DEATH SEEMS NEAR AT TIMES

Arriving home last night we listened to a voice message from a friend Wilma telling us that her husband Al had passed away and his memorial service is scheduled for this afternoon. Al was 77 years of age, ten years older than I am.

If my first retirement year has not underscored for me already the transitory nature of life, these moments definitely do. There are more and more of these. So many of our friends, ageing as we are, become ill and some die. I have never been so conscious of the nearness of death. That’s noteworthy because the pastoral work in which I spent forty years of my life required me to visit seniors in nursing homes and hospital rooms and even be near for their dying moments. Yet I remained objective and detached. Now it’s personal.

Al had some health issues in recent years. Nevertheless, since I am 67 years old, age 77 does not seem so far off. I know how quickly time moves. It almost evaporates.

Christine and I, me with my sprained ankle, attended an afternoon 50th anniversary celebration of Arvid and Ruth Olson yesterday. It was very well attended by friends. Given the event, we saw a sea of white hair. As I hobbled along, I fit right in.

Al was a gentle and kind man. I liked him very much. Friends, children, spouse will speak well of him of him today because it will be true.

What will be said of me when I go? That is likely the most profitable aspect of reflections of this sort. I have time and I can make course corrections in some relationships where I need to do that. I can allow some of the graces of God to infect me more profoundly than they have so that I am more like my Master than myself. That would be an improvement. And I can use the time I have profitably. What I am glad about is that friendships have come to mean more to me in this phase of my life than they ever have. That makes life rich and enjoyable.

2 Corinthians 4:16 Therefore we do not despair, but even if our physical body is wearing away, our inner person is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison 18 because we are not looking at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 5:6 Therefore we are always full of courage, and we know that as long as we are alive here on earth we are absent from the Lord – 7 for we live by faith, not by sight. 8 Thus we are full of courage and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So then whether we are alive or away, we make it our ambition to please him

.

Today is My Birthday

Today is My Birthday

Once I was a little boy
Now I am a man
Enjoyed those boyhood years,
Cannot return again.
With passage of years I married well
Fathered a daughter and son
Nurtured them and watched them grow
Each stage was so much fun.
Now I have come this far in life
I am the white haired one
My eyes can see and my hands touch
One, Two, Three grandsons.
Granddaughters? I have two
A young lady and a tot
Each of them loves me
And I love them a lot.
Through the years of my life,
I didn’t think much about heaven
I am considering it now
That I have turned sixty-seven.

September 7th - A Day for Birthdays

Birthdays on the Same Day

My brother Murray is an artist. He has been many other things in this unfolding life. All of them good. He has been a good brother and an even better son. He lived for these past many years in the same city as our ageing parents and he was their primary caregiver. He has been a preacher, a businessman, an employee. He is a husband, a father and a grandfather, and he excels in these latter categories. If he is your friend, you are blessed. Most recently he has taken on an unusual and forward initiative to establish an art gallery for a new church in downtown St. Catharines. It's an honourable effort to relate to the arts community with some even better news than a prospective buyer. He is not a pastor any longer, but a helper, a supporter, an honest man of whom I am proud.

Today Murray is having a birthday on Monday September 7th. Why not make it a group celebration? Murray is five years younger than me, will celebrate his mmmthikteefhtoommth birthday. But why celebrate it alone. Sooo, his second child Matthew married Cristina several years ago and Cristina was born on the same date of the month of September. So for a little while the two of them enjoyed that day. Now, for the past couple of years another smaller girl has been sharing this same birthday. Murray’s daughter Beth has two daughters and the second sweetheart named Karis was born not on the 6th or the 8th but the 7th. That makes three family members with the same date. This is a 2006 photo of Karis.



Happy Birthday you three.

Take a look at Murray's website Vintage Impressions

Happy 9th Birthday Kailyn

Kailyn is my numero uno grandchild. When our daughter Cari was born my father and mother came to Mississauga Hospital to see their first grandchild. With great pleasure my dad, father of three boys, peered through the window into the nursery at my pinkly bundled girl with the frizzy whitish blonde hair and blue eyes. Years later my daughter gave birth to a girl of her own, a similarly striking little blue eyed blonde that claimed all of our hearts immediately. We have watched with delight as she has grown up in the company of two younger brothers.

Today is her birthday, and she is celebrating nine years.

