pulled over and before I could get out to give him a hand, he hopped in.
“Some rain, eh?” he said.
“Just another day on the east coast. Scared of a little rain?” I said, teasing.
“Oh, I’m no pantywaist—I’ll manage.”
We laughed, but I didn’t mention the two stops I had made en route to the airport. We got caught up as we drove into the city. Grandpa made a point to keep in touch with family, but he has never been one to dither on the phone. He’ll call you up and talk for a few minutes: the weather, school, his bum knee; then, abruptly, he’ll say, “Well, I won’t keep you. Talk to you later,” and the line goes dead. It is a cordial hit-and-run.
So there was quite a bit to go over. We reviewed how all the family members were doing. He had hired a new cleaning lady because the previous one had moved to Regina. He had fixed a piece of carpet that had lifted on the stairs.
“Darn near tripped on it twice.”
We were just entering city limits when he let me know that, just by coincidence, his niece Marian and her husband, Hans, would be out on the island at the same time as us. This was a great little surprise to me. Just after Marian was born, her father died of lung disease and her mother, my grandpa’s sister Ada, asked him to be Marian’s godfather. He stepped into her life in a way that has left an endearing mark. It is impossible for her to speak of my grandpa without tearing up a little.
Marian was born with an underdeveloped leg and an overdeveloped heart. She has a left shoe with a thickened sole and she walks with a bit of a shuffle. She always required a little extra attention, and she got it from my grandpa. Marian lives for her family and she has never forgotten the extra time, the extra love Ralph Augustus MacLean gave to her.
Marian married a German man named Hans whom she met in Calgary in the 1940s. Hans is a no-nonsense man armed with a quick wit. My mom loved him—he could take a ribbing and dish one out. I imagine a lot of back and forth between the two of them. When my dad started coming around, Hans took Mom aside and cautioned her. He liked my dad well enough—a lot, actually—but he felt it incumbent on him to ensure my mom took a cold hard look at the situation.
“You need to think about how your children would fare out there in the real world. We know just how cruel it can be.”
I’m not sure whether my mom took Hans’s advice to heart, but I know she received it warmly. He was looking out for his niece, just as my grandpa had looked out for Hans’s wife so many years before.
When we got to my apartment, Jade had a hearty meal on the stove already. Grandpa is always ready for food. It really doesn’t matter what time, day or night. Jade knows how he loves his sweets: a cake was baking in the oven. He smiled as we came through the apartment door.
Our place was so small that we had to eat in the living room. Grandpa didn’t mind. He was happy to be back in Halifax, and hehas always had such affection for Jade. We spent the night chatting about the few months he had lived in the city, only a few blocks from our apartment on Ogilvy Street, just off tree-lined South Street with its old-world mansions. We didn’t have the money to live there—and Grandpa certainly didn’t when he lived here either.
Grandpa slept in our bed. Jade and I folded out our IKEA futon couch and slept in the living room.
The next day, Grandpa and I drove across the Confederation Bridge and boarded a ferry to Grindstone, Magdalen Islands, six hours away on the open sea. The Gulf of St. Lawrence with its vast horizon and the salty sea breeze felt thoroughly oceanic.
The captain alerted his passengers that we would dock in thirty minutes. I grabbed the ice-cold railing on the ship’s deck and squinted to see our destination.
Grandpa looked at me with a wry smile. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” he said.
The landscape came into focus. The island looked
“Some rain, eh?” he said.
“Just another day on the east coast. Scared of a little rain?” I said, teasing.
“Oh, I’m no pantywaist—I’ll manage.”
We laughed, but I didn’t mention the two stops I had made en route to the airport. We got caught up as we drove into the city. Grandpa made a point to keep in touch with family, but he has never been one to dither on the phone. He’ll call you up and talk for a few minutes: the weather, school, his bum knee; then, abruptly, he’ll say, “Well, I won’t keep you. Talk to you later,” and the line goes dead. It is a cordial hit-and-run.
So there was quite a bit to go over. We reviewed how all the family members were doing. He had hired a new cleaning lady because the previous one had moved to Regina. He had fixed a piece of carpet that had lifted on the stairs.
“Darn near tripped on it twice.”
We were just entering city limits when he let me know that, just by coincidence, his niece Marian and her husband, Hans, would be out on the island at the same time as us. This was a great little surprise to me. Just after Marian was born, her father died of lung disease and her mother, my grandpa’s sister Ada, asked him to be Marian’s godfather. He stepped into her life in a way that has left an endearing mark. It is impossible for her to speak of my grandpa without tearing up a little.
Marian was born with an underdeveloped leg and an overdeveloped heart. She has a left shoe with a thickened sole and she walks with a bit of a shuffle. She always required a little extra attention, and she got it from my grandpa. Marian lives for her family and she has never forgotten the extra time, the extra love Ralph Augustus MacLean gave to her.
Marian married a German man named Hans whom she met in Calgary in the 1940s. Hans is a no-nonsense man armed with a quick wit. My mom loved him—he could take a ribbing and dish one out. I imagine a lot of back and forth between the two of them. When my dad started coming around, Hans took Mom aside and cautioned her. He liked my dad well enough—a lot, actually—but he felt it incumbent on him to ensure my mom took a cold hard look at the situation.
“You need to think about how your children would fare out there in the real world. We know just how cruel it can be.”
I’m not sure whether my mom took Hans’s advice to heart, but I know she received it warmly. He was looking out for his niece, just as my grandpa had looked out for Hans’s wife so many years before.
When we got to my apartment, Jade had a hearty meal on the stove already. Grandpa is always ready for food. It really doesn’t matter what time, day or night. Jade knows how he loves his sweets: a cake was baking in the oven. He smiled as we came through the apartment door.
Our place was so small that we had to eat in the living room. Grandpa didn’t mind. He was happy to be back in Halifax, and hehas always had such affection for Jade. We spent the night chatting about the few months he had lived in the city, only a few blocks from our apartment on Ogilvy Street, just off tree-lined South Street with its old-world mansions. We didn’t have the money to live there—and Grandpa certainly didn’t when he lived here either.
Grandpa slept in our bed. Jade and I folded out our IKEA futon couch and slept in the living room.
The next day, Grandpa and I drove across the Confederation Bridge and boarded a ferry to Grindstone, Magdalen Islands, six hours away on the open sea. The Gulf of St. Lawrence with its vast horizon and the salty sea breeze felt thoroughly oceanic.
The captain alerted his passengers that we would dock in thirty minutes. I grabbed the ice-cold railing on the ship’s deck and squinted to see our destination.
Grandpa looked at me with a wry smile. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” he said.
The landscape came into focus. The island looked
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