Father's Day, 2003

I flew to New Brunswick for my grandmother's memorial service the weekend of Father's Day, last year. We flew on one of the propeller driven commuter planes Air Canada uses for smaller routes on their Tango service. As I looked down on all the greenery and lakes, I wondered how my mother was coping with her sisters, and I worried (as I always do) about staying with a stranger, a childhood friend of my mother's. I searched the landscape below for the feelings and open tears I had six months earlier when my grandmother had passed away, but I could not find them. Instead I worried about my guitar, buried in the bowels of the plane.

I made the trip to Canterbury, New Brunswick, in my parents' car (they drove.) My mother had longed to get out of Canterbury for as long as she could remember, and through hard work and sacrifice, she made it, and made a name for herself in the world. But the woman driving back to Canterbury was the little girl from there who had lost her Mom.

My Mom had to see the minister before the service. The nominal purpose was to help pick out readings and tell her about our family, but I think she needed something more. Finding the minister's house was not hard; it was right beside the church, a church I knew well, but only from photographs and a dim childhood memory of my aunt's wedding. The church was also in my parents' wedding album. It was unchanged, and I half expected to see on the steps my blushing Dad in a tuxedo, my Mom in a white dress on his arm.

We knocked and a young woman let us into an old fashioned parlour/living room. I looked at some of the books on the bookshelf, an exotic collection of classic literature and modern self-help books. The shelves were decked with antiques, like my parents farmhouse had been. The minister, a woman who, because she was part native, looked remarkably like one of my sisters in law, appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in nothing but a towel. She told us she would be right down. Outside, the rain began to come down in a light drizzle.

When she came down to the parlour, she was dressed in black, with a roman collar, looking very much the minister. My mother asked her a little about what would happen, and the minister told us that the funeral could happen any way she wanted - graveside, or in the church. My mother began to talk, now, haltingly about what it was to lose Nanny. The minister said quietly, "I haven't had to go through what you are going through yet."

My mother said, "This is really hard," and looked at her, searching for something - faith perhaps - My mother has always sought for it, but it seems out of reach for her at times.

Her eyes full of genuine compassion, the minister returned her gaze. They sat, each in their chair, looking at each other quietly, for a couple of minutes. Outside, the rain tapped on the window-sills, and the light grey clouds kept their lazy pace in the sky.

My mother needed her grief acknowledged uniquely. The minister responded the only way she could: silent, sincere empathy.