by Pat Ardley
Then Casey said he wanted to read to his dad, and at the same time, he noticed that your feet were cold. Erica raced home and brought back the Life of Pi and a pair of warm socks, and we settled in for a long night. We took turns phoning your sister Marilyn. Marilyn and Phil just happened to be in town for the night and were out for dinner and not answering their phone.
Casey and a friend had left from Thunderbird Marina in West Vancouver that morning in Sportspage, heading up to the lodge to get started on un-winterizing. Thirty minutes after he left, he called and asked me to find a rescue boat to come out and tow Sportspage back to the dock. He had hit a large, mostly submerged log so hard that it had sheared the engine leg right off the back of the boat. One of many such coincidences in the days that followed, or you might call them serendipitous moments of the universe conspiring to make sure that Casey was there with us at the hospital and not stuck up at the lodge frantically trying to get back.
Nurses came by now and again to check your monitor and the drip line. You seemed to be sleeping but then you started talking. You said, “I need my binoculars and my boat and where’s my fishing rod?” Casey held you and softly whispered in your ear. The rest of us sat quietly hoping not to disturb you. But the background beat of the heart monitor started beeping slower. And slower. Abruptly, the alarm signal went off and there was instant chaos as a chair crashed to the floor, a doctor came running, suddenly there were nurses everywhere, and we were tripping and desperately trying to get out of the way while holding onto your hands. The monitor continued its high-pitched buzz, and I stared at it in disbelief. What the hell? This couldn’t happen. You wouldn’t leave me! How could you be snatched away from us?! I entered another dimension as a force field bloomed and surrounded my heart then squeezed it shut. The doctor asked me questions and I answered them as if I were in his office. I hugged you and kissed you goodbye. You were no longer there. Your energy was already gone. Where did you go? What just happened? What?!
Dr. Wilson gently walked us out of the hospital, and said he would come by our house in the morning. Someone had finally reached Marilyn and Phil, and they were on their way. We drove home and silently walked into the house. Erica made tea, and we all sat in the living room trying to understand what just happened. You are our rock. You are Mr. Positive Energy. How could this have happened to you of all people? As we sat morosely staring at each other, my frog lamp—my wonderful tiffany shade, held up by two long slim frogs that you and Jessy bought for me in New York—blinked off and on. Conversation stopped as we all turned to stare at the lamp. We looked at each other, trying to read each other’s thoughts. After a few moments, someone started talking again and once again the lamp blinked off and on and then off and on again. This time, I was sure that it was you letting us know that you were still with us. The lamp had never blinked before and has never blinked since.
The next morning, Gery and Marilyn went to tell your mom. She also entered an alternate universe when she heard the news. She was eighty-eight years old and did not believe that she could outlive her darling boy. It just didn’t seem possible. She had been awake most of the night, and knew something was terribly wrong when both of your sisters arrived at her door. Your mom is so amazing. She has been so refined and dignified through this terrible time. People still comment on how lovely she is—even though she was dying inside. The two of us made a real pair. No one was going to get through our protective shields.
June phoned this morning. She wasn’t surprised to hear that you had “passed on to your next assignment.” She said that you visited her in the night and told her that everything would be all right, that she should not be afraid. Sandy was surprised when she got up this morning and made coffee and toast for him for the first time in many weeks. She was feeling really happy and content for the first time in many months. I understand we need to be open, to listen and enjoy the synchronicity.
In the meantime, the office phone keeps ringing. I can’t possibly answer it. I just let it go to the machine. Casey checks for messages and writes them all down. He has also been contacting some of our old-time guests to let them know about you. We have bookings that I haven’t recorded. People want to know when they can pay. When will we be sending an invoice. I had been using all of my time just to be with you, sometimes at the beach watching the boats or reading to you from our favourite books. I had no time to look after the lodge. But people still want to come fishing this summer. I’m still having trouble focusing on business. There are other things to think about.
Things like how will I get up in the morning? How will I keep breathing and walking? How will I ever fall asleep again without your shoulder to fall asleep on? And …? One step at a time is all I can do right now. People ask me how I’m doing. My only answer is, “In a backwards world, I’m doing fine,” which sounds very positive to people I don’t really know. Friends keep dropping off food. The house is full of wonderful people, but I don’t know how to talk. I try to be polite.
Gery and Graham took me to the crematorium. Decisions need to be made. We went into the coffin room. I felt ants crawling all around inside my skin. We walked around looking at their wares, lots of different-shaped urns and small wooden boxes for the ashes. The deferential man walked us over and showed us the deluxe, highly polished and brass-decorated coffins. Aren’t they going to get burned to ash along with your body? In one corner there was a rack with waxed cardboard boxes. They looked like very large versions of the fish boxes we had used for years. Suddenly, I was bent double, wracked with laughter and a deep ache that then dissolved into jagged sobs and weeping then swelled back into snorts and more demented laughter. Gery and Graham stood back and let me go on. The little man disappeared. I finally choked out that you would’ve loved the irony of the biggest fish box being yours. I hope you approve.
