Forgiveness Read Free Page A

like it had been bottled up into a time capsule in the 1800s. Houses speckled the hillside willy-nilly. Whoever had planned the island had clearly had no training. As we entered the harbour we passed Entry Island. A couple of miles long, it still had a one-room schoolhouse and six small farmhouses that looked like they had been built for the set of
Little House on the Prairie.
    My grandpa pondered as we passed.
    “You know, I’ve never set foot on that island. I really should. I came to know so many of the boys who grew up there.”
    He had good reason to visit. Turns out, we all do. On a per capita basis, few places have given more blood and treasure to ensure our way of life than Entry Island; this little protruding speck of rock in the harbour of a slightly larger protruding speck of rock provided more volunteers to the Second World War than almost any other place in the Dominion. The whole island deserves a medal.
    Ralph MacLean (
left
) and Mark Sakamoto en route to the Magdalen Islands, July 14, 2001
    Almost every man on the island went to war. Entire families were killed. The Arsenault boys signed up. The Chanell brothers, all five of them, went. Few came back.
    “They were all fine, fine men. They could shoot and they sure knew how to hang together. Guess they had been doing that all their lives on that plot of land,” Grandpa said.
    I spotted a large church that seemed too big for the island. I pointed it out.
    “It’s the Memorial. Entry Island folks erected it soon after the war. It’s as close to a Royal Rifles Memorial as we’re going to get,” Grandpa explained.
    He was thinking of those boys, wondering what their lives would have been like had they lived to his age. It was making his eyes well up, making him bite his stiff Scottish lip.
    We docked, and as I drove off the boat, I felt further away from my life than I ever had. We were headed directly to Grandpa’s old home. He didn’t even want to drop off our bags where we would be staying first.
    “Let’s just get there,” he said.
    It was his duty to pay his respects to his old home. I knew he had mixed emotions about it. He loved this place. He hated this place. He was drawn to it and yet he wanted to flee as soon as he could.
    The house itself sat on a corner edged by a jagged cliff. Pleasant Bay was visible in the distance. The two-storey house had not changed much since Grandpa left. It clung to the land, looking angry and leaning into the wind. I felt like I was visiting a tombstone.
    He walked around the outside of the house like he would a museum. He was attached to it, but he kept his distance. He was no longer of this place; it did not hold him as it once had. He was free from it, but he still carried its weight on his shoulders.
    We walked out past the potato patch—now completely overgrown—to the cliffs. It was a steep dive down. As a child, Grandpa would have been scolded—or worse—had he ventured this close to the edge. Now he paused four feet from it. His brown leather oxford shoes inched forward another two feet. I wondered if this was a childhood habit, or if he was worried about his bum knee.
    “I’d imagine a different life from this spot,” he said.
    This view of sea and sky—emptiness—was his only window to the world. He could shape it however he wanted. A gust of sea wind blew hard against our faces. My windbreaker flapped like a naval flag. Grandpa took one step back, but quickly brought his foot right back into place. He was still a stubborn old fighter—he wouldn’t be pushed around by some damn wind.
    “Exactly the same as it was sixty years ago. I can just close my eyes and be back …”
    We turned to make our way back to the car. I saw Grandpa pull out one of the white linen hankies he keeps in the back pocket of his trousers and quickly wipe his eye. Maybe it was the wind. We walked down the gravel laneway without saying a word.
    I opened the passenger door and Grandpa slowly lowered himself in, holding