One of my favourite books about writing is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Anne is a quirky, honest writer with an excellent sense of humour and a gift for crafting sentences that speak to the heart as well as the mind. When writing about grief Anne shares:

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is the you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live on forever in your broken heart that does not seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

This week I found myself learning to dance with the limp as our family reached a difficult anniversary. It was two very short years ago that our family of four gathered in our parent’s home in Forest, Ontario one last time before our Mum moved to a care facility and our Dad to a cancer hospice. They had been inseparable for years and that week, of all weeks, was their 50th wedding anniversary. Weeks later Dad would lose his battle with cancer but thankfully, Mum has learned to thrive in her new home. That one week changed everything for our family. That one week of unbearable change and heartbreak culminated in a post here that Dad would later call my epistle, where I was finally able to pour out my grief in words and a river of tears. On Wednesday, that blog post, “The  Little White House on Church Street” showed up as a memory on Facebook and not unlike last year, I was knocked sideways by how time seems to collapse when a memory is still frighteningly fresh. Author Vicki Harrison once wrote “Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” Wise words!

On the day this memory resurfaced after months of calm waters, I was fortunate to have a break in my busy work schedule that gifted me with time. I took this gift and drove north to one of my favourite places, Squamish. My heart longed for some much-needed silence. My misshapen soul sought high ground where maybe I could feel closer to my Dad who I miss. I needed very badly to “learn to swim” and a return to nature on top of a stunningly beautiful mountain peak provided me the solace I sought. I rode the Sea to Sky Gondola to the summit and found a quiet place to sit overlooking Howe Sound. You can see my chosen pew in the mountain cathedral above. The only sound was the cawing of a crow and my quiet words of thanks floating hopefully skyward. I thanked Dad for the many good gifts he gave: his time, his boundless faith in life and in me, his courage to persevere with a grateful heart, and most importantly, the knowledge that I will always be well-loved while I remember him.

I am looking forward to the day, the year, when I can mark this difficult week with a smile and not tears. Until then, I will learn to dance with my limp. It may hurt at times, but by God, I will dance!