I had help organizing the funeral. So many writers in the family. So many organizers. I drifted from one task to the next: visited the minister, planned the food, received flowers, watched the kids being surrounded by their young friends who somehow knew what to do. At the end of the days, Casey, Jessy and I all piled in our bed and slept when we could. We all needed that connection. You really surprised us. Caught us making plans and went in a different direction. The lodge without you? Preposterous!
But the lodge was bigger than the four of us. It seemed like people were going to go there to fish whether we were there or not. Nothing is going to stop a fisherman from fishing, especially the ones who have fished with us for over twenty-five years. Casey and Jess organized the crew. I’m so glad that you had already talked to Marc, who agreed to cook for us even though he and his wife had been planning to move back to Quebec. Almost all of our staff from the previous summer was returning. The waitress was our only new crewmember. We just had to get them there. They knew what to do. The kids did an amazing job of ordering supplies, and having things delivered to the freight boat. Casey ordered fuel for the boats and generators, fuel filters, water filters, building supplies, fishing tackle, bait and boat parts and new engines. Jessy was keeping everything organized as well as packing all the items we would be sending to the lodge and making trips out to the freight boat with her truck loaded with “stuff.”
Chef Marc was a lovely man who was with us for five summers, including the awful summer of 2003 after George died. Following that summer, he and his wife moved back east.
I was worrying about my darling sister June who seemed to be getting sicker by the minute. I finally stopped packing for the lodge—which actually just amounted to me throwing clothes and shoes and, at times, a shoe, into a big box—and packed a bag to go and help her.
I flew to Edmonton four days after your funeral, and Casey and Jessy flew to the lodge. June was not feeling well. A year and a half of ovarian cancer had taken its toll. We went for short walks in her neighbourhood. She tried to make me feel better, and I tried to make her feel better. The best we could do was to just be wi
th one another. I walked over and picked up lattes in the afternoons. Sandy brought us dinners. None of us were up to cooking.
I had your phone ringing in one pocket and my phone ringing in the other. I wore out a notepad trying to keep track, trying to keep all the balls in the air. There were a lot of people I had to talk to—guests who had been coming to the lodge for so many years. I didn’t call everyone back. I couldn’t. I tried to talk to them from a place that was just above my head, but sometimes I found myself talking from a place deep inside my chest, a place that had become hard and hot and made swallowing difficult.
I started to feel an elastic band pulling me back to Vancouver to look after flights and payment details for the lodge. I told June that I would just go home for the weekend and would be back in three days. I flew to Vancouver, walked in the house and began booking flights for guests and sending out invoices. I worked all night and into the next day. I organized a huge grocery order, paid bills and checked in with the kids at the lodge. Then I stuffed my things back into my bag to head out to the airport for my return trip to Edmonton.
I was locking the door behind me when the office phone started to ring. I hesitated for three seconds and then ran back down the hall to the office. The man on the other end of the line wanted to rent rooms at the lodge for the following week. I explained that the lodge wasn’t open yet, that crew had just arrived and had only just started to un-winterize everything. He said that they just needed rooms and meals and would not be fishing. They were with a telephone company and would be checking equipment in the area. They wanted to stay with us because of our helicopter pad. I apologized and said sorry, but we would not be able to look after them and I hung up.
I walked out of the house, locked the door, unlocked the door and then walked back in. I headed to the office, pressed the call-history button and dialled the number that had just phoned me. When the fellow answered, I asked him if we could make a trade. I would let the group stay and eat at the lodge, in exchange for the use of their helicopter and pilot for an hour or two. He asked what I wanted to use it for. I told him that I had your ashes and that you had always wanted to climb to the top of Mount Buxton, that you and Casey had planned to climb it together in the fall of the previous year but that you were just starting to feel unwell and didn’t feel strong enough at that time. The man recognized your name, had heard about you for years, and agreed to do the trade. I hung up the phone and headed to the airport.
Sandy picked me up and told me that June had just been admitted to Edmonton’s Cross Cancer Institute, and we headed straight there. She had a private room that was always full of visitors. Their daughter, Marnie, and I spent most nights with her, one sleeping on the extra bed and the other on a cot. I went back to their house one night and with the help of my Full Catastrophe body-scan audio tape, I slept all night long. I have become addicted to it.
When June became too weak for the Cross to be able to help her, we all moved to the palliative care unit at Edmonton’s general hospital. Out-of-town relatives started arriving. At times it was like an old-time hootenanny, with people quietly singing in beautiful harmony, and other times June’s son, Jordan, was just noodling on a guitar. Everyone chatting, always upbeat. I was along for the ride. People picked up beer and pizza. June enjoyed drinking a tall cold one. For her, it was like manna from heaven. A few nights later we were all together when the nurse came to speak to Sandy. She said June’s heart is so strong, we will be here for a while. But twenty minutes later, June also had “passed on to her next assignment.” I am positive that you were there to greet her, and make her feel at home.
