Goodbye

All of our hopes and ambitions, dreams and aspirations, fears and uncertainties, victories and defeats, joy, pain, experiences and memories that we forge in this life eventually fit into a box small enough to be clasped in the hand of the youngest son.



The ferryman approaches to take our father on his final journey. My sister, the eldest of the children, spoke to the captain about our desire to bury our father at sea. Not only was he sympathetic, but he promised to stop the ferry in the middle of the straight and sound the ship's horn as a salute to the fallen.


The family is all gathered; dad is in the box, and I am just out of the picture holding the camera. We haven't much experience (yet) at burying family members. The idea was to commit our father's remains to the sea, but none of us had the heart to do the deed. Eventually the two eldest children (left and right) agreed to both place their hands on the remains and throw in unison.


When we reached the appointed place, true to their promise the boatmen stopped the ship and lowered the chain so that we could approach the stern of the vessel. We stood by the back of the ship and hesitated, trying to find the appropriate words, but we found ourselves at a loss. Finally one of the crewmen approached and volunteered to say a few words for the departed. He offered up an awkward, incomplete but very sincere recital of the 23rd psalm. The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want... It seemed as appropriate a final eulogy as anything else, and when he was done the two eldest ceremonially tossed our father over back of the boat into his favourite fishing spot.


I don't know what we expected. The box was pretty heavy, but I think that most of us thought that some miracle of the moment would cause it to float. It barely made a splash as it broke the surface of the water and it sunk like a stone. The box and the bag in which his ashes are stored are designed to dissolve away very quickly, and I expect they did not even make it to the bottom of the bay.


This past summer I saw my living father for the very last time. I do not remember my last words to him, but I like to think that they were, "I love you, dad." On the other hand, I remember his final words to me very clearly. He clasped my hand as tightly as he could in his weakened state and said, "Thank you, David."

Moments after I took this picture he disappeared completely from sight beneath the waves en route to his final resting place.


He is gone from us now. Whether you believe he is in heaven with the angels, or just a swirling cloud of calcium and ash at the bottom of Brentwood Bay, at least he is in a place that is beyond suffering; a place free of cancer and pain.

Nanaimo Airport

It is very rare these days for us to have the whole family together again in one place, so we decided to record the event for posterity. The arrangement by size was a total fluke - we just milled about in front of the house until Dao (my bossy sister-in-law) ordered us to all bunch up for a photo. I snapped back, "Well, whatever you do don't cut off our heads or feet." Dao has a notoriously bad eye for photography, but as you can see she did an admirable job with the camera.


Unlike such airports as Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg, they have free wireless internet in Nanaimo's Cassidy Airport. Vancouver's airport has free wireless as well, but my layover there will be fairly short this time around, so I don't know if I will go to the trouble of pulling out my computer for the occasion. Still, it is nice to have that option, and it just reinforces what I have always felt about the coast being so much more progressive than the prairies.

I feel a little vulture-like for it, but I am bringing home an additional suitcase with clothes that I nabbed out of Dad's stuff. For shirts and socks and the like he and I wore about the same size, and mom insisted that she would rather have me take it home and use it than just give it to a thrift store. Ugh - there were a couple of other things that I wanted to look through while I was there, but I have been so busy with family that I forgot. I expect that mom will probably throw them out before I have a chance to call her to put them aside. She was eager to get us out the door so that she could start cleaning up and throwing things in the trash.

One thing I wanted to look at was just an item of curiosity. Dad kept every single paystub from his time at the railroad. He had mentioned that fact to me once or twice over the years, and I was curious to see how much things had changed over the years (how much tax they were taking off back in the early 60s versus how much I am losing off my cheques today, for instance). They don't take up a whole lot of room, so I am going to contact mom and ask if she wouldn't mind holding them for me.

It looks like there are going to be multiple babies on my flight this afternoon. Joy. Fortunately it's only a short hop to the mainland, and I charged up my mp3 player before I left mom's place, so I should be good even if some of these scream machines end up on the longer leg of my flight.