Ella Does Squamish

Now what do I do?  Ella-dog is gone (before leaving Squamish, I went through the underbrush twice looking for E-dog’s marker and the dang bushes were so overgrown, I couldn’t find her burial site) and now I am living in Nanaimo.  The blog title seems a misnomer but for the time being I will keep everything as is and have added a category:  Nanaimo.

I left Squamish last Wednesday with my car full of belongings after a sweet and lovely last day at my workplace.  My immediate colleagues took me out for lunch, I received a card and a present, four of my ‘clients’ stopped in to say bye to me … all much appreciated. 

I managed to catch the 7:20 pm ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay in Nanaimo and was in awe.  The land/seascape from the ferry was so beautiful, only marred by the yellow haze that was apparent from a distance in the Vancouver area.  At around 9 pm, maybe 20 minutes before the ferry arrived in Nanaimo, a big orange full moon appeared in the eastern horizon.  It was incredible to see from the water and I took it to be an auspicious sign of my move to Nanaimo.

And then today, I heard from my cousin’s son that his mom (cousin Betty to me) died on August 31st.  I hope she was able to see that big, full harvest moon before she died.  She was a role model for me - she graduated from McGill University in 1944, was sent to Harvard thereafter for the female business program, married, had two kids, divorced in the mid-1960s, did an MA at OISE, worked at TVO, etc. afterwards … was always very keen about promoting women’s careers.  I didn’t know all this history until the mid-80s when I thought I was the family baa-baa black sheep (being a feminist in the mid-1980s).  But her mother, my grand-father’s sister, had graduated with a BA from the University of Winnipeg in the mid-1910s.  Hell, I didn’t even know my paternal grandfather was a lawyer, though he never practised law, until two years ago!  I did know that my father had wanted to go into law at some point in his life, I will likely have regrets for not pursuing law myself and I expect my neice thinks about going into law (my aspirations for her to be a periodontist seem to have come to naught!)  

I am so happy that R. and I attended Betty’s 80th birthday celebration in Collingwood and saw the old homestead in Duntroon (it is still there).  My paternal great-grandfather left Duntroon, first went to Kansas, then ended up in Tenttown (later known as Swan River, Manitoba).  All to say, thank-you cousin Betty for blazing a trail and providing me with a role model … too bad for me that I didn’t know your history when I was in my late teens and it is so sad that my neice will not get to meet you in this life as she is quite a trail-blazer herself.  Peace be with you.