My Niagara: Sitting with my Ghosts

I approached the white clapboard house and rang the doorbell, hoping to speak with the people who now live in the house where I grew up in the middle of a peach orchard.

There was nobody home, so I didn't wander far. The place was smaller than I remembered, the house didn't look much different except the new owners had replaced the sparkly tarpaper my Grandfather had used to cover the exterior. 

Next door, my uncle's tiny bungalow had been raised and in its place was a bigger house where someone else was building a family. Our football stadium-sized backyard, where my brothers played their sports, was now littered with toys and swings and a garish trampoline.

In spite of these changes, much of small family farm was still intact, the outbuildings, the barn and the garage still looked exactly the same. The cherry trees were still there, the ones I scraped my knees  on trying to climb to the top. My scent was everywhere on this place, and the memories came flooding back.

I'm glad the owners weren't home. I didn't need to go the inside and see the kitchen where Grandpa Crown would sit and listen to the Farm Report while drinking coffee with the consistency of mud, and eating home fries and eggs. My uncle Vern would sit next to him, eating his cornflakes with heaps of brown sugar and milk. Grandma Crown would be standing at the stove sipping her cold cups of Orange Pekoe tea and griping about some matter or other while Mom sat on a plastic and steel chair with her legs tucked up under her, a cigarette always in her hand.

I didn't need to go in. 

Growing up, my extended family reminded me of the Clampetts of Beverly Hills fame, Grandma with the small bun at the nape of her neck, a cane at the ready to swat the evil cat Pixie, Grandpa with all those pills he had to take for his diabetes and "spells," the man who used to love when I'd slather menthol on his ancient back, Vern, our own version of Peter Pan, the boy who literally never grew up, who was my constant companion until he died of a heart attack in the neighbour's apple orchard.

When people ask me why I never write fiction, I say, why? The best fiction writer couldn't make up these characters or their stories. 

Grandma's first husband died in the war, and left her widowed with little Vern. Grandpa's first wife died in childbirth along with twins. Ivan got his section eight from the army. And mom was left with three kids under six, and forced to move in with her parents. The farm was a haven for the disabled, the mentally deranged, and the widowed. It served as an umbrella against the raging rain, and while relationships were often strained, everybody knew they were safe.

The farm is where the family gathers, voluntarily or sometimes against their will.

For me, the farm was my happy place, where I could wander around from morning til dark, and let my imagination run wild. If I was hungry, I could just go out to the orchard and pick a handful of cherries or sweep up a little basket of peas that I would eat like peanuts from the shell. When it was cold, I could curl up in front of the black and white television and watch games shows, or play cards with my Cousin Butch. On Saturday nights, when mom and Grandma went to Bingo, all dressed up and scented, my Grandpa would go to the basement and make make me popcorn in the wood furnace, while my brothers settled in to watch Hockey Night in Canada. In nicer weather, he'd make me homemade mushroom soup, using wild mushrooms from the nearby woods. Sometimes, we'd catch smelt and sit outside and spill their guts, then he'd pan fry them in butter.

On the side of the farmhouse, Grandpa and Uncle Ivan constructed a hockey rink for all the kids. The old men would get up at the crack of dawn, and flood and flood, til their noses dripped and their hands froze. They'd be at it again later in the day, so the rink was like glass, and watch with great satisfaction as the boys ruined their masterpiece during the daily ritual of pick up hockey.

No childhood was perfect, of course. Mine was tinged with the sorrow of losing my father, and the memory of my mother sitting crying is often too painful to bear.

While my mother grieved, I chose life.

I used my imagination, and television, to get me through some terrible lonely days.

There was no local playground to meet kids and I would often spend all summer rambling around on my own, catching frogs or rolling on steel oil drums and pretending to be a circus performer. Occasionally, the boys would let me join in a baseball game, or tend goal for their lacrosse games. Most often, these sporting turns led to lumps and gashes, so it was rare that I'd get up the nerve to stop Indian rubber balls without benefit of goal pads. 

Instead, I chose to turn inward, and dream of foreign lands where I was a spy.

Sometimes, I'd wander about with a fountain pen and pretend I was the Girl from U.N.C.L.E.; other times, I would just lay on the ground and look at the sky, or pick up a ball and toss it against the garage.

As I got older, I liked to sit at the kitchen table with my Grandpa and read the St. Catharines Standard. It was always special to see the Star Weekly arrive, and I would spend hours pouring over the engaging articles. They made me want to become a journalist, which I eventually became, if only for a moment in time.

Now, as back then, I had a hard time sticking to things. 

I realize now that the farm days were the best of days, full of magic and possibility, good food and the company of old folks. Now as I age, I can see myself in the eyes of my grandparents who mostly raised me after my dad died. Little Rosie, where did she go? It's getting late. Oh, there she is out in the orchard. Look she's got her skates on and she's doing figures on a small patch of ice.

What a silly little girl.

There she is again, on her bike, watch out! Ooh, that's gonna hurt.

What's the matter, Rosie? Really, a bee in your boot? Come her and Grandma will put a nickel on it, and I'll get some ice. Here's a popsicle. Everything is going to be ok.

The lies that grandmothers tell. After a certain age, nothing seems ok. 

Later in the day, Scott and I drove a few kilometres to Louth United Church to visit Grandma, Grandpa, Uncles Ivan and Vern, and my beloved mother Vera. In life, they fought and played like cats and dogs. In death, they remain together, peaceful.

I used to come to this cemetery and roam around, getting a little scared at the possibility of a potential uprising from the skeletons below.

The worms crawl in, and the worms crawl out; the worms play pinnacle on your snout.

One afternoon, I accidentally leaned on a gravestone and it moved.

That was enough for me. The cemetery was off limits for a very long time.

I'm not afraid of cemeteries anymore. After burying so many relatives in my pre-teen and teen years, I just got used to them.

Now I find them comforting. 

This one is well kept, unlike many I've seen. Like most places in this farming community, the staff at the now closed church take pride in its appearance, and I am grateful.

The folks are looking good, better than ever. It's a nice place to spend the hereafter.

I was surprised. 

Seeing them six feet under didn't make me sad at all. I don't really miss them, but I remember them. 

That's all that counts.

You see, mom, I came back. I'll be back again someday, but I'm just glad you're doing well.

They had their time, now I have mine. I hope to make the best of my third act, pray that the people I leave behind will remember me, too, and smile.

That's all a person can hope after the Grim Reaper comes, that somebody remembers their names and thinks of them bathed in a warm light.

I'm glad I came back to this place, though it has taken me 25 years. I haven't really spent time in St. Catharines since my mother died, and I was orphaned at the age of 34. 

I guess I just wasn't ready.

For 25 years, I've been running as fast as I can. 

Now time is running out for me, too. 

It's been a hard road for me, a journey fraught with unexpected challenges. Dreamers inevitably become cynics and cranks, and after too many knocks and disappointments, it takes a monumental effort to bring them back from the brink.

Back then, I was just a little kid in a land filled with giants.

Now I am bigger, the world so often appears incredibly small and mean.

Sometimes, you just need to spend an afternoon in a peach orchard to realize there is beauty and goodness in the world. You just have to look for it.