Thursday, June 24, 2010

A Sadness

I was teaching last night for Dave, and unfortunately I had my phone on vibrate in my purse, so I did not hear it ring. I didn’t check my messages until I got home around 10:00pm. My mum had been trying to call me since about 5:30 to tell me that my Grandfather (Keith George Angus) had passed away. This is my mum’s Dad, and although we knew his time was coming close, we did not expect him to go before my Grandmother, as her situation seemed much more precarious (Go to my Mum’s blog “Short Musings” for all the details on why they were in the hospital etc...www.bebopher.blogspot.com)

Anyway, I am still processing it, and thinking about him.

Just to leave this on a somewhat happy note, one memory I have of my Grandfather that describes him to a T (thrifty, resourceful, not fashion savvy) is when my sister Erin, my cousin Shelley and I were out visiting my Grandparents in Burnaby for a week or two when we were kids. I have no idea how old we were. I am thinking that I would have been about 12, Erin 8, and Shelley 7? Anyway, my Grandparents were not ones to let children sit inside and watch TV, or be lazy, they would have us out trimming hedges, or canoeing, or hiking. This particular day was no different, it was a typical rainy day in the Lower Mainland. It was Grey, the clouds were low, and the rain was not ending anytime soon. My Grandparents were bound and determined to take us out hiking in the UBC Forestry Reserve, but none of us had packed rain gear, so we improvised. Grandpa got out some old plastic sheeting that he had used as a drop cloth for painting, folded it in half and cut 3 panels from it, and at the fold, he cut a head hole. We wore them like ponchos, and we tied them at the waist with old rope. The plastic still had paint on it, and it flaked off as we walked.  He never threw anything out, because you never know when you might need it. We must have looked like a troop of Hobos.

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