I had a fairly solid night of sleep AND found a parking spot this morning, so my Thursday is already several thousand times better than my Wednesday. I’m actually feeling quite jolly about the whole thing, which I’m sure is helping. And look – I’m wearing a colour other than black. I’m practically brand new!
I really hope the weather holds for this weekend. We have to go to Victoria and see my mom to a) do Christmas, and b) talk about the house and what she’s going to need from us in terms of help and paperwork. Because I love a road trip almost as much as I love things involving groups, I coerced Josh and Shan into coming with us. The four of us will get up staggeringly early on Saturday morning and take the ferry from Horseshoe Bay (about 15 minutes from our place, instead of driving to Tsawwassen which is over an hour away) to Nanaimo, then make the drive down the island to Victoria. It remains to be seen which ferry route we’ll take on the way back, but it should be a fun trip. We booked a hotel room in downtown Victoria and have a list of things we want to do – and now that I have a camera that actually takes pictures, I’m very excited about the whole thing. I may even have to hop on the Flickr bandwagon!
As usual, I have some of the trepidation. When I last spoke to my mom, she mentioned that she, Ed and I shall all get into the car (she doesn’t know about Josh and Shan yet) and make our way to the graveyard to visit dad’s marble toaster in the wall.
I don’t want to.
I can’t decide if this makes me a terrible daughter or not, but I really don’t want to go to the cemetery. I don’t want to remember my dad as a series brass letters on a marble wall alongside hundreds of others. I don’t want to put on a show of grief for my mother or hold my tongue when she demands that I “ask daddy for some winning lottery numbers”. I don’t want to witness her rambling, nonsensical prayer-like statements. I don’t want to have to be appropriate at all times, damnit.
I don’t know if my mom thinks otherwise, but I think about my dad all the time. I don’t need to make an utterly depressing and melodramatic trip to the cemetery to visit his remains – that marble toaster full of ashes and bone fragments is not my dad; he was so much more than that. I do things my own way – remembering things about him that made me smile or cry or tear out my hair or laugh until I peed just a little. I visit him every time I’m in Victoria, by going home, and to his favourite places, and just by being in the city itself. I have little celebrations on significant days, both in my own head and out loud for others to enjoy. I don’t want a cameo in someone else’s show for the masses. Let me be the star of my own grief parade.
So, to recap: I’m a terrible daughter, and I should not start my mornings by listening to My Chemical Romance.
What say you, internet?
I have to mention this: as I was preparing this entry for posting, a song by my dad’s favourite artist started playing on my computer. Hi, daddy. :)
delicious juice dot com 
The drive from Nanimo to Victoria is really nice and not too long, a better drive than across the city, that’s for sure.
There’s lots of fun things in victoria to do. If none of you get sea-sick, I recomend the harbour tour! You get on a really tiny ferry (seats like 8 people or so), and a guide drives your around the harbour and tells witty/corny stories. It might not be everyones idea of a Certified Good Time, but I thought it was enjoyable :)
And as I have personally learned, remembering/visiting my sister who passed away is not a family event, it’s something very personal. My mom likes to visit my sister at the cemetary. But I like to visit in my memories :). My mom thinks I’m not dealing with things because I won’t visit the cemetary or go with her to visit, but really it’s just how you choose to remember and honor that person. I don’t need to visit her urn to talk to her, or remember her. She’s here with me every day.
I think probably as much as you want to not be there, that’s how much your mom does want to be there and you’ll have to reach some kind of understanding about it before you can both feel okay with doing it differently. Maybe she worries that you haven’t really dealt with his loss yet. A lot of people can’t face the reality of their loss and live in denial by refusing to visit the cemetery, and it creates an unhealthy situation for them. But a lot of other people just don’t need to go and they’re able to make their peace in other ways. It’s very grey. She might just need reassurance that you’re okay.
And in other news, go with flickr. I try not to jump on the bandwagons myself, but I loooove flickr. It’s totally changed the way I take and look at pictures.