We are amazed by the passing of time. Every generation is I suppose. I speculate what she may be like in ten or twelve more years, and I wonder whether Christine and I will still be here to watch her marry.



Right now, I love it when Kailyn leans against my shoulder and allows me to casually play my fingers in her hair when we are both relaxed. She and I tease one another and I know she enjoys that familiarity. I wonder what these next few years will bring to her.

I thank you Lord for my granddaughter Kailyn.

Photos:
* 2008 Kailyn looking her best - WOW!
* 2008 Kailyn and her youngest cousin Kadence, another girl in the family
* 2005 Kailyn, Jayden, Ryan lying on the floor
* 2005 Kailyn, Flower Girl

From the Prairies to Ontario

It was 1947.

The Second World War had concluded. My father was home from his service in the Canadian Air Force. Canada had the role of trainer of pilots and aircrew for the Allied war effort under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, an agreement signed in December 1939 by Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Dad was one of the aircraft maintenance personnel that prepared aircraft, so he was stationed in Ontario, Vancouver and Skagway, Alaska. He had never shipped overseas.

Following he war my father and mother worked in their home town of Hepburn Saskatchewan but opportunities to advance oneself were absent so they chose the great adventure of moving east, to the golden triangle, the Niagara Peninsula, and specifically St. Catharines, the Garden City. I was four years old.

My parents found a run down wooden shack on Geneva Street in which they could live as they looked for work and settled into this new life. My mom was pregnant. I remember this place being back from the busy road, and consisting of one room, with a curtain pulled over the section where mom’s and dad’s bed was. An out house serviced us. Sunlight shone between the wall boards so before winter, my parents moved into a home owned by my Uncle Ed Willems.

On September 7th 1947 my bother, oops Freudian slip, my brother Murray was born. He was a beautiful looking little guy. It was maddening. He got so much attention. As he grew he had the blond, curly hair and blue eyes. I recall the day of his birth because after sharing with me his good news of a second son, my father took me to Montebello Park and gave me a gift box in which I found a pair of roller skates, the kind that are fastened to shoes with a tightening key. They are also known as quad skates. He sat and watched me for a long time as I skated around the wooden pavilion. The gift was not only celebrative of Murray’s birth but in anticipation of my birthday the following week, September 13th when I turned five years of age.

Montebello Park is located on Ontario Street, in the heart of the downtown area. With an adjacent band shell that still hosts musical concerts today. Montebello Park remains a prominent memory from my childhood and young adult years. On Sunday night my parents would walk with us to sit on a blanket to hear a summer evening concert. Often Mom brought some snacks for us to munch on while we listened. It was in the rose garden of this park that Christine and I and our wedding party had our pictures taken when we began our life together as husband and wife on August 12, 1967.

Pictures
*Dad (Edward)and his first two sons, Ron and Murray
*1910 Montebello Park
*Quad Roller Skates
*Montebello Park Pavillion and Band Stand 2009
*Ron and Murray

Too hot to write

Sorry, the summer heat has fried my output for the past few days!

Yesterday, was the Hottest day ever recorded in Vancouver. It's been like that for days, and is expected to continue.

I'll get back at my memoirs when I cool off.

Ronnie's Baby Years

Number one son. Well, at least I was firstborn of the three sons born to Edward and Tina Unruh. Home was the town of Hepburn, Saskatchewan. My two siblings stole the show when they finally arrived. Pictures reflect that life was simple. The homes were wood frame on the open prairies and before required insulation standards. These photos are part of the inheritance that comes to the sons when the parents are gone after eight or more decades of life. Octogenarians and ninety year olds have seen so much change during their lives and I thought my folks handled all of it well. Dad was in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the first years of my infancy and childhood. World War II waged overseas. I got a lot of attention from mom and from the extended family since I was the only little squirt around at the time. As lean as the economy may have been I had a great looking pram, a wash tub and a tricycle but not much understanding about where I should ride this three-wheeled machine. Here I am in the thick stuff which I have found a good deal of the time in my adult years when I golf. I love seeing my dark haired young mom in these early pictures. My brothers didn’t know her this way because she was prematurely grey by age 30. Yes I know what some might say, that it was me who did that to her during my first five years. The photo with the little dog was taken in Mountain Lake Minnesota during a trip my mother took to see her brother Pete. Her visit was taken during one of my father’s deployments with the RCAF. I had great natural curls didn’t I? For as long as we can remember, mom kept our pressed curls, all three of us, in separate paper envelopes in her dresser drawer.

