country with a husband with whom she didn’t always see eye to eye. 

Jess was a generous, loving mother and grandmother... fun, hardworking, stubborn. She was a fantastic cook with surprising range: Malay, Indian, Chinese, Nonya and British. She even made two TV appearances on a cooking show (in actuality, a women’s history program), The Loving Spoonfuls. Jess was an avid gardener with a passion for wildflowers. She would often be found in highway ditches, woodlots or remote bogs, bucket and spade in hand, searching for her cherished Lady’s Slippers. She loved games and murder mysteries; she had an eye for hidden patterns and numbers. Who knows what she would have become raised in a different era? Her powers of argument were unparalleled. 

Jess was stylish to the point of eccentricity. One outfit suffices, early 1980s, worn to a social to raise money for a son’s terminally ill friend: silver knee-high platform leather boots, sparkly silver pants that tied at the knee, black-and-white striped blouse (the pants and blouse she had stitched herself) and lots of silver snake jewellery, bracelets and necklaces, some wrapped into her hair. She danced with every male in the place, except for her sons who cowered in awe. 

Her humour was unflagging, irreverent and, at times, off-kilter. Any time her younger child had to complete a school form that asked for his mother’s occupation, she’d insist he write in “Lady of leisure.” When she was bored, she’d often answer the phone with, “City morgue.” 

Family life in suburban Winnipeg never seemed quite the right fit for her, even though she loved her children to a fault. To a fault. Jess’s progeny run the gamut from scientists and educators to writers, from a wine expert to food supply and social justice activists. Their engaged and compassionate joie de vivre is part of Jess’s legacy. “Pshh, Canadians,” she might sometimes exclaim dismissively, but her contribution to her adopted country is undeniable, vibrant and ongoing. A gregarious soul, Jess drew relationships from all walks of life. She was a loyal but complicated friend to a special group of women who understood her strengths and deficits. 

Jess is survived by her sister Grace, brother Chaz and his wife Linda, sister-in-law Lillian, children Alun, David, Susan and Gordon and their spouses Sheila, Rita, Denis and Maurice, grandchildren Evan and Grace — and their mother Donnie — Avery, Damian, Camille, Chantelle, Miguel and Melanie, and nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews around the world. Husband Michael Bowness died in 1999. The family would like to thank the staff of the acute care ward in the Grace Hospital for their attentive care during Jess’s last days. There will be no service. The family will hold a private memorial at a later date. 

In lieu of flowers or donations, the family encourages friends and acquaintances to write their federal and provincial representatives and ministers to show support for broadly defined right-to-die legislation, and to urge legislators to act soon. Delay is causing unnecessary anxiety and pain. Help make right-to-die legislation another part of Jess Bowness’s Canadian legacy. 

And more laughs. •


[Legislation is still being amended: for example, advance requests for MAID are only available in Quebec. Here’s the current state of affairs from the government of Canada. Here’s the main advocacy group: Dying with Dignity.] 

Game Changing Play
I grew up in a football family in Winnipeg — well, it was an immigrant family, so my folks had no clue about the game, but both my older brothers were fantastic players, both eventually drafted by professional teams. As a fat, brown sissy-boy, it took me a long time to get into sports in general and football in particular, but once I did, I excelled (though I only went as far as the rather scrappy junior league in Canada). The eight years I played football form a crucial part of my younger life. I still love the game.

So in honour of the Super Bowl, I thought I’d haul out this 26-year-old (!) article of mine on football (see below). It’s one of the first pieces I wrote for my “Bent Dissent” column in the ground-breaking LGBTQ2S+ publication Xtra. 

"I don’t know if repression is ever good for you, but sometimes it can be lots of fun, twisting passion into fantastic shapes...." Revisiting my early columns can be a tricky affair. Sometimes the writing makes me cringe; sometimes I’m amazed at how well a piece holds up. This one...? Well, see what you think. One thing I remember about this piece is that it got people’s attention. I got letters. I even got a date proposal “sight unseen.”

