April showers

Today marks 5 years since my mom died. Still think about her every day. I still beat myself up over not visiting her more often than I did. However, I did make the most of my visits to her when I could. The last three years of her life were filled with monthly trips to Edmonton to spend a day with her. I only hope that she enjoyed those visits as much as I did,

The times that I wasn’t able to see her in person, I wrote her long letters. Letters that were filled with mundane day-to-day stuff that Alex and I did but, they were also filled with my memories – special times that we spent together.

I know she kept those letters as they were returned to me by my family after her funeral. I kept digital copies of all those letters. I also recorded her when she was still lucid and have kept those audio files. I still play some of them every now and then. The content of the recordings is not important. Just hearing her voice makes me ahppy. I only wish I had been able to do the same with my dad.

Yesterday, April 20 was my Dad’s Birthday. He would have been 101. My dad was an enigma to me. He was a wonderful provider. He worked two full time jobs to support his family.

Family meant the world to him. He was so proud of each of us – just had a hard time expressing it. My relationship with my dad, while at times was perfunctory, it was also one of the most honest relationships I had with family members. He was blunt and while he didn’t embrace my homosexuality, he accepted it in the only way he knew how. He gave me his support when I needed it most. He co-signed a car loand when I needed transportation, he encouraged me to move to Vancouver in the late 80’s knowing full well, I was drowning living in Alberta.

When he and mom would come and visit me in the Lower Mainland, they would go out of their way to make sure that I had food, clothing and the necessities of having my own home. His generosity with me knew its limits but, he did what he could for me when he knew it was needed.

I will be forever grateful…