My mom’s Celebration of life was on Saturday March 19th. We went down to White Rock on the Friday and stayed with my dad and step mom. We had an early ferry to catch and it was the only way to make it work. Our drive down was uneventful other than passing the remains of the semi truck fire. The back-end was burnt down to the frame rail and a Bobcat was scooping up cans of what ever he was hauling.

It was good to catch up with my dad but it was short as we needed to get up early to get that ferry. The ferry ride was interesting as there were a number of groups that were also headed to the celebration. On group was my brother’s old scout group whom I also know. It was good to see them as well.

The actual celebration was perfect in my views. The reading was Ecclesiastes 3.

The Purposes in God’s Timing

1. There is a season for everything, and a time for every event under heaven
2. a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what was planted
3. a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build up
4. a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance
5. a time to scatter stones, and a time to gather stone; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing
6. a time to search, and a time to give up searching; a time to keep, and a time to discard
7. a time to tear, and a time to mend; a time to be silent, and a time to speak
8. a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

It made me remember one of her favorite songs from when I was little. I would think that the Pete Seeger version would be the one she listened to but the Byrds one is more familiar to me.

There was a poem that I also remembered from my youth that I never thought of as a poem. I want a poster of it for my house. Anyways here it is as an image I found of Pinterest.

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There was also a beautiful eulogy that I can not possibly cover. The celebration ended with the sing with another favorite song of hers ‘The Saints go Marching in’. Overall the celebration fit my mom and she would have been happy with it.

There was a reception afterwards. Most of the people I didn’t know because they are from her life on Pender Island and that started after I was an adult and on my own. There was her scout blanket there that she had donated to the area scout house. With all the badges on it it was a living piece of history.

We had dinner with my various family members. It was good as I haven’t seen Tony’s kids in like a decade. We talked a lot and the kids introduced Ticket to Ride to their daughter. Ian won by 2 points but there was only 6 points separating the top three players.

On the Sunday we went to church at the little Catholic Church. They have a great view on Magic Lake and with it being a small island they also knew my mom so we ended up talking after mass.

We spent some time at the house going through things. There are a couple of painting that were painted by relative like great and great great grandparents. I also grabbed my mom’s recipe box and discovered that she had my grandmother’s as well. I need to try some of those recipes.

We caught the late ferry back to the mainland and drove to a hotel in Vancouver for the next segment in our vacation.