Bye Maegan…

Back in 1975, Louise and I decided to travel across the country like so many other young people did at that time. The method that most young people took was to hitch hike. I had never had a lot of luck when it came to hitch hiking, so when we decided to go we looked for an alternate method.

At the time you could drive someone else’s car across the country for them and just pay the gas, which is what we did. There is a blog or two in that trip, but tonight I am going to write about the year after our trip. When we returned, and set up housekeeping we couldn’t get the mountains and their magnificence out of our minds. Eventually we decided that we needed to live in or near the mountains.

We got out a trusty map and had a look. There were and are quite a few small towns and townlets dotting the mountains in both BC and Alberta, but neither of us had any real saleable or useable skills so we decided that a larger city would be necessary to find employment. Calgary was the biggest city that was closest to the mountains so that is where we would relocate.

Deciding was the easy part, telling our friends and family was just devastating, both to them and us. There were a many tears and more than once we questioned what we were about to do. Thinking back, I am sure that we broke our parent’s hearts. However, as parents they wished the best for us and knew that we had to do this. We were young and in love, what could possibly stand in our way. Nothing ever seems to go as well or as easily as you think it will. We struggled and it was an emotional roller coaster for the first year or so in Calgary, but we made it our home.

We tried to keep in touch with friends and family, but this was before the internet and letters and phone calls were the only real option. There were visits back and forth, but not as frequently as we would like. It was cheaper to fly to Hawaii at the time than to fly to Toronto. We didn’t do either, but Hawaii was cheaper. Whenever we did travel to Ontario or our parents travelled here, the end of the trip was always marked by tears. I often thought that we should move back, and we did for about four years, but the mountains and Calgary kept calling to us. By this time it was home. We tried to convince our friends to move out here, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. They were home too.

Well, for the past two weeks my daughter Maegan has been visiting us from Toronto. She comes for a visit at this time every year, and next to a visit from a fat man in red from the North Pole, a visit from a skinny young woman from Toronto indicates Christmas to us. The past few years I think the main reason for her trip is to spend time with her nephews.

Tomorrow she leaves to go back home and we wish the best for her. There will be tears and hugs, and I will start to count the days until I see her again. Perhaps it is something that dwells within that makes us search for a better life elsewhere. Well, I know that Toronto is the best place for her to be and Calgary is the best place for us to be. The odd thing is, when I first came to Calgary, my heart found its home. Now, part of my heart lives in Toronto.