Just a thought… Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; Our lives are a mirror, reflection a must. [Linda Meyers]
There’s nothing quite like two separate cemetery visits followed by a trip to a dinosaur museum to make you refocus on living each day to its fullest.
That’s what most of my last week was about, and I’ve so much to tell you I almost didn’t know where to start. So rather than go chronologically, I’m going to take this in two parts, beginning today and moving backwards. Next week: the last leg of the trip home – Canmore AB to Kamloops BC to our condo on Vancouver Island – will be fresh enough to share. So here we go…backwards.
Today we awaken in Canmore, Alberta as we head back over the Rocky Mountains and to the BC ferry home tomorrow.
Just outside the more famous Banff, Canmore captured our hearts nearly 40 years ago when Rob and I first rented a convertible to visit the province of my birth. He immediately felt at home, as though he was somehow Alberta born as well. And I was proud to share the sights and experiences of Wild Rose Country with him.
This trip was less about sightseeing and more about family. We spent three wonderful nights in Okotoks, outside Calgary, with my aunt and uncle, visiting also with two of my three cousins and two of their children, eating (far too well and too much), yelling for and at the Jays, and sharing plenty of family history.
As we said good-byes yesterday with hugs and laughter, loaded up with snacks and meals for our journey, rather than point our car towards the mountains, we drove the two hours northeast to Alberta’s famous badlands and Drumheller. Since the time I was a kid spending countless summers with my grandparents in Turner Valley (near Okotoks), a visit to the world-renowned Royal Tyrrell Museum has been on my to-do list.
It most definitely did not disappoint. Of course, pictures can’t do it justice, but with the extensive collection of fossils, huge displays of actual bones and casts, interactive activities, a lab to watch workers, and other multi-media options, we spent two hours but could easily have stayed a few more.
Delightfully enough, a listener from my CHFI days asked if I was who she thought, and then introduced herself! We caught up for a few minutes, then I gave Bernice from Etobicoke a big hug, and we were on our way. Of all places! Hope she doesn’t include me in the list of fossils she encountered at the museum. Gotta say though, their ball cap is awfully reminiscent of the name of the Mango Mussolini with the poisonous tongue and out-of-control Sharpie. Um…maybe rethink that one, folks?
So that was Sunday. The day before, we had driven part of the way to Drumheller to make some different connections.
Located in Three Hills, AB, it’s an honest-to-goodness Davis family burial site and I was able to trace my way back to the great-great-grandfather who came here via covered wagon from Kansas (even wintering in Nebraska, in true Little House style).
Saturday, accompanied by Rob, and my dad’s kid brother Vern, I sprinkled the last remaining ashes of my father around the headstone of his parents and two brothers who predeceased him.
And with that, what I jokingly called the Grateful Dead tour was almost over (finishing with the dinosaur museum, naturally – pardon the pun).
Friday was a bit more ceremonial: along with my aunt and uncle and a cousin and her husband, we gathered in Diamond Valley. (They combined Turner Valley, where Dad and Mom were raised, with Black Diamond – thus the shiny new moniker.) There, under cloudy skies, stiff breezes and with a brilliant view of the land he loved so well, we shared a few words, sang a little of John Denver’s “Back Home Again” and said our penultimate farewells. Dad’s urn, topped up with small amounts of ashes from our mom, his dear Maureen, and grandchildren Lauren and Michael, was laid to rest near a headstone he’d designed and had been carting around from one residence to another after Mom’s passing.
A family lunch followed and, although it was one of those moments that marks a closure, I was honoured to have helped my three sisters in our individual and shared responsibilities in getting him where he wanted to be. We hope we were as good to him as daughters as he was to us as a father.
Next week here, I’ll share with you some much lighter moments and a few more highlights from what I hope will be an annual trip across the Rockies. On Thursday as we approached Banff I asked Rob to promise he’d remind me that I want to spend more time in my beloved Alberta every year.
Meantime, for every sign attached to farmland fences or poked into people’s yards that called for Albertans to “send Ottawa a message” there was an equal number that urged people who share my love of the province and her place in Canada to remember to vote next month.
May only good come of the referendum on a referendum that lies ahead, and may whatever does happen strengthen the ties among all who love this country, united against what’s coming at us from south of the border.
Okay – here we go. Cup’s full, car’s charged and it’s time to hit the road again, this time for Kamloops. That’s where I’ll be recording this Thursday’s Episode 194 of Gracefully and Frankly with Lisa Brandt. And don’t forget you have just today to leave us a voicemail at that site. We love when you do!