Resting Place

One of the objectives of our recent family gathering in BC was to come together to spread my Mum's ashes. She asked to have her ashes spread in a place where she would have been afraid to go in life, and we chose the beautiful Helmcken Falls, iconic image of the region she and Dad have called home since 1969.

Interestingly, the area reaches much further back in Mum and Dad's history, as we found out on the drive to the falls. One of Dad's early jobs was in the park – the cabin he stayed in is clinging to the bank of a creek visible from the road, threatening to fall in as the bank erodes. Closer to town, another auspicious spot: the little inn where Mum and Dad went to dinner on one of her visits to him, the place where Dad proposed and Mum accepted.

You might think that a waterfall with a viewing platform and accessible by road would not be the type of place where Mum would have been afraid to go. You would be right on that count, as Mum really loved this spot. We did take care, however, to place her ashes beyond the security fence on the slope leading to the precipice, and we can all be sure that she would never have ventured there.

It felt good to carry out this wish, and not like a sad occasion at all. Now we know that Mum's remains will contribute to plant growth in this beautiful spot with so many ties to her past, and we can only be glad about that.

Glad, too, to have been able to spend some time all together – Dad and all of us siblings and assorted siblings-in-law – which is always a pleasure above all. I did have to realize that I have some points of divergence on issues quite central to my work with some of my siblings, but the important part is that we all love and like each other, which continues to be a testament to what a great job Mum and Dad did with us.