To my Canadian host father

As a teacher, you had to deal with the end of summer every early September. September was always a month of change in your natural rhythm.

This September, the summer of your life came to an end. This time, September was not a return to old routines after summer. Your transition was to eternal quietness.

When I learned in May from my host sister that age was taking its toll and you’d soon move into assisted living, it came as a shock. I had always been convinced I’d see you again next summer if we travelled back to Canada for a visit and that the visit would be just like before. I was looking forward to another dinner out at the deck in the garden.  I realised things would not be anymore like they were before. But the message at the start of this month was an even bigger shock. The summer of 2023 had been our last time together in the valley and our goodbye hug our last. My next visit to Canada will be too late.... 

You were so present in my thoughts these past days. When my kids started school again, when I started my new job... you were there.

When I went to bed recently, I didn't fall asleep here at home, but returned to my basement room in your house in 1995. I was rolling on my water matrass.  I heard the back door flap and you yelling that you were home. I saw you sitting at your desk in the basement at your fancy Macintosh computer—you were always an early adopter and a devoted Apple fan, up to that colorful iMac years later.

This week, I played your favorite Celtic music—the Celtic Legacy and Celtic Odyssey CDs from the Narada collection that you played almost every evening before bedtime. That music is carved into my memory and still moves me deeply. You turned me into a lifelong folk music lover.

I had to laugh with my host sisters during our call last week when I joked that I was your favorite daughter—simply because I was the only one on time at the car each morning for the drive to school! (An easy win, given my room was right next to the back door). It was a sweet moment of connection in our shared grief. I should have also brought up the time we grilled smokies together and burnt them to the point the kitchen filled with smoke. Well... they were smokies, right?

I can still picture you at school in your white lab coat, setting up your science lab before classes started while I walked into my homeroom next door. My kids would have loved your potato-powered clock! You cared so much for your students, holding weekly drop-in sessions for anyone who needed extra help. 

You and M crossed the world to be with us at our wedding here in Leuven and you enjoyed the European experience of a wedding very much (yes, it was late and there was lot's of food!!). 

You were a quiet man who didn't need to take center stage. Instead, you had that gentle, amused smile while listening to our stories, often checking in on the conversation by looking just over the top of your glasses or just nodding confused if that bunch of teenagers in your house cracked up in a fit of giggles ("It's not late, it's early early....righ J?). I loved that about you. And I remember your passions: curling in the winter, golf in the summer, and carefully tending to the many flowers in your garden—activities that slowly became harder for you over the last years.

Thank you, for opening your home and your heart to me all those years ago. The 1995 exchange student experience shaped a big part of who I am, and your quiet warmth lives on in my memories, in the music I listen to, and in the bond I share with your family.

To my host sisters and the rest of the family: I am holding you close in my heart. Rest in peace.