General here…
We went to a funeral in Burlington on Saturday. My wife’s family is very close - so it was particularly difficult to say goodbye to Mike Martin - her cousin’s husband. He was a gentle and generous sweetheart of a guy - the “strong and silent type” is a cliche, but that was Mike Martin. Stoic till the end. More than that, he was a real family man. He and his wife, Debbie, have raised three of the nicest, most polite kids I’ve ever met. And is there any greater compliment than when someone tells you how polite, how helpful or how kind your child was in a certain instance? That’s a biggie for me. Even before Anita and I had kids, we always said we wanted our children to be just like them. So - we knew we were in for a difficult day.
Still - life can be funny, even on dark days.
After shovelling the driveway twice and clearing the 7 feet of snow off the vehicle, we packed the kids and ”Gramma Maggie” into the car, and began our 100 km drive from Ajax to Burlington.
“Do you have the directions?” the lovely Anita asks.
“Yes - I mapquested them this morning.”
I had a pretty good idea of where we were going anyway - it was just the nitty-gritty details I really needed, as the church was in a residential area, and not on a main road.
So off we go - explaining to the kids what this day is about and what they can expect.
We get to Burlington, no problem.
We get off the highway at Guelph Line, I reach into my pocket for the little map I drew from the website - uh oh - it’s not there.
No problem. I remember where to go. It’s just up here - we take a left into this subdivision, follow this street around to the first stop sign, then another left, and…we’re lost.
No problem. There’s a guy shovelling his driveway up ahead - we’ll ask him. We pull up and he gingerly walks over - he’s an elderly man - he really shouldn’t be shovelling - he’s huffing and puffing, trying to catch his breath. To break the tension, I turn around and ask the kids if any of them have ever learned CPR in school. They’re 9,5 and 3 years old. They’re staring blankly at me. Nevermind.
I ask this gentleman about the chuch. He doesn’t know, but he says he has a GPS system that he can check if I know the address. Well, in my “Rainman” mind I actually can remember the address - just not how to get there. He plugs in his address, then the church address - a little map comes up - and then he gives me this GPS device-thing and says I can take it - just drop it off later today when we’re leaving! We’re complete strangers. I love it. It turns out we were just around the corner. We can make it there without his gadget. I thank him for his time and his offer, but I should have thanked him for his reminder that the world is still mostly a good place. Even on sad days.
