It seems like the longer you remember a place for, the more connected you feel to that place when you return to it. Ottawa and Smith's Falls both give me a sense of groundedness that I get almost nowhere else, besides, perhaps, parts of the area west of Toronto, where I lived for 12 years. There's something very good and comforting about being in a place you've known for so long. Around every corner is a familiar landmark, loaded with memories that come unbidden at the sight of a tree you played under, or a school you went to, or a shady veranda where you spent your summers as a child.
Mum and Jack and I drove out to Smith's Falls this afternoon. We had some vague notion that we might be able to find someone to do a service for us for Casey, and also to see if we could book a room at the Legion Hall for us to go back to after the graveside service and spend some time together with the people who come to the funeral. This first photo is a picture of one of the many marshes you pass on the way to Smith's Falls. I took it because it's exactly the kind of landscape that inspired my story about the haunted bog, which I hope will someday become a novel.
We couldn't find anyone at the cemetary, so we just located the graves of Mum's and Daddy's parents. Casey's ashes will be buried with my Dad's parents (Richard and Annie White) near the very back corner of the cemetary. It's a beautiful spot, with an enormous evergreen tree right behind it. Very pretty. As far as I know, Casey is the first of our generation to pass on. We're planning a graveside service... probably this coming Friday afternoon. I hope it won't be a hot day like today. Don't need anyone passing out from the heat.
I suppose I'll eventually wind up in that cemetary too, if I don't decide to have my ashes scattered somewhere. I wonder if anyone ever divides their ashes and does different things with them? If so, I think I'd like my ashes to be divided into two, with one half being buried with my mother, and the other half scattered on Otter Lake, where my Dad says he's going to have his ashes scattered. That way I can be "with" them both.
We visited my mother's parents' grave also. John and Christina Moran (Nana and Papa). They're the people whose name I took after my divorce. They were a big part of my childhood and it just felt right to take their name when I had to choose a new one.
After we left the cemetary, I asked Jack to drive us by Nana and Papa's old house on Elm Street. Every time I go there, I have this knot in my tummy until I actually lay eyes on the house. I have this horrible fear that one day I'll drive by and it'll have been torn down. But it was still there today, thank goodness. I can't imagine the scene in the car if my mother had found her childhood home destroyed less than a week after her son died. The house looks somewhat different than it used to, due to the white vinyl siding and new windows and fake shutters. But mostly it's the same.
Another house that's mostly the same is the house right next door, to the right, of Nana and Papa's house. That veranda was the place I spent many, many happy hours with my childhood friends Jane Anne Stead, her brother Miles and Roger Saunders, the boy who lived directly across the street from Nana and Papa. I learned how to play gin rummy and blackjack on that veranda. I dreamed and schemed with Jane Anne (I wonder what's become of her... last I heard, she was married and living in Peterborough). As I grew older, that veranda became much like Juliet's balcony, where I would sit, hoping Roger would walk by. Roger, who had become too much of a man to hang out with us mere girls. :-)
And here's the alley between my grandparents' house and Jane Anne's house. Narrow, dark and cluttered with old bikes, a broken down oil heater and many unnamable metal objects that no one wanted anymore. This is where I had my very first kiss... with Roger Saunders. What a sweet memory. I had such a crush on him that summer. I think that may have been the last summer that I was truly a child. After that was high school, and other crushes on city boys and then I went to college and my whole world changed.
Mum and Jack and I drove out to Smith's Falls this afternoon. We had some vague notion that we might be able to find someone to do a service for us for Casey, and also to see if we could book a room at the Legion Hall for us to go back to after the graveside service and spend some time together with the people who come to the funeral. This first photo is a picture of one of the many marshes you pass on the way to Smith's Falls. I took it because it's exactly the kind of landscape that inspired my story about the haunted bog, which I hope will someday become a novel.
We couldn't find anyone at the cemetary, so we just located the graves of Mum's and Daddy's parents. Casey's ashes will be buried with my Dad's parents (Richard and Annie White) near the very back corner of the cemetary. It's a beautiful spot, with an enormous evergreen tree right behind it. Very pretty. As far as I know, Casey is the first of our generation to pass on. We're planning a graveside service... probably this coming Friday afternoon. I hope it won't be a hot day like today. Don't need anyone passing out from the heat.I suppose I'll eventually wind up in that cemetary too, if I don't decide to have my ashes scattered somewhere. I wonder if anyone ever divides their ashes and does different things with them? If so, I think I'd like my ashes to be divided into two, with one half being buried with my mother, and the other half scattered on Otter Lake, where my Dad says he's going to have his ashes scattered. That way I can be "with" them both.
We visited my mother's parents' grave also. John and Christina Moran (Nana and Papa). They're the people whose name I took after my divorce. They were a big part of my childhood and it just felt right to take their name when I had to choose a new one.
After we left the cemetary, I asked Jack to drive us by Nana and Papa's old house on Elm Street. Every time I go there, I have this knot in my tummy until I actually lay eyes on the house. I have this horrible fear that one day I'll drive by and it'll have been torn down. But it was still there today, thank goodness. I can't imagine the scene in the car if my mother had found her childhood home destroyed less than a week after her son died. The house looks somewhat different than it used to, due to the white vinyl siding and new windows and fake shutters. But mostly it's the same.
Another house that's mostly the same is the house right next door, to the right, of Nana and Papa's house. That veranda was the place I spent many, many happy hours with my childhood friends Jane Anne Stead, her brother Miles and Roger Saunders, the boy who lived directly across the street from Nana and Papa. I learned how to play gin rummy and blackjack on that veranda. I dreamed and schemed with Jane Anne (I wonder what's become of her... last I heard, she was married and living in Peterborough). As I grew older, that veranda became much like Juliet's balcony, where I would sit, hoping Roger would walk by. Roger, who had become too much of a man to hang out with us mere girls. :-)
And here's the alley between my grandparents' house and Jane Anne's house. Narrow, dark and cluttered with old bikes, a broken down oil heater and many unnamable metal objects that no one wanted anymore. This is where I had my very first kiss... with Roger Saunders. What a sweet memory. I had such a crush on him that summer. I think that may have been the last summer that I was truly a child. After that was high school, and other crushes on city boys and then I went to college and my whole world changed.
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