Monday, August 11, 2014

Halifax and Another Hard Promise

Heart of the Matter

["One heavy load on the bike, on the way to Halifax"]

Part 4 - Lost in the Woods

- June 2010

When I promised to bury my father at sea we didn't shake on it, sign a promissory note together or write up a legal document. He passed away in February 2003 and, a month or two later, after I'd constructed a box for his ashes (for a spring interment, after the ground thawed at the Walker Cemetery in Norwich) and discovered it was too small for the job, I said something to the affect that I would take the remaining ash and bury him at sea as he had requested in the 1980s. I said those words to the air around me while I stood - a bag of ashes in hand - in my basement workshop. I said those words to my father. I said those words to me and there was no need to write anything down. My promise was a matter of the heart. I'd remember.

Seven years passed, however, before I felt the time was right to do the deed and I cannot honestly recall now if there was any one thing that made me say, again to my father and me, it's time to go.

During the intervening years I explored the option of burying my father at sea with the enlistment of aid from public and private enterprises that do such things. I couldn't commit. The process felt like a lot of work ("Mail the ashes here. Meet us there. Send us money. Book a flight."). And I was very busy with various retirement activities, such as marathoning (almost like a demanding part-time job), setting up a workshop in a backyard garage, writing a weekly column and riding up and own country roads on a motorcycle.

However, by late 2009 or early 2010, certain conditions had changed. I was finished with long-distance running and training for marathons, my time in the woodworking shop had become a pleasant routine, I'd developed experience related to writing weekly columns while on the road and I owned and felt very comfortable upon a solid cruiser-style motorcycle (I'd taken an older version of the same model to Thunder Bay and back two years earlier). And one day, out of the blue, the penny dropped. I thought I could cart my father's ashes on my own to the Atlantic, i.e., on the back of my motorcycle. It sounded like a grand adventure - oh, trust me... it surely was - I decided to do it, and after much careful planning I was on my way on June 8, 2010.





["I let Carl do the cooking on the way to Fredericton"]

I biked on average 450 kilometres a day, frequently cooked meals along the side of the road, took major highways and numerous secondary roads, stopped here and there and everywhere to take scores of photographs, stopped at hostels, loaded and unloaded my bike every day, and when I finally reached Halifax on the fifth day I'd travelled farther to reach a destination (by motorcycle, about 2,300 km.) than ever before in my life. I was exhausted and exhilarated in almost equal amounts at the same time. And I hadn't really reached my goal yet. I still had to bike another 30 kilometres to Pennant Point, a place south-west of Halifax that would provide me access to the rugged Atlantic Coast, with father's ashes in hand.


More to follow.

Link to Halifax and Another Hard Promise

Photos from 2010 East Coast trip by GH

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