An early Thanksgiving in Canada, with the prospect of another Covid-19 shutdown looming over us, has brought on the “winter blues” a few weeks earlier than usual. The common phrase “it gets dark so early now” has many people beginning to hibernate. The colour display this weekend on the back roads of Grey County was breath taking. Yet my morning musings seem to draw me unwillingly into the yawning void of the future.
In two months the first year of the newest pandemic Covid-19 will be logged into each of our ship-of-life books. The world moved incredibly fast in my life time (1946 – 2020) and it seems destined to continue to do so. As maudlin as it may seem I keep struggling with the question:
“What am I leaving behind?” or put it another way “What of me lasts?”
The traditional answer used to satisfy me. Why we leave the memories we share with our family and friends behind. But that just doesn’t seem enough to me anymore. No doubt this reflects two related events; the death of my brother Sandy in June of this year followed by a research trip I took the town of Copper Cliff (now part of Sudbury) in Northern Ontario where I was born and grew up.
My town, as I still consider it, is dying. It used to be a thriving community, albeit a company town, owned by the International Nickel Company (INCO) who rented out the houses to employees. During my years there (1946 -1967) it had 4 grocery stores, a community centre, a hospital, a recreational club (similar to a YMCA), a department store, a police station and 6 churches. Little of this remains. The houses were sold off the 1970’s by INCO. There’s the post office, the pharmacy, a new LCBO outlet, the skating rink and the curling club left. Everything else that served the community of 2,000 souls is gone, except 3 churches still remain. The houses are all privately owned now and whatever people need can be purchased in Sudbury a half -hour drive away.
I visited the gravesites of my parents; two bronze plaques with names and dates, 1968 and 1977, embossed on them. They are set flat into a parched field (so much for perpetual care) at the far corner of a graveyard (also in Sudbury). That’s all that’s left. I am likely the last of our family that will ever visit the site. My older brother (now 86 and infirm) are the only survivors of what for us were vibrant and difficult lives as we grew up. I returned to Owen Sound with a sense of impending doom and a question: how do we memorialize our lives?
The only way I know is to focus on the words I put down on paper. To write! My daily journal or my silly poems or my angry diatribes in which I rail at the governments of the world for how they run rough-shod over their own people (Canadians included). Thank goodness I am able to continue learning how to make my words as compelling as possible. To write the truth as I see fit.
That’s all writers have. All of our words in all the genres we choose will tell future generations what our lives were like. It’s possible that our words will inform and guide others in the centuries to come. I so wish that there were journals or short stories written by my mother and father that could provide me a glimpse into their internal and external worlds. I doubt I have ever been as conscious of the steady passage of time as I am now. I didn’t really ‘get it’ that each of us has 168 hours a week to leave our mark on the world.
So, for what it is worth, please remember your words are important and write them down both for now and forever. Our stories may never be labelled as ‘Great Literature” but taken all together they will tell the truth about the lives we lived.
What of you lasts? Others memories of you Joan. I remember you as a summer playground worker at CC public school and i remember being safe with you. I was only 5 or 6. Although i left Copper Cliff i do go back as the family home still remains albeit not as straight, leaning as a result of so many explosions directly under her. Memories are eventually all that ever remains, until they fade as well. I remember you leading us children into the timeless song Grandfathers Clock, I remember the two of us sitting under the outside stairs of CC public school. I remember what must have been me wanting to be your friend. I remember how you liked to drive fast. I remember wondering what ever happened to Joan and why didn’t i see you again.Yes Copper Cliff is dying a little more with each passing year. I to visit departed friends and family and also wonder if that was the last time i would touch the stone or rearrange the plastic flowers. I am 61 now and i remember you and how good it felt to be safe with you. Thats enough for me.