Remembering Those We Want to Remember - Episode 54

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Happy to Be Canadian Podcast. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, a writer who lives in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada. Each week I share an original, very short story that will have you laughing and reflecting on the simple moments of our lives. Now, on to today's episode. Happy to be Canadian, episode 54. Remembering those we want to remember. In 1978, I went on a bus tour of Europe with my great Uncle Jack. We were an unlikely pair. He was 73, I was 19. Uncle Jack had a square build that had softened but changed little over the decades. His face was strengthened by a square jaw and a straight nose, and framed by the most magnificent head of thick, jet black hair that formed a solid line across the top of his forehead. His hair grayed as he aged and at the same time maintained its youthful vibrancy. As a bachelor, he had retired from a lifetime of serving his community as a member of provincial parliament, county warden, and township reeve. I was three months into working at my first full-time job as a reporter on a weekly newspaper in central Ontario. I was young, liked to party, and had moved farther away from home than my uncle ever did. Even though I had lived on the same farm as Uncle Jack for most of my life, in all honesty, I can't imagine how anyone in our family thought it was a good idea to send me along on the tour to manage things. As an opposition MPP, Uncle Jack had traveled throughout the province during his twenty-two-year tenure, but he had never ventured across the ocean. Whether he had a desire to see the Scottish homeland of his ancestors, I don't know. Everyone knew it was his long-held dream to visit the battlefield cemeteries of Europe. Uncle Jack was of that generation born too young to fight in World War I and too old to fight in World War II. And as a farmer, he was required to work in his profession during those years. Men that he knew volunteered for overseas duties. Some came home, others did not. Whatever his own regrets or convictions, seeing those crosses row on row, was important to him. When he retired in 1977, as part of the congratulations and celebrations, the locals gifted him this European tour in recognition of his service. The trip was presented in late summer 1977 and was set for the next May. In those months after his retirement, little inconsistencies in Uncle Jack's behavior became big waving red flags. He was showing signs of confusion and forgetfulness. Spring approached, and it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to make the trip alone. As everyone in the family checked their calendars and responsibilities, I was the only one who could get time off work and had a willingness to go. There was only one catch. I was the maid of honor at my cousin's wedding a day after the trip was scheduled to begin. We decided that this would not be a big deal. Uncle Jack would leave as scheduled with the tour group, and I would arrive in Holland two days later. What could go wrong? As many of you have lived with family and friends who are suffering with dementia know that things can become difficult when they leave their normal routine. I arrived in Amsterdam to find the Dutch tour guide and a retired municipal administrator from our local county seat waiting for me. Corey, the guide, looked to be 30-ish. She was smiling and dressed in a stylish, soft pink, double-breasted trench coat. The administrator had that firm facial features of someone whose word was never questioned. He also appeared to be willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure his European tour was not ruined. I was not on the same page as they were, and it took a few days until I discovered their true intentions. They were not there to welcome this blue jeans-wearing teenager to their group. They were there to put me and Uncle Jack back on the soonest plane to Canada. There had been some upheavals during the first night in Amsterdam. Apparently, their hotel could have been described as the center of the infamous red light district, as a confused Uncle Jack had pulled the fire alarm and emergency vehicles had raced to their downtown structure. As the tour guide and the adamant administrator tried to impress upon me how dire the situation was, I gleefully told them that all would be well as soon as I teamed up with Uncle Jack. The administrator was in a controlled fury as I bebobbed towards the luggage carousel. The tour guide was in full appeasement mode. I arrived at the hotel and met up with Uncle Jack. His still thick hair was disheveled when he answered the door. He was lost and very happy to see someone from home. I soon realized that his watch was not set to European time, and his schedule was topsy turvy. We set things right and got on the bus. And we had a grand time, this old farmer politician and me. A 60-ish couple from Erie O were on the trip too. He had been a sniper during the war, and he wanted to see the sights in a kindler, gentler time. We sat on the bus together, ate lunches, and suppers together. Uncle Jack and the man laughed and laughed together. I shut down a pub or two with the couple while Uncle Jack snoozed in his hotel room. The administrator softened, and the tour guide was relieved. We had fun in Italy and Innsbruck, Paris and Rotterdam, Luxembourg and Salzburg on our whirlwind trip. However, the most significant event was experiencing the serenity and solemnness of a war cemeteries that held some of the best of our country. The rows of stones engraved with maple leaves and ages that matched my own left a mark for a lifetime. I'm forever grateful that I was chosen to take the trip with an old farmer who hadn't forgotten the people he wanted to remember. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Happy to Be Canadian. If you would like to receive an email each Saturday morning that features new short stories and more, you can sign up on my website, www.crazy8barn.com. If you would like to meet me in person and discover another way that we tell our rural stories, please join me at a Barn Quilt Painting Workshop at our beautiful eight-sided barn in Palmyra, Ontario, along the north shore of Lake Erie. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Crazy8 Barn. If you are an Apple podcast listener and enjoyed this podcast, I would appreciate it if you could leave me a favorable review. And that lets Apple know that Happy to Be Canadian is a valuable podcast and it shares it with other potential listeners. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, and I'm Happy to Be Canadian.