Two days later, Casey and Jessy arrived. They had left a long-time friend and staff member, Steve, in charge of the lodge with a list of projects and gallons of paint for the crew, and were confident that things would get done. June and Sandy’s house was full of people, full of food and full of flowers. I was there. I show up in some of the photos.
My beloved husband and my beloved sister. The weight on my soul was just too much, and only silence helped me carry it.
I love you and miss you so much my Darling,
Pat
Mount Buxton
Dear George:
I flew to the lodge, and Casey and Jess both came out to pick me up from the airplane float. We slowly trolled into the bay and I could see a huge welcome home banner across the front of the lodge and the whole crew waiting to tie up our boat.
Within minutes I was talking to the fellow from the phone company about their helicopter picking us up shortly to fly to Mount Buxton.
Casey headed out to a meeting with other lodge owners and representatives of the Wuikinuxv Nation from the head of the inlet. The First Nations group has requested that the area’s lodge owners pay them money for every guest that we have here this summer.
We have to do a creel report for your guide licence. What does “creel report” mean? Paperwork for the Salmon Sport Head Recovery Program.
The accounting program on my computer needs upgrading, and I have to do td1s for crew, figure out wages and get info to the accountant.
There’s a letter from a different First Nations group asking for money for their elders to have a holiday.
Grocery orders.
Pay bills.
I feel hands clutching at me from all directions.
Tons of mail.
No file folders here.
Liquor stacked in the living room.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
Call back re: helicopter
The helicopter picked us up at 2:30 PM and flew Jessy, Casey and me on an incredible tour of Calvert Island, along the beaches, up over the mountains, across meadows and lakes, then up, up, up Mount Buxton. We landed near the top of the mountain on a flat bit of rock with a sheer drop off of 1,200 feet on one side and 150 feet on the other sides.
“Take your time,” the pilot said.
Mount Buxton at sunset. We scattered George’s ashes on the peak.
We climbed and stood on the very tippy-top of the mountain. I opened the box of ashes and let them swirl away on the dancing wind as we sang, “Spread your wings and fly away, up into the wind, above the trees you glide with ease, and round back again.” Your favourite song by Ken Tobias, “Dream #2.” We held hands and watched as the ashes rose and swooped with the gusts. “I drew a picture of a pair of wings, because I want to fly. He said that fewer people were trying, but the art of really flying is dying.” The view was endless in all directions with tiny boats chugging up Fitz Hugh Sound three thousand feet below and Japan in the other direction. You are forever part of Mount Buxton and we felt you watching over us all summer.
The telephone company never did come to the lodge to use our facilities. I think they left us alone as a mark of respect to you.
We arrived back at the lodge and I was back on my head …
Answering e-mails.
Searching for addresses of people who haven’t yet paid.
There is a postal strike set for tonight.
There is so much stuff everywhere it is overwhelming me.
Unpacking, there is no room for my things.
There is laundry piled to the ceiling in Jessy’s room.
A lodge owner called me on the boat-to-boat radio channel. He seemed to be talking in code. He finally phoned me to say that the liquor inspectors were in the inlet and they were going to all the lodges, harassing them with their new rules, but thanks to him, they will not be coming here.
Wine—have to order now.
Need an evacuation and safety check for the crew for Workers Compensation.
Order pop.
Grocery orders … hurry!
Have to phone grocery orders in as I can’t seem to e-mail them.
It’s like going back more than ten years, having to phone grocery orders in.
Have to phone in an airplane m
anifest.
It is so hard to walk around here. Everything has your name on it. And there is so much of everything. It is swamping me. I am going to bed.
This is the end of my first day back in the inlet without you, my darling. How can this be? I can’t grasp the idea that you won’t ever be here again. I am crushed and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get up again.
Lotsa love my Sweet Georgie,
Pat
Are You Smiling?
Dear George:
I have to keep working on paperwork—e-mails, bills, wages, the rest of the grocery orders. I’m casting around for addresses. You and I had very different ways of organizing things. Casey, Jessy and Steve have the crew painting the red buildings and white trim, and power washing the decks everywhere. I received an e-mail back from the accountant so I can now pay the staff. I’m sure they will be happy to have a paycheque. I am spinning my wheels, having trouble getting things done because there is something else to be done everywhere I turn. I talked to your mom, sisters and Graham. I am barely holding myself together. Rescue Remedy under my tongue helps a little.
Another resort owner picked me up and drove me around the corner to see where the old beachcombers’ string of boom sticks is being used by an American who has bought some bits and pieces of fishing resort from the lodge owner. The new American owner seems to be adding more floats. Hopefully his doesn’t turn into a full-blown resort right next to us. I know you would hate that.
Guests arrive and drape themselves over my shoulders in abject grief over your passing. This happens all summer, and my arms feel like rebar reinforcing the concrete wall that is growing higher around me. I pat people on the back to console them, then gently push them away. A lock has clamped down on my heart, and the key slipped out of my hand and dropped overboard. When the last of the guests have been greeted I head over to our house and, once the door is closed, I gasp for breath. Then I grit my teeth and try to pull the knife out that has been twisting in my soul. Breathe, just breathe—and another breath.