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December 1, 2012 – Yesterday was tough, today was equally difficult. My brother and his family left for home and it tore me apart inside to see them leave. The brain and the heart can be so completely irrational sometimes. I know he had to go. Both of us have long and dangerous winter drives home. Ours is somewhat easier because after a certain point we hit the coastal zone and we will likely hit rain and warmer weather. His drive involves icy roads and potential snowfall the entire way. I KNOW that, but I still felt abandoned. And I KNOW that’s not true. But there is no logic in anything that has happened the past 25 days and controlling emotions is hard at the best of times.

We bought some storage totes and packed up Mom’s genealogy work and photo albums and a few important pieces of china that had special meaning to her. Mom always put up the most amazing Christmas tree, it was covered from top to bottom with the most incredible collection of teddy bears. She had an old steamer trunk that was filled with them, and when I opened it I decided to put it up in her honour this season. The trunk was too big to fit under the cover in the back of our truck, so we bagged the bears and packed up the tree to take back to the Coast.

One really good thing did happen today though. The biggest worry for me was Mom’s house being unoccupied. Mom’s best friend had made a suggestion, her daughter-in-law’s sister housesits in Prince George and we hoped she would be free to live there. She was, and she accepted. So we have someone living in the house until spring when we can better deal with it and after the estate clears probate. So that was a relief. She is a wonderful person and when she walked through the door I thought it was my former labmate, Anne. She looks like her, speaks like her, has her same enthusiasm and mannerisms, and is even close to her age. It was rather strange, but wonderful and it made me comfortable. She is a phys-ed teacher and is living in her parents basement suite as she is trying to save to pay off her student loans and eventually buy her own home. So from her perspective it was great to have her own space for a few months.

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I took this photo of Mom six years ago at Waterfowl Lake when we went on a road trip together. It was a wonderful trip and I have so many treasured memories from those two days. I flew into Prince George early, she picked me up at the airport, and it was straight onto the highway.

We drove Mom’s camper van to Jasper and spent the night at Wapiti campground. In the morning, still in our pj’s, she drove us to the washrooms where we discovered her flip flops were missing. We drove back to the campsite to see a lonely pair of flip flops in the centre of the area, I took a photo of them and we had a good laugh.

We drove the Icefield Highway the next day and stopped at several beautiful locations for photos and to walk the dog. We stopped at Waterfowl Lake to make breakfast on the Coleman stove and ate at the side of the river. That might have been the best breakfast I ever ate.

We spent a few days in Cranbrook helping sort out my Dad’s house and get him settled in before driving through the Kootenay’s on the way back. We took the Kootenay Lake ferry, drove through Nakusp and New Denver, and spent the night at a campground in Vernon. We drove to Kamloops and I jumped on a bus back to Vancouver from there, while she drove back to Prince George.

I have so many wonderful memories of our time together. I will always miss her terribly.