Dad's burial site... a road trip story

I had planned on only taking the first week of July off from work. The rest I would take later. When my Dad found out I was off of work his calls became incessant. He was seriously disrupting my personal time, and my time with Smitten.

I could have just turned off my cell phone. But I don't want to. I want to be accessible to those who need to reach me - my children, my workplace, my business partners, and - my Dad (parents). Dad just has a problem with boundaries.

Just like I refuse to give up my email address that I have had since the early '90s (because of spam - approx 700 per day]), I refuse to turn off my cell phone to avoid Dad's calls.

There must be another solution (with spam filters I receive only about 30 of those 700). Turning off the cell phone would only address a symptom, and would also impact me and my own desire for how my life should be structured. I want my cell phone on because there are people who need to reach me. I want the freedom of not being chained to desk, and I want the freedom of not having to arrange excruciatingly detailed backup for my presence/absence. But I want those around me to self-regulate. The cell phone is for my convenience, not theirs - not his.

Anyway, I told Dad that I was going to take some time off in the second week of July and we would go do something together. I figured if I could take son or daughter days, I could take a Dad day and do something just with him. He had asked about doing some traveling around our area earlier in the year.

He had specifically raised the idea of going to the area where his family homesteaded. He had found a place that he found very peaceful - and abandoned church site that has a graveyard that is still used. He was thinking about being buried there. I knew that was why he wanted to go there with me. My Mom told him that he was nuts to want to be buried there and he wanted some validation and he wanted share the place.

These are cell phone pictures from that trip. The fields we are beside are seeded in canola (yellow flower). These pictures were taken about a mile down from the place where Dad wants to be buried. You can see (sort of) the lake at the horizon of the first picture.




It's beautiful country. While I bemoan the wasteland sometimes, other times the hugeness and the emptiness of it all is breathtaking. When you look at the pictures, realise how small a piece of the view that is. Imagine the flatness and the emptiness in every direction. Just open space. The second picture is me just turning left from where the first picture was taken.

A lot of air. A lot of space to breathe.

Off at the end of the road in the picture, there is a dark spot on the left. That is the trees and the hill that the abandoned church and graveyard are on.

Dad took me to a swack of places - I should have taken more pictures, but I didn't think of it until the moment I took those pictures. As usual I took pictures of the places, and not the people. I didn't take a picture of my dad on that day even though he could die at any time - that being part of the reason we went on the trip. With these ischemic episodes he's been having he is feeling quite mortal.

I took pictures of the places because it was the moment that will be frozen in time - not the people. They live and their presence is in my memory. I need to change that - i need to capture the people. Because it's the people that are important. But for whatever reason I capture the experience and the moment by my surroundings and not by the people.

I saw a lot of places that I had heard Dad talk about, but i had not seen in person. Hilltop shrines, cathedrals hand painted by war refugees, places where people had been born, and people had died. A bowl that was hand carved in 1875 by my great-great-grandfather (it was a wedding present - currently in a museum). I saw the places they went to fight the good fight. The miles and miles my Grandfather walked during the depression as he fought for a better world - to change our society into one that served the needs of people, not profit. The places that had voted with us. The places that had voted against us. The places where the people had reached for their last few cents in the depression to support the cause because they shared the dream. The places where our people were beaten by gangs of thugs wielding axe handles. The resistance to change and the better world was strong. Those who felt they stood to lose were ruthless.

Many places that no longer exist, or are just a collection of a few falling down buildings. They exist in memories of people like my father.

Where my Dad worked and lived as he grew. The places he, like his father, organized on behalf of the movement. The places he worked to try to build that same better world.

I saw a lot of train tracks. The trains was his lifeblood - his point of mobility. Just like I effortlessly travel the world on my computer and my networks - he traveled our area, catching overnight trains to reach his destinations. He was a young man on the move with a lot of vigour and passion.

The places where my father and uncles were born. Where my one uncle died long before I was born. The cathedral they tried to find solace in after his death at age 15. A cathedral hand painted by a war refugee, built by people who had fled the privation and violence that was endemic in many parts of Europe ant the end of the last century.

The places my grandmother stood and defended the idea of the common wealth, and defended her children from those who attacked them because their parents were demanding social change. Things like medical care for all regardless of ability to pay, free education, good roads, decent wages, and safety and protection in their workplace.

My father was sharing some of his life with me so that I would know too. So that it would be more than just words. It would be places and visions. So that it wouldn't be lost. With only that endless sky as witness.

...a road trip story.