Eleven years now.

In the last couple of months, two of my good friends have each lost a parent, suddenly, unexpectedly. They are both shattered by the loss, understandably so.

How can you express comfort when you know that the sadness never really goes away? It’s disingenuous to say that time will heal, that things will get better, that life goes on. All of those things are partially true, but the loss will invariably change you, and you will continue to live with it, because it becomes a part of your being, a bit of darkness that you carry along, and dare I say it, you nurture. Because it’s all you’ve got left.

As the years go by, I’ve come to the equally painful realization that the memory of a whole, coherent person is dissolving, slipping away, and in its place are moments, sharper yet broken memories. Pieces of a whole, like shards of a mirror, that even when carefully handled hold a high risk of pain.

The memories are random, fugitive. My dad wasn’t a hero or a grand man, but the pieces that I hold of him are like precious stones that sparkle with emotion.

-When we were camping on Manitoulin Island, in Lake Huron, and he repurposed a corrugated box, cutting it into strips and inserting feathers he’d collected on the beach, improvising simple but cherished Native American headdresses for two little girls whose imaginations did the rest.

-When I came home from a stint as a safety patroller, in tears from having been bullied yet again  by Rodney Banting, and Dad telling me to give him a kick in the shin. Perhaps not the most politically correct parenting, but practical and effective. He taught me to stand up for myself and not be victimized.

-When he would do the weekly crossword in his British paper and then leave it out on the kitchen table so that I could try to fill in the bits he couldn’t get, then leaving it for him to continue doing the bits I couldn’t get. We always managed to finish the entire thing.

-When I attended my ‘prom’ (we don’t call it that here in Canada; it’s generally referred to as a ‘grad’ dance). I’d just come out of a 2-week hospital stay and I looked like a scary ghost. I put on a white eyelet dress with a pink ribbon at the waist and wore a shawl to cover up my bony shoulders. I spent the evening watching from the table as my peers danced the night away. My dad came to drive me home at the end of the evening, and when we got home I put a record on and he had the last (and only) dance.

-When I was just learning to read, in Kindergarten or Grade one, and I brought home a wonderful Mr Muggs (dog) book from the school library. Our first Labrador was quite young at the time, and to my horror, he chewed the hard binding of the book. Dad somehow managed to re-do the binding and tape up the edges neatly. I returned it, shame-faced, to the librarian Mrs. Gilbert, who was ever so sympathetic and kind in accepting the repaired book and the explanation. Every subsequent visit to the library, I would see that binding, different from all the others, and wince with shame, but at the same time feel gratitude to my father for fixing the mess.

-When he would sing silly songs, in a silly voice, and it never failed to make me laugh, like The Martians have landed in Wigan, or :

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you

And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do

He said that ....

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang

Walla walla, bing bang

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang

Walla walla, bing bang...

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang

Walla walla, bing bang

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang

Walla walla, bing bang

-When we played in a badminton tournament the day after he’d slipped on some ice and fallen hard, cutting and bruising his face and chipping a tooth. He looked by his own admission, like he’d done a few rounds with Joe Louis. My teenage self was mortified to be seen with him like that. I realize now how caring and altruistic he was, keeping his commitment to play the tournament after a fall like that. I wish I’d appreciated it at the time, much as I wish I’d appreciated in the moment so many other kind and loving, simple gestures that he made simply because he was my father.

-I could go on with these memories, but I feel compelled to hold them within me like a closely-guarded stash. And I need to end while there are some still left, and know that there is still a reserve. Because I can’t face the prospect of any more escaping me…

The picture is a painting that I did this week, of me on the beach in Florida, where some of my dad's ashes were scattered.