When I arrived at Tanya and Rob’s place, I was greeted with all the love I felt when Tanya and I first connected last fall at my place in Alberta. After she and her brother Chris went home following Bruce’s service, I was left to grieve alone. To be honest, I didn’t know how to do it. I stuffed all the feels right down to my toes and carried on with my life. Or so I thought. I went to Peru for a few weeks and rode the snot out of a rented KLR. Winding through the Andes, falling asleep to the cacaphony of the Amazon jungle and looking out over Machu Pichu made me feel alive, but it did nothing for my grief.

Burying myself in a contract that had me sitting at my desk in my acreage home office for 10-16 hours a day kept my mind busy as hell. Navigating the toxicity of the fuckery of that gig didn’t leave room for grief. Even if it had, I still wouldn’t have known what to do with it. About four months after Bruce’s passing I learned my very first best friend in the world, my sister, had a C-word diagnosis. This, piled on with the love of my life not feeling his awesome self was enough to crack that outer stoic layer of my professional self. I’m human. I lost my shit at work. I ugly-face fell apart in a video meeting and the response was humanity minus eleventy million percent. Zero compassion. Massive judgement.

I’d tried to outrun all of this when I set out on this cross-Canada trip, but about an hour past Ottawa, I realized I wasn’t running from. I was running to. Tanya and I sat outside in her garden and grieved together. We laughed together. We swapped stories. Sometimes we sat in silence (for a moment or two, which is a lot for the two of us!). Little by little, the grief found its way out of the recesses of my heart and into a little box to be carefully stowed on a shelf in the back of my head. I’ve been able to pull the lid off here and there, but now it’s Bruce’s smile I feel, not the emptiness in my heart.

Chris picked me up for lunch a couple of my days in town. It was so wonderful to get to know him better. Although we didn’t grow as close as Tanya and I had when he was in Alberta, our friendship is now solid. When we spoke on the phone the other night, my heart filled with joy knowing he is my brother from another mother. Blood is not a pre-requisite for family.

Other highlights from my time in Quebec include a walk on the beach with my friend and colleague living nearby, a night out in Montreal, and getting Jules a new chain and sprockets. Eating a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s was a special treat! As Rob and I sat there, I imagined Bruce there with us. It was always one of his favourite eateries, