softness. “I love you, Granny,” he says. She smiles, as her eyelids droop. And she drifts back again, pulled by Morpheus into her fathomless inner world. He’s there, as she slips silently through the thin veil, to a land from whence she returns no more. She never liked goodbyes.
On the last day of September, the Indian-summer sun warms the flat rocks at Fanjoy’s Point where Jeff spends all day writing her eulogy. He feels her in the wind, a soothing presence hovering over the waves, lifting the weight lodged in his heart, so he can express in words what is inexpressible. How can the world go on without her in it? He thinks about the synchronicity of her dying on September 28 at exactly the same time as Pierre Trudeau. How fitting it is that she be accompanied
through the unknown, remembered gate
by this Canadian hero—a mother of three daughters and a father of three sons, each leaving a legacy of love and service in their diverse yet common ways.
As a state funeral courses over the nation’s airwaves, Alma’s loved ones gather in a small cemetery overlooking the white-capped waves of the Northumberland Strait. Jeff stands beside the black granite headstone of hisgrandfather-namesake, and eulogizes about the amazing powers of his grandmother:
The world has suffered an incredible loss with the passing of our beautiful granny. Her impact was a blessing and a miracle in all our lives. She made us feel fully loved whenever we were in her presence, and the flame of that love continues to burn and give us strength. Granny always sacrificed her own comfort in order to calm and nurture us when we fell, or felt insecure about life’s uncompromising processes.
She could pull sunlight from thin air.
Jeff helps us dismantle his grandmother’s apartment, a space exuding the warmth of a life devoted to her family—every wall and table covered with photos of her ever-changing children and grandchildren, a visual chronicle of her proudest achievement. The movers arrive to clear out her furniture and the taped-up cardboard boxes filled with her belongings. We’re about to shut the door for the final time on the life that was hers when Jeff calls to us from the kitchen: “We forgot something.” Wedged between the counter and the stove is her breadboard, still floured and caked with dough.
III. CROSSROADS
What is our true, our highest duty—to others,
the values of the tribe, the family, to oneself?
Is it to God, to a higher calling of some sort?
This is the critical question of the second half of life.
What am I called to serve?
James Hollis,
Creating a Life:
Finding Your Individual Path
I T’S MID-OCTOBER , 2000. Jeff and Russ are driving a military van through the flaming autumn woods of New England. They’re on a road trip to Virginia where Russ—Major Francis—will be working for two weeks, coordinating Canadian military personnel and vehicles for a NATO amphibious exercise off the east coast. In the sapphire skies above Interstate 95, Canada geese are honking their arrow south, so sure of their purpose and direction. During their long hours in the van—passing through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York—Jeff questions his father about the upcoming naval exercise as well as the elite forces in the Canadian infantry and the SAS (Special Air Service), an intelligence unit.
Although the Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded after the Somalia affair in 1993, Russ tells him, the Canadian military still maintains specialized companies in infantry regiments. “That’s where all the exciting stuff is happening,” he says, “where all the good courses are. The skills you learn are phenomenal.” Early in his career, at thirty-one years old, Russ had tried to join the Airborne Regiment, lured by the adventure it offered. But he was denied—too old, they said.
“I guess you have to be super-fit, eh?”
“And super-committed,” Russ says. “These guys will go on a
On the last day of September, the Indian-summer sun warms the flat rocks at Fanjoy’s Point where Jeff spends all day writing her eulogy. He feels her in the wind, a soothing presence hovering over the waves, lifting the weight lodged in his heart, so he can express in words what is inexpressible. How can the world go on without her in it? He thinks about the synchronicity of her dying on September 28 at exactly the same time as Pierre Trudeau. How fitting it is that she be accompanied
through the unknown, remembered gate
by this Canadian hero—a mother of three daughters and a father of three sons, each leaving a legacy of love and service in their diverse yet common ways.
As a state funeral courses over the nation’s airwaves, Alma’s loved ones gather in a small cemetery overlooking the white-capped waves of the Northumberland Strait. Jeff stands beside the black granite headstone of hisgrandfather-namesake, and eulogizes about the amazing powers of his grandmother:
The world has suffered an incredible loss with the passing of our beautiful granny. Her impact was a blessing and a miracle in all our lives. She made us feel fully loved whenever we were in her presence, and the flame of that love continues to burn and give us strength. Granny always sacrificed her own comfort in order to calm and nurture us when we fell, or felt insecure about life’s uncompromising processes.
She could pull sunlight from thin air.
Jeff helps us dismantle his grandmother’s apartment, a space exuding the warmth of a life devoted to her family—every wall and table covered with photos of her ever-changing children and grandchildren, a visual chronicle of her proudest achievement. The movers arrive to clear out her furniture and the taped-up cardboard boxes filled with her belongings. We’re about to shut the door for the final time on the life that was hers when Jeff calls to us from the kitchen: “We forgot something.” Wedged between the counter and the stove is her breadboard, still floured and caked with dough.
III. CROSSROADS
What is our true, our highest duty—to others,
the values of the tribe, the family, to oneself?
Is it to God, to a higher calling of some sort?
This is the critical question of the second half of life.
What am I called to serve?
James Hollis,
Creating a Life:
Finding Your Individual Path
I T’S MID-OCTOBER , 2000. Jeff and Russ are driving a military van through the flaming autumn woods of New England. They’re on a road trip to Virginia where Russ—Major Francis—will be working for two weeks, coordinating Canadian military personnel and vehicles for a NATO amphibious exercise off the east coast. In the sapphire skies above Interstate 95, Canada geese are honking their arrow south, so sure of their purpose and direction. During their long hours in the van—passing through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York—Jeff questions his father about the upcoming naval exercise as well as the elite forces in the Canadian infantry and the SAS (Special Air Service), an intelligence unit.
Although the Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded after the Somalia affair in 1993, Russ tells him, the Canadian military still maintains specialized companies in infantry regiments. “That’s where all the exciting stuff is happening,” he says, “where all the good courses are. The skills you learn are phenomenal.” Early in his career, at thirty-one years old, Russ had tried to join the Airborne Regiment, lured by the adventure it offered. But he was denied—too old, they said.
“I guess you have to be super-fit, eh?”
“And super-committed,” Russ says. “These guys will go on a
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