Voodoo Roadtrip

Friday: Road Trip to Edmonton. Random notes:

Purpose of excursion: Funeral of brother-in-law's mother.

Also on road trip: husband, mother, father. The latter two are ancient, hard of hearing, but light-hearted. They are, after all, alive.

Background: The last time the four of us drove together for an extended number of miles was in France in 1992. From whence comes the family punch line: "Does danger mean the same thing in French as it does in English?" This from a woman born and raised in Montreal. Luke's response from behind the wheel: "Nope, it means 'Accelerate with abandon.' Or, in French, "Speedez-vous, avec abandon."

The trip up: Uneventful, right down to our failure to procure donuts at T-Ho's in bustling Airdrie. I had been expecting mom to pack a lunch, just like she always did when we went on family trips but all she had in her handbag(s) was two packs of TicTacs, some WetOnes and a spare pair of pantyhose in a dreadful hue. For the rest of the journey I kept thinking that this was going to be how it is when she's gone; no egg salad sandwiches with the crusts cut off, no root beer, no carrot sticks, no Twizzlers. The whole way up I had to keep reminding myself that it was not in fact mom's funeral that I was attending.

The A-list arrives: Upon arriving in Edmonton, we found our way by the grace of God to a nice bistro across the street from the church. I went into the ladies' room to change out of my jeans and into nylons and a dress. Upon exiting into the bar area, a bar area peopled primarily with young men in square metal spectacles and cashmere slacks, I spilled my purse and laid out for general inspection the following: one pair of beige Sloggis (the finest underwear brand in the world, though not for their aesthetic qualities exactly and this particular pair not at all), three little tampons in yellow-flowered plastic wrap, five lipsticks (which I collect because of the packaging but never actually wear), loose change in the amount of $5.50, a stapler, 40 business cards, and some loose dental floss.

Jewelry: At one point in the sermon, someone said that the elegant M never drew attention to herself by wearing flashy jewelry. My hand shot to my throat almost as quickly as my mom's did to hers. We spent the rest of the day adjusting our necklines and trying to reassure one another that our love of bright stones does not mean we want to be the center of attention, that we are horrible women who will never summit the highest peak in the Americas (although we certainly ARE NOT), or that we are vulgarians of the lowest order. So what if our family motto is "Shiny. Bright." In Latin that's Candeus, lucidus (or something like that), which sounds terrific.

Life goes on: After the service, one of M's grand-daughters, my much-adored 8-year-old niece, emerged from the church into the glorious spring day waving her white tights in the air yelling "Freedom! Freedom!" 15 minutes earlier, she had been weeping with genuine sorrow. We are marvelously resilient creatures if we let ourselves be.

Comic relief: One of the daughters-in-law commented, when the wind swept her bangs off her face, that she hated her forehead. I observed that women really will go to great lengths to find something defective about themselves. So R asked me what I didn't like about my body. I said "Nothing. I love it all." And to this great lie my knickers-waving niece replied: "Well, you can't be thrilled about all those wrinkles."

The trip back (side): Just before our approach to the ever beguilding city of Red Deer, we were distracted by two young men on motor bikes going about 150km, weaving in and out of traffic, clad only in t-shirts. I mean ONLY in t-shirts.

Earl's rocks: Because we are a very strange bunch, none of us felt that we should eat anything much at the wake--that was for people who were closer to M than we were. So we were starving as we hit Red Deer. The only thing we could find that had correct spelling or no "x"s in the name was Earl's, so, holding our noses, in we went. And waited for 20 minutes with wondrous people from a different time and place, reedy farm kids in tractor hats with hale girlfriends sitting on their knees, debating whether when a person turns 21 that person's driving record is wiped clean; men in mullets wearing body braces from when they fell off the dirt bike (hopefully while wearing pants); bouffanted hostesses expressionless under pancake makeup; mothers and daughters whooping it up at the bar together in celebration of mom's third wedding; a bachelorette party of 18-year-olds with a much flaunted ribald centrepiece. It was all so jolly and so completely free of stockbrokers that the air felt cleaner somehow. And the food, while helped out somewhat by large cold glasses of Stella Artois, wasn't bad either.

Home again, home again: We arrived home 13 hours after we left it, a day of miscellaneous undergarment comedy routines, a day of heartache and laughter, a day in which we moved directly from the tony clubhouse at the Mayfair gold and Country Club to the Earl's just off the highway in Red Deer, a day in which my dignified silver-haired dad told new stories about his past as a hobo, a juvenile delinquent and a Navy officer. A day, in short, lived fully and richly, and most important: lived all the way through.