Seeing my sister and her husband in person for only the second time in 22 months was a joy, but the occasion was bittersweet, as we finally carried our mother's ashes to the same place in Jasper that we took our father's.
Mum passed away two years ago this December following a stroke; the cruel mercy of the speed of it all is still staggering to believe. It was a mere 29 days from her friends taking her to the emergency room to her eventual passing, with Tara and I by her side.
Tara and Jerry returned to Houston and their lives there just after Christmas. The plan had always been for them to return in the spring or summer, as they always did, so we could take Mum's remains to Maligne Canyon and scatter her ashes as we did Dad's.
But in March of last year, the pandemic measures kicked in, and all travel became more difficult, particularly international. The two of them finally made it up for a brief visit in July, but with our girls in Churchill, we elected to wait until more of the family was on hand.
But a part of me will always wonder if we weren't fated to make this reluctant pilgrimage on the same weekend as we did it before - we scattered Dad's ashes on October 6, 2012, the Saturday of the Thanksgiving long weekend.
Audrey and I dropped off Mum's Jeep in Leduc on Thursday night so that Tara and Jerry could have wheels while in town and for our sortie down the Yellowhead, the two of them flew in to EIA Friday night, and we all met up in the parking lot of the Tim Hortons in Edson on Saturday morning.
Hugs all around as they had not seen their nieces in almost two years, plus Audrey and Tara were gobsmacked to discover they had unknowingly purchased the exact same eyeglass frames despite living 3500 km away from each other.
It was cool but bright and sunny in Edson, so we lingered and caught up a bit before getting back on the road, reconnecting at the parking lot for Maligne Canyon's Fifth Bridge. Tara and Jerry had proceeded up the canyon from this point on their last visits to pay their respects to Dad, and figured it to be a bit easier than walking further down from the main parking lot and then a considerable way back up.
We crossed the bridge and started up the uneven ground that ran roughly parallel to the churning waters of the Maligne River. It was far cooler and shadier here than it had been in Edson, but most of us had to shed our coats or sweaters following our exertions from challenging the elevation changes. I was surprisingly quick-paced for much of it - was I so eager to get things over with? Scattering Mum's remains was not something I was exactly looking forward to, but the appeal of the closure was undeniable.
That said, I was only too happy to take rest breaks in order to catch my breath, admire the astonishing scenery and reflect with Tara and the others, particularly at just how little Mum would have enjoyed this route, with its sharp edges and proximity to potentially calamitous falls. But Mum, like Dad, loved the mountain scenery and we agreed that she would have enjoyed looking at the waterfalls and rock formations and maybe even the mosses that captivated Fenya and Glory.
Following an extended muddy patch caused by recent rains and a final climb up a steep and rocky incline, we finally arrived at Fourth Bridge.
Again I was dumbfounded at the beauty of the spot, something I had only partially recognized 9 years ago, but finally clued into when the girls and I visited in 2019. We rested for a bit, waited for other visitors to vacate the bridge (a one-way viewpoint off the pain trail) and then extricated Mum's scattering vessel from the backpack we had carried her up in.
I had brought along a multi-tool in case there was a plastic bag within the cardboard tube (as there had been with Dad's), but this time a new indignity prevailed upon the occasion: after removing the lid and opening the perforated circle in the end of the vessel and upending it over the shallow but fast-moving water perhaps 5 metres below, Mum wouldn't budge from the container. Did I really hear my sister mutter "Stubborn so-and-so" under her breath? Surely not...
Tara handed the rainbow-decorated scattering vessel back to me, and I tapped the side of it exploratorily, then dropped it from a couple of inches onto the thick railing of the bridge, generating a percussive and non-resonant thud. It seemed that my mother's extended time in this most temporary of containers had resulted in her really settling in, as it were. I had a pretty good idea of what needed to come next.
I glanced at Tara and got the kind of nod that says, "whatever it takes," I re-lidded the vessel, grasped it firmly in both hands around the top half and thumped it heartily against the bridge railing. "Sorry to have to beat you up one last time here, Mum," I murmured, generating a couple of dark chuckles from my surrounding family. It didn't take long for the clump to break up, but not before Glory wrinkled up her nose in mock horror and said "gawd, Dad..." to which I replied, "it's our own fault for not sticking a brown sugar bear or something in there with her when we had the chance."
We re-wrestled the lid back off of the vessel (a bit more difficult now that the neck of it was gritty), returned to the centre of the bridge to upend it, and were relieved when the ashes poured out. Some carried forth on the wind but the majority drifting down to the water at the bottom of the canyon.
And of course, no sooner had we started decanting her when other sightseers made their way onto the bridge.
Well, fair enough - it is not only a public space but a popular national park on probably the last good weather long weekend of the year. If we'd wanted privacy, we would have had to come in the dead of night, which brings its own share of complications. Just as it was with Dad, so it went with Mum: each of us taking a turn, working in fits and stops to accommodate sightseers until all her earthly remains had descended into the Maligne River, almost exactly nine years after she had helped us do the same with Dad.
There was a long pause afterwards. There were a lot of thoughts of Mum, and I reflected on how grateful I was that she hadn't lingered on our mortal coil any longer than she had wanted to, and how frustrating she would have found this pandemic. But I also just tried to soak in the space, looking again at the colour and textures around me; closing my eyes and hearing the rush and churn of the gravity-powered waters below me carving their way through air and limestone.
Then there were some final hugs and we made out way back down to the Fifth Bridge parking lot. We gathered at a picnic table for a drink before heading on into Jasper and the hotel rooms we had booked for the night. We talked about Mum a bit, but also about the beauty of the park, and the privilege of having it so nearby.
But mostly we talked about family and how grateful we were for the opportunity to get together for the first time in a long while, even on an occasion tinged with sadness.
Miss you, Mum - we all hope you are at peace.
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