Season of Renewal

 

Spring has finally arrived, even in the frigid province of Manitoba! With it comes new life. The ever present sparrows now have to share their place at the bird feeder with the new arrivals. I never get tired of watching them as I eat my breakfast at the kitchen table facing a window into the back yard.

I wonder what this summer will be like, the first without my partner of almost fifty six years. I look forward to visiting grandchildren in Ontario that I haven't seen since last fall, a week at a cottage with family and perhaps a trip to Alberta. It will be a different summer than last years'.

In October I wrote a blog post about a package of letters husband Hardy and I wrote to each other while he was in Congo. Recently I came across some more letters that he wrote to his family the spring and summer before we met. They were written in his mother tongue (German). I found them interesting because he hardly ever mentioned this part of his life to me. Perhaps too many other exciting and life changing experiences washed this brief period away. I decided that it would be beneficial  for his daughters to read these letters and I translated them over a period of time, emailing them a letter whenever I finished translating one.

The spring and summer of 1963 Hardy got a job in Hybord, Manitoba. It was up north, close to Grand Rapids. 

Grand Rapids, Manitoba, Hydro Dam, $140,000 Project. (top photo)

Spillway at Grand Rapids Dam Project (photo below)

Again, just like when I read the letters I received from Congo, I felt as if he was in the room with me. I felt his presence. As was Hardy's habit, he carefully cut off the stamps from both his post cards and his envelopes and saved them. A grandson, who seems to be a lot like him, has inherited them.

I enjoyed reading and translating  these letters. They show Hardy's intimate relationship with his family, a relationship I was later privileged to share. An immigrant family, they lived in a two story house--the parents on the first floor, a single aunt and Hardy's Opa (grandpa) on the second floor, and Hardy and his brother on the third floor. Hardy was the last surviving member of this family.

 I realized once again how precious handwritten letters are and am wondering if we have lost something valuable in this computer age.

The weekend after I finished my translation project was a busy one spent with family and friends. I especially enjoyed an outing to one of the beautiful parks in Winnipeg, with my daughter. It was the park in which Hardy proposed to me and I took so long to reply that we were locked out and had to find a caretaker to let us exit the park!!

On Monday morning, however,  I felt depressed. At first I didn't understand why I felt this way after such a great weekend. Gradually it dawned on me. When I was translating Hardy's letters, I felt as if he was in the room with me. After the project was finished I once more keenly felt his absence in my life. 

This coming Saturday my sister and I are attending  a day long conference called Reclaiming Death--A Community Conversation. I'm not sure how this will affect me...

I have not yet graduated from the class called GRIEVING. It is long and intense! 

Thank you, my dear readers for being patient and walking this rocky path with me!