Back in the early 1990s, when this article was published,  gay voices discussing football were seldom heard; out players were even more scarce. I think David Kopay was it — a pro player who came out years after he retired. Things have changed... and they haven’t. There are a handful of out players at the NCAA level, like Jake Bain, Wyatt Pertuset and Xavier Colman, while in 2014, Michael Sam came out  just prior to short stints in the NFL and CFL. And just last year, Donovan Hillary wrote a heart-breaking account of his struggles being gay while playing football for Queen's University. He quit the team and started playing with, and slowly coming out to, a new team — ironically, a junior team in Winnipeg called the Rifles. The openness of these young men of strong character marks a sea change. Of course they still had to battle prejudice, but they also got tremendous support from teammates and others.

In addition, today there are organizations like You Can Play, now headed by former pro footballer Wade Davis, which combats homophobia in sports. And on a related front: more women than ever are finding their footing in football organizations. Shout out to women like Sarah Thomas, the first to officiate an NFL playoff game, and San Francisco assistant coach Katie Sowers (who’s s also an out lesbian).

​Incredible changes. Meaningful changes. And yet the number of out players is minuscule relative to the thousands playing at the college and pro levels. We still have a long way to go.
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--
“Repression Can Be Lots of Fun”
Bent Dissent column in Xtra, November 13, 1992

Okay sports fans, here’s a quick rundown on today’s starting columnist. At age 8, he was the fattest boy in the neighbourhood. He knew he was gay when he was 12. At 13 he forgot. At age 15 he started his eight-year career in football – high school city champs, junior conference champions three years in a row, captain, defensive most valuable player, all-star, presented with Winnipeg’s prestigious high school sports award, the Harry Hood. He had a dismal season in the heterosexual leagues when... 

...he was 23. At 27 he sucked his first cock, impressing the local commentators. This year he’s trying to break into the big leagues. Here’s the veteran rookie now...

Football occupies a very strange and paradoxical place in my life. The macho culture of football kept me in the closet longer than I otherwise might have been. But football is so macho, it’s gay. It’s dripping with homo subtext. Football provided me with a depraved, competitive, physical subculture designed exclusively for men. I don’t know if repression is ever good for you, but sometimes it can be lots of fun, twisting passion into fantastic shapes.
​The terminology is ridiculous. The predictable offence penetrates deep into enemy territory with ball control, splits the defences, finds the hole, punches it through and shoves it their ass; all while the cock-tease defence fills the gap, pops the backs, stuffs the kicker, intercepts passes, drives them back and forces a turnover. Hail Mary! But I’m talking about more than just the obvious, more than bum-patting, locker-room cock-talk or showers. Ooh, the showers...

Football is a strange amalgam of role-playing, SM, drag, dance, peep show and phone sex, with World Wrestling Federation hysterics thrown in. But the Us vs Them tribalism is a smokescreen for love. The affection between teammates is as intense as the invective directed at opponents. To me, the emotions were palpable, sexual.

There was once a fight during a game (quelle surprise). Being the responsible captain, I stopped one of my players from joining in. He struggled to get at an opponent and I held on tight. I had never experienced anything like it before, all that muscle and heat thrashing about in my arms. As a linebacker, I had tackled countless people before. This was different. I have no idea why. I could feel his passion, his desire to fight, pass through me like lightning.

Football was the way I re-appropriated my own body. No longer the Pillsbury Doughboy, I gained self-esteem because my talents were recognized. Also, there was the sublime agony of hard physical training and the animalism of reflexive movement, as in dance or sex.
​
What motivated me then motivates me today. Why do you think I write this column? I still seek the approval, the company, the love of men. I want dates! Only now I can ask for what I want.

Macho myths are more than a game. We can’t forget that people pay a real price because the mythology is owned by confused men. Gay athletes, especially those at the top, have a lot of power if they choose to exercise it. By claiming the territory of sports, fags violate the boundaries around and within ourselves, women and countless team Thems. Men asking for affection from other men is very subversive.

...There’s the snap, and the conversion’s good. Hold it, there’s a fag on the field!