A Post a Day in May #27: From Peking to Grindstone

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. 

Edmonton, February 2015: I made Val carry the bag through airport security, and she was stopped. The young man behind the scanner questioned the contents of the small but heavy carry-on bag. I stepped in to explain that it contained my father’s ashes. Oh, he said. I’ll just have to scan that again. He did, then he let us through.

Grindstone, May 26, 2019: I dug the hole, poured the ashes into the remnant of an old cream-coloured cotton sheet and, with Val and our friend Deborah watching, I put Dad’s ashes into the earth. Deborah placed a similar but smaller bundle of her husband Mendel’s ashes into the hole along side, and we, together, covered the hole, first with earth and then with limestone rocks gathered from the shores of Lake Winnipeg just below our cottage. 

It is fitting that Dad’s ashes lie at Clifftop Cottage in Grindstone Park, because he loved visiting us here and was enthusiastic about cottage life — the view of the lake, the steady company of family, the ongoing cups of tea and conversation, and the general sense of well-being and contentment that come with long summer days of easy living. Mendel visited us several times, with Deborah, and loved being out of the city and at the cottage with us. 

Colin Le Rougetel was born in Peking, when it was still called that, in China, and he died a world away on the bald Canadian prairie. He lived a good life, having found the perfect partner in his wife, Anne, with whom he raised a perfectly functional, if not entirely usual, trio of children, and he modelled courage by returning to Canada from England at age almost-fifty to stake his claim for a better life in the boom times that were Edmonton, Alberta in 1975. Now his ashes will help fertilize the ground that evolved out of what was glacial Lake Agassiz in Manitoba.

The tree by which we buried the ashes was planted
 in honour of Mendel several years ago and Dad loved
Mendel's jokes, so it was the obvious spot
for placing the ashes. Val (left) and
Deborah are purposely shading the stones
in the bright Sunday sun.

And so it goes. The circle of life and death, and all that it brings those of us lucky enough to be loved unconditionally and generously by a father who was willing to see us for who we are. Thanks, Dad. 

xo

Amanda 

Thanks for reading. 

- - - - 

Writers want to be read; at least, this writer wants to be read, so comments, rebuttals and feedback are all welcome. Subscribe to the blog to receive the posts direct into your email inbox.