I'm Home!

Hello Ms J. Did you miss me?

I had a lovely visit with Mum and Dad. I arrived there on Monday about noon and stayed til after dinner on Thursday. Although I had been anxious to visit Helen, we didn't see her at all. She'd suffered some complications due to her surgery and had to be re-admitted to hospital late Monday night. My sister has worked many years as a nurse in that facility. As a patient, she was treated like royalty. She's admired by both nurses and doctors. Indeed, the doctors have arranged to have a housekeeper visit Helen at home to clean her house for her. They've paid for the service out of their own pockets. Remarkable, eh? I spoke briefly with her by telephone yesterday and she was home again and in much better spirits. This cancer has been an emotional rollercoaster for her, Ms J, and I fear the ride has only just begun.

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The weather was ideal for the trip to Mt. Forest. I loaded the CD player with homemade discs and played my music all the way there. Hank Williams and The Louvin Brothers had me twangin' and sangin'. Later, Kansas and Queen and ELO had me rockin' and boppin'. The miles slid by effortlessly.


I took a shortcut through the quaint village of Damascus. Cool name for a hamlet.

The main (only) thing to see in Damascus is this:


"The Damascus Emporium"

The photo doesn't really show it well, but never have I seen such a jumble of ... STUFF. This guy's got at least two of everything imaginable. If he doesn't have it, you don't need it. Hula-hoops and horse shoes. Bed frames and belt buckles. Antiques. Ant farms. And televisions. Radios, racquet strings and roller bearings. Wigs, worms, wool, wallpaper. As my little Irish friend, Jimmy would say, "It's fookin' amazing!"

Less than an hour from Damascus, at the junction of The Kings Highways (Numbers 89 and 6) lies the town of Mount Forest. According to my research, it was first shown on early maps as The Queen's Bush. Fortunately, the founding fathers opted to change the name to Mount Forest to reflect the town's location atop a verdant hill.


Westbound on Hwy. 89.

If you look carefully, you can see the two steeples off in the distance. That's Mt. Forest, Ms Journal. The steeple on the left is the Catholic Church. The one on the right is the United Church. That's Mum's church. Further left, is the white water tower. There's not much snow left now. Maybe spring has arrived at last.

I arrived to find Dad in the garage. He'd just finished spraying his apple trees. He'd had some trouble with the spray nozzle and he took it apart to show it to me.

"There's a little filter inside here," Dad said, removing a little round screened filter from the end of the hose. "It was plugged with shit so I blew it out."

I watched in horror as my father put the little piece to his lips and blew air through it.

"It's workin' fine now," he said and smiled proudly.

"Isn't that poison you were spraying on the trees, Dad?" I asked.

"Yup. But I guess we've all got to die sometime."

He later explained that it wasn't very potent poison, heavily diluted, and he'd rinsed the hose numerous times with water afterwards. He still likes to tease his kids.

After lunch, we did a few little chores outdoors. The weather was brilliant! Over the next three days, we worked together to tidy up the garage, fix a retaining wall in Mum's flower bed, remove the snow tires on the car and replace them with summer tires. We blew the dust out of the filter on Mum's vacuum. We took down the chicken wire Dad and I had erected last fall around the "raz-brie" bushes. The fence had worked well to keep hungry rabbits out but Dad noted how the "goddamn mice" had got through the "goddamn fence" and "eat up the goddamn raz-bries again, the sons a bitches."


Half an hour to change two tires. F1 pit crew, we're not.

My dad makes me laugh. I can't laugh out loud when he's cursing like that. He'd think I was laughing at him and just get angrier. But Between you and me, Ms J, it's all I can do not to laugh at the silly old bugger. I turn my back and stifle a belly laugh. Sometimes, I have to walk away. You really have to hear it to believe it!


Mum's vacuum cleaner sucks, but Dad's compressor blows.


We got the lawn tractor ready for summer. It didn't take much work, really.

On Tuesday, Dad and I pulled out a small shrub in the front garden. It was old and dying. We dug all around it and finally managed to coax it free of it's earthen home. It was hard work and Dad tires easily. He quit smoking about five years ago but I'm afraid his lungs are pretty crispy after half a century of tobacco use. I did most of the work, Ms J, but Dad wants to help.

"Hand me the shovel," he'd say. "I'll get the sonuvabitch out."

He didn't work long. It breaks my heart to see my father aging. I don't want him to grow old, but there's bugger all I can do to stop it.


It wore him out, that stupid little shrub.

It rained all day on Wednesday and we didn't do too much. I rented a movie, "Pay It Forward". We watched it together as dinner cooked and the rain drooled down the windows. Mum and Dad both enjoyed the movie. I'd seen it before. It's a good flick, Ms J.

In the forenoon Thursday, we hung a new flag on the flagpole. The old one was in tatters and Dad says it's disrespectful to fly a tattered flag.


"This one'll last longer than me, likely."

After lunch, Dad suggested we bake some muffins.

"You get the ingredients ready and I'll be right back."

I collected the fixings for carrot/pineapple muffins. Mum grated the carrot and measured out the flour and pineapple. Dad was nowhere to be seen, so I walked down the hall.

"Dad? Dad?"

When he answered, I could hear the fatigue in his voice.

"I'm in here, Dale."

I peered into the spare bedroom, and there was dear ol' Dad, stretched out on the bed.

"Mum and I have got the ingredients ready for muffins. You coming to supervise?"

"Naw," he said. "I'm just about fagged right out. It's all I can do to keep my eyes open."

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Yeah," he puffed. "I'm alright. Just wore out that's all."

Mum and I made two dozen muffins. She kept a dozen and sent the rest home with me. I can't eat the bloody things til Easter Sunday, though, because I'm still off bread for Lent. While we filled the muffin pans with batter, we talked about Dad. Mum says he's getting a little slower each day. His mind is still sharp, but his body is like a clock, slowly winding down.

I drove home on Thursday evening, thinking of my Dad. One sad day, Ms Journal, my father will lay down and close his eyes for the last time. That's a fact. I know it. But it will make it no less painful to lose the man who taught me to be the man I've become. And I will continue to strive to be the kind of man he has been. Gentle. Patient. Kind. And loving, without condition.

I love you, Dad.

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