After finishing my training in Mississauga I stopped in to see my grandparents. The problem with moving away (in this case from the GTA) is that you leave people and things behind, and Gam and Bumpa can't come visit me in Ottawa.
Though it's been almost 20 years since I was last in the cemetery I remembered immediately exactly where their grave was. I've been thinking about them a lot lately, in part I think because my brand new niece has the same middle name as my grandmother. I was a young teen when they died, far more interested in my own shallow life than in their rich stories. I deeply regret that they died before I had matured into someone who could ask them about their lives, their dreams, their triumphs and regrets. They left precious little written record behind, and what they did leave was, I believe, destroyed by their children when my grandfather died. Too many painful things. I don't know exactly, but I have so many questions that will never be answered.
This is a big part of the reason why I scrapbook. Putting my story into words and images so that if I leave this mortal world prematurely the people I love will still hear me.
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