On May 24th of this year, I stood in the driveway of what was my parents’ house, miraculously closed the tailgate of a Tetris-like packed SUV and climbed behind the wheel. In the passenger seat was my wife who had so expertly packed the car as full as it would go with as many of an assortment of items of what remained from the lives of my mom and dad. Their respective lives had both ended so abruptly, and without warning, over the previous month and a half. I remember glancing over at my wife, our newly inherited dog on her lap, putting the car in reverse and taking one last look at a house we had emptied and packed and organized for sale in just a couple of short weeks, and if I squinted, I’m sure I would have seen ghosts of my parents’ lives… at least the parts I saw on my visits to Bathurst.

Four thousand kilometres of driving from northern New Brunswick to Saskatchewan is both a lot of time to work through grief (especially that stretch through northern Ontario where you’re almost grateful to have something other than the endless stretch of highway for your mind to contemplate) and, in my case, just the start of my mind disengaging and setting aside the barrage of the legal and logistical challenges one has in putting all of the necessary affairs in order and starting the process of mentally wandering around the landscape of memories from a lifetime with my parents and the realization that there would be no new memories for all of us to share.

On that first of five days driving to Saskatoon, as the fog over the Bay of Chaleur gave way to blue skies along highway 180 across the middle of New Brunswick, the conversation in the car went immediately to all of the experiences my wife and I had in Bathurst and of the love we were shown by neighbours and strangers. That love came while we were trying to get all of the pieces in place after my mom’s death and for my dad’s ongoing care, and how in one moment that changed to dealing with his death just nineteen days after we all said goodbye to mom. From a neighbour making me a birthday cake for my 50th (that we ate with our hands after having given away all of the cutlery in the house) to a host of people helping us solve all of the challenges of estates and wills and selling a house under the worst of circumstances – Bathurst showed up for me and my family. But it was also more than just people helping a fellow human in need with getting things done that needed to be done… it was the genuine expressions of sympathy, the gentle hand on a shoulder from strangers and even a few embraces while I was so far away from home dealing with so much. To feel others wrapping themselves around you is a powerful feeling and Bathurst held me tenderly when I needed something, anything, to feel grounded and deal with whatever the next day was going to bring.

As an example, one afternoon, after my mom had passed away and my dad was in hospital after being admitted to stabilize his physical health and awaiting a care home placement, my wife and I, exhausted, took their dog to a craft brewery my dad and I frequented often. We needed a short break from the constant dealing with lawyers and social workers and banks and insurance companies and the physical labour of cleaning out their house. Through people stopping to say hi to our absurdly small dog, the story of what we were going through poured out of us and rippled around the bar. Strangers became less so, we enjoyed the drink and conversation, talked about music and family and Saskatoon and dogs, and left with some wind under our wings we so desperately needed. While my heart was repeatedly broken in Bathurst in April and May, it was also patched up from the goodness that was in the hearts of so many whose orbits intersected ours during those weeks.

While the people of Bathurst provided so much, the town also provided the backdrop, in the midst of all of this turmoil, for a profound moment that altered how I see the world, and in particular, how I see my wife. I think I’ve always felt that love is infinite and grows between and among people. If you had asked me before all of this, that would have been my logical brain answer. There was an evening, I can’t remember which one, where among my wife, my sister and me, we were juggling visits with mom in hospital knowing she was rapidly approaching the end of her life and all the while dealing with my dad’s advanced dementia and taking care of him at their home. It was probably sometime after 11pm and after the third or fourth time helping dad deal with mom’s diagnosis and learn of and experience the shock of it anew. I laid on a temporary bed we had made on the basement floor of pillows and blankets and looked up at my wife who was finishing up something before joining me “in bed”. I was exhausted in a way I had never felt before. The day had been simultaneously emotional and physically taxing. As I laid on the floor, I just wanted to give up. I looked up and saw my wife. Really saw her. She had without hesitation hopped on a flight and joined me for the unknown (and, as it happened, the unexpected), rolling up her sleeves for anything and everything from elder care to picking up groceries or the host of other things that needed to be done. She maintained her cheerful nature through stress and exhaustion. And there she was, with me, when I needed her the most. She was fierce and tireless and relentless in doing whatever I needed. Looking up at her from the floor I had this feeling of love for my wife… a feeling of my love for her expand… and it overwhelmed me. While there was so much terrible that happened in Bathurst in April and May, that one memory, a single visceral moment, the clarity of seeing and loving my wife in a new light, is something that I will hold close to my heart for the rest of my days.

Over the months since being back at home in Saskatoon, I have come to learn that the experience of grief, and especially in the case of losing your parents, is such a common human experience. That hole that is left, the loss, the feeling that you have lost something tethering you to your past (to yourself, really) – sharing that, initially with so many people in Bathurst, then back here in Saskatoon, had nudged me to go deeper in my relationships and has been such a beautiful gift. It feels like a ripple from beyond, from my parents if they were looking down on me, giving me this one last lesson on life.

My mom and dad embarked on their last life adventure together in their late 70s by making Bathurst their final home. Perhaps this final gift my mom and dad gave to me was the experience of small town New Brunswick, their true home, helping to show me in a variety of ways the beautiful spectrum of love and that it is really the most important thing in all of our lives. That is how I am choosing to see it.

I think they’d both like that.