August 22, 2022

The sound resembled a freight train rushing by at 100 km per hour. But this was not a freight train. It was a rain storm that poured down upon the roof of the cabin we were staying in. 

Good thing my brother put away the chairs the day before.

He must have known something that I didn’t. 

We were at a perfect spot in the woods of the Slocan Valley. It was in a beautiful campground off the beaten path and out of cell range. It was strangely liberating being in a place that had no cell service. No one could call me and interruptions were minimised. My brother lives a secluded life off the main grid and away from what some people would call the real world. 

But is he the one living in the real world? And the rest of us are living false lives?

I know he thinks he is living real life. the rest of us are so distracted by cell phones and the internet that we have lost touch with what is really important.

He has a point.

The addiction to technology is real and it is invading our world as nothing has in all of modern history. My daughter’s biggest concern when we went to visit our family as did the cabin have wifi. You should have seen the look I got when I told her it didn’t – unfortunately it did have wifi. escaping the technological addiction was only possible when we left the cabin and ventured out into the rest of the valley.

The Slocan river meanders slowly through the centre of the valley and only speeds up after it passes through the small town of Winlaw. The cabins we stayed in were at a campground called Karibu Park. It is an amazing place in the middle of the woods nestled next to the river. It has hardly changed in the thirty-five years it has been owned by the same couple. Except for wifi, they added wifi a few years ago to keep up with the technological addiction of the rest of the world.

Part of me wished they had never got wifi. 

I remember when I used to go camping in the woods and part of the return process was reading the newspaper to see all the things I’d missed while away.

Now we can never get away.

We left our cabin and went to meet the family at the river property where my brother had put the chairs away the night before. The lashing thunderstorm only lasted a couple of hours and the world felt refreshed and clean.

The river property sat on a flood plain and was the most serene location for a gathering we could hope for.

Except for all the mosquitos.

My brother’s daughter suffers from sensitive skin and she was red from the bits and the scratches she inflicted upon herself. My heart ached for her tiny seven-year-old body as she cried from the incessant bites and inching. 

The only solution was to go into the river and submerse in the cooling waters. It felt so refreshing soaking in the water and the sun.

The afternoon passed while we all connected in memory of our lost mother. I felt so grateful to have met my biological family. I silently thanked the woman who birthed me and gave me up all those years ago. Only to find me again and give me this wonderful gift of a family I never knew I had. 

I’m sure she was looking down upon us with pride.

The rain storm that morning was like the world was being cleansed so it would welcome her final mortal remains in a cool embrace.

The afternoon wound down and we went to my brother’s home in the woods. There we planted the ashes in the ground and nurtured a Lily tree on top of the ash-enriched soil. Almost her entire brood of offspring stood around the tree and paid our last respect to a woman who died far too soon. 

Cancer may have stolen her from our lives, but her spirit lives on in all of us.

It is with loving memory we said a final farewell. We knew her spirit was alive and with us. Even the swarming mosquitoes seemed to take a break and give us this chance to connect with her spirit to wish it a safe journey into the beyond.

Farewell, Louise Na Ruby, you are gone but you live on in all of us.