It’s cool this morning, the last day of family visits. Yesterday we had company on our swim, though after the two grandchildren got out of the water, they needed to be wrapped in big towels to warm up.
It’s been a busy few weeks. Our Ottawa family came and then we all went to Victoria for Angie and Karna’s wedding, about as sweet as a wedding could be. In Victoria we met up with our Edmonton family and after the wedding we all went to a beach resort near Campbell River for a few days. It was good to get to know Karna’s parents and to explore, to swim in the Oyster River potholes, to talk into the night. I’d like to say we found one another again after an unsettled period. On our final night, the two girls, newly 10, performed a play they’d created, one of them dressed in a gown the colour of starlight, the other in midnight blue. We sat on the grass and applauded while the younger brothers all giggled and jostled behind a big tree.
Once home, we read the old stories, some of them recently rediscovered by the Ottawa cousins, we swam, we ate the ritual prime rib with Yorkshire pudding with tattooed potatoes, and tonight, the final night, we are going to the Backeddy for tacos. We were there a week and a half ago, making the corny joke as we walked up the stairs, “You’re back, Eddy!” (E. is one of the Ottawa grandsons.)
Today I helped the two Edmonton grandchildren make cotton bags–I guided the fabric and they used the foot pedal for the sewing machine. What will they hold? Library books? Soccer shoes? A handful of memories of Miracle Beach (Grandad called it Lyrical Beach), of blue herons on every shore leading to Campbell River, of green water in Oyster River, of emotional discussions on small porches before joining the others on the grass? It’s something I can do. Sew, note the herons, gather shells, weep in the arms of my children. And more.
...Theresa Kishkan 