Ronnie and the Great Sturgeon

How could I know that eventually one day I would live in lower mainland of British Columbia close to the Fraser River where some of the largest Sturgeon fish in the world swim for centuries. Even recently one was caught by a family and brought to the shore for viewing before it was released to swim again. They are distinctive for their elongated bodies, lack of scales, and occasional great size: Sturgeons ranging from 7–12 feet (2-3½ m) in length are common, and some species grow up to 18 feet (5.5 m). Tim Swain caught and released an eleven foot four inch long sturgeon on August 2, 2006 in the waters of the Fraser. If you want an adventure like this, you can contact Cascade Fishing Adventures.

Sturgeon can be eaten. Not everyone wants to try however because most sturgeons are anadromous bottom-feeders. There is concern about the toxicity in the meat.

I don’t think that anyone knew or cared for that matter when I was a boy in Hepburn because people occasionally caught a sturgeon in the Saskatchewan River and it became a celebrated event because it could feed so many if it was a good size. Here I am standing with my Aunt Annie with a reasonably sized fish caught that day. You can see that it’s all I can do to hold my end of this mammoth.

The Milk Horse

Young people will not remember the delivery of milk to individual homes by a horse pulled wagon. I do. In fact I have another true story from my childhood that I converted to an illustrated yarn in my grandchildren’s story book.Here it is.

One day Ronnie's mother asks Ronnie to do her a favour. She needs some bread to make lunches.
Mommy gives Ronnie some money and she tells him to walk to the corner store where he can buy a loaf of bread.
Ronnie is a polite boy and inside the store he says to the storekeeper, "May I have a loaf of bread?"
The storekeeper brings him a loaf of white bread wrapped in plastic. Ronnie gives the man the money, and the man gives Ronnie some money back. Ronnie says, "Thank you," and then he puts the money in his pocket.
He slides the loaf from the counter and says, "Goodbye." He leaves the store and starts to go home.
On the way, he sees the milk wagon. The milkman is carrying milk bottles to some houses.
In front of the milk wagon is a milk horse. The milk horse pulls the milk wagon. While the milkman is gone, the milk horse stands still.
Ronnie looks at the horse. "Hi, horse," says Ronnie. "Are you hungry?" Ronnie thinks the horse looks hungry.
The only thing that Ronnie has to feed the horse is bread. Ronnie opens the loaf of bread and gives the horse a slice of bread. The horse likes it.
Ronnie gives the horse another piece, and another, and another.
Soon, there is only half a loaf of bread. The milkman comes back to the milk wagon. "Bye, bye horse," says Ronnie.
When Ronnie arrives at home, he gives his mother the loaf of bread. Where is the rest of the bread?" she asks. "Did you eat it?"
"Oh no!" Ronnie says. "I didn't eat it."
"Then who did eat it," asks mother.
"The milk horse ate it," says Ronnie.

You Will Be Bagiki

This is one of my childhood stories that I have written for children and illustrated in a small book that was a Christmas gift to my grandchildren. While it is a true story it has been embellished through the years. I recount it here as reliably as I can recall it.

When I was between three and four years of age, my parents, Ed and Tina owned a coffee shop in our home town of Hepburn, Saskatchewan. The year would have been 1945 or 46. The shop fronted on to the Main Street and it had a back door into a laneway. Behind the coffee shop was a well, probably unused and also uncovered. It would certainly hold interest to a boy like me.

As I was peering into the depth of this well a man in a pickup truck passed by in the lane and seeing me, out of concern said to me, “If you fall in that well, you will be bagiki.” Bagiki was a word with which I was unfamiliar and with both the rebuke and the mystery word I ran inside to tell my father what happened and to ask him what bagiki meant. He didn’t know but he assured me with a smile that it wouldn’t be good. My father never forgot that word and as he retold the story through the years, the word became synonymous in family parlance with anything that might be nasty or unpleasant in the extreme.

When I wrote the story, I wasn’t sure how one should spell the word, and when asking family members I received a variety of opinions. For many years I envisioned its spelling as I have recorded it here. BAGIKI. When we presented the gift book, Christine and I also gave each grandchild a T-shirt with the caption, “you will be bagiki.”