We are home and working through it all

I need to start by thanking all of you for your support over the past several months and especially through this past week. Despite knowing that Henry was ill with a pair of diseases that would be relentless in their eventual destruction of his body and mind, it has been a surprisingly difficult loss to endure.

Jennifer has gone home for a week before coming back here this coming weekend to help us celebrate Henry's life. We felt a memorial held at our home would be most suitable for him and what we believe he would have wanted. We have invited our friends and family members to come and share their memories of Henry with us as we celebrate his 78 years.

Henry's obituary was placed in the Collingwood newspaper this past Friday (and can be read by clicking here) and Christena spent the weekend back in Collingwood and was able to go back to the church she attended while living there. She even had a chance to get together this afternoon with some of her old friends for the early afternoon before one of the women in the group brought her all the way back to Georgetown.

My sister-in-law is in Canada for the month of July and is heading back to Taiwan this weekend. She has been here studying more of her yoga (she teaches and has been studying in Thailand periodically since moving to Taiwan with my brother 3.5 years ago) and has been so busy from sun up to sun down that we have not yet had a chance to connect. I am hoping to see her this Friday evening at her mother's house in Cambridge. We shall see how preparations for Saturday are coming before I am able to commit to that social activity.

While Jennifer was back in Calgary for the weekend and Christena was off staying with her sister in Collingwood, Doug, the boys and I went camping with 6 other families from Georgetown. This is the 7th time this group has camped together and, while we all live in the same town, it is one of the few opportunities we have through the year to spend time together to reconnect. These are families we have come to know through my connection with the local La Leche League group in town. They are the women and families who gave us the confidence to parent Fergus and Quinn the way that felt most right for us, even when it was different than many other more mainstream parents.


Today was for getting our bearings again and trying to work at creating a new normal without Henry here. It was also about taking a quick trip to Guelph to meet my parents on their way to drop my visiting cousins at the airport in Hamilton. They are flying back to Doncaster, UK this evening. It feels as though they just arrived. the picture here is of my parents (the couple on the right) with my cousins, Sharon and Chris (couple on the left).

Tomorrow is about getting back to the paperwork that Jennifer was not able to finish or that she has left for me to work on. She took the bulk of the paperwork burden on herself and even went home with calls to make from Calgary. I asked if I could do some if it too. It feels as though I am helping in some way when I know that I am making a call that needs to be made.

Oh well, off we go. Tomorrow is another day.