Sunday June 28, 2009

Another lazy late start to the day with breakfast around the kitchen table with Uncle Elwood, Aunt Shirley, cousin Ellen, Darryl and I. This time sausages, eggs, homemade jams and banana chocolate chip muffins made ‘specially for me by my Aunt Shirley.

We chatted over coffee about our plans for the day and realized that we wouldn’t have time to go to Brooks or Drumheller before we were to see my Aunt Norma and Uncle Denis in Lethbridge early in the afternoon, so instead we went to "Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump" – yeah – not kidding.

Really interesting place even though we sort of ended up going through it on a run – even running down 4 flights of stairs, jogging through the gift shop and dashing down hill to the car to get to Lethbridge on time.

At 3, we arrived at the seniors nursing home where my Aunt Norma, who is also my God mother, lives. It was eerily reminiscent of the lifecare centre my grandma lived in just before she passed away. The rooms were furnished the same, they had little placards outside each room with the residents photo on it and their name with a cherrily painted mail box below.

I haven’t seen my Aunt Norma, who is my dad’s second oldest sibling, since my wedding when she and several other of my Aunts and Uncles flew to Ontario. I knew she wasn’t well as she has Parkinson’s and had had a stroke last August and had been told that she has “good” days and “not so good” days. Fortunately, today was a good day and she knew right away who we were. She speaks very softly, but still smiles a lot and had some good stories to tell. Uncle Denise says sometimes here stories are true, and sometimes they are not, but she always thinks that they are. We stayed for about an hour and I could tell she was getting tired and her mind was wandering – she thought the shadow of tree branches on the window was a window washer at one point – so I had a photo taken with them and we took our leave.

Uncle Denis has invited us for lunch tomorrow so we will be back in Lethbridge one final time this trip on our way through to Crows Nest Pass and on to Cranbrook for Monday night.

Much of this trip is bitter-sweet for me, as I am seeing relatives I haven’t seen in many, many years, and some of them, I know I won’t likely see again.

Enough doom and gloom – it’s a beautiful sunny southern Alberta day right now and we are driving down highway 3 heading back to Vauxhall (yes, I’m typing as we drive!) and we have a roast beef dinner waiting for us that`s been in the slow cooker all day. Yum!

- Paula