Saying goodbye to my Canadian host father

A month ago I flew to Canada to attend my Rotary father's celebration of life service. 

When my host sister's invited me to attend, the very first thought is that it's insane to fly to the other side of the world for a service.  Frankly, I have not done that for other Rotary host parents that have passed away earlier. 

But I do feel that my Rotary sisters there are far relatives and I wanted to be with them and give them a big hug. And also for a while I have this nagging feeling that I'm not seeing a generation in Canada that I love very much enough and that my frequency of going there is too low.  So I figured why not? 

As I posted before I got ill during the trip but fortunately the worst came after the service. 

I arrived after a long set of flights at a friend's place for a bit of sleep and she drove me over to my hometown where I got reunited with my host mom and host sister in the service flat where in the mean time she moved too.   We were able to have some more breakfast together, pick out clothes and get ready for a short ceremony with the close family at the graveyard where his urn was placed in the columbarium. 
It was precious to be part of this intimate small ceremony with just my host mom, host sisters and their husbands as a 3rd Rotary daughter.  

The graveyard was absolutely gorgeous this time a year with the trees turning. What a great "view" he has down the valley. It was also special to be able to greet other people I know at the graveyeard such as Gordon and Elaine - also Rotary parents of mine and Rotarians and other acquaintances. 

The rest of the day we gathered and my host sisters and their families prepared the meeting of the next day around together while I just hang around observing their family life and just being there among them which felt more relaxed and quality time than I had feared with my rushed travel schedule. 

On Sunday was the celebration of life planned.   Because of travel distances for relatives and friends, it is not uncommon for Canada that this is planned weeks or many months after the passing of a loved one, to enable everyone to take time off and make the travel plans. Also for me, that worked out well to figure out my itinerary and get it all planned and booked. 

There was no traditional church service as we often still know it in Belgium, neither the services I've attended at funeral homes. I know in Belgium we are quickly also getting a wider variety of personalised goodbye's.    For my host father the gathering was quite appropriately planned in the curling club lounge, since curling was one of his big passions and he had spent a lot of time in the community playing himself in regional teams and championships, leading junior school teams, working in the club board etc.  

While my illness was breaking through but still seemed like a bad cold due to the medication I had already started taking, I managed to be present with a face mask next to the family.  I was present on the front row but also in the decorations and memories spread out which was touching.  Sometimes you can be family of people without being related, right? 

My host sisters took the microphone up front and welcomed everyone and read texts and memories, after which I also read out a text I had written to say goodbye, which was hard but great to do.  Then the floor was open for other people to come up and share memories and stories with the people gathered.  So I learned more stories about him as a student and as a colleague teacher etc etc. 

Afterwards there was food and drinks and an opportunity to try some curling , which I only observed.  Too risky to add a broken bone to the illness to complicate my travel further. 
I was so happy to see some old classmates again and my favourite Canadian teacher, as some of the cousins that I must have met 30 years ago at a Christmas family dinner etc... 

After the gathering my illness broken open with fever shivers etc, but I had achieved the goal of my travel to reconnect and be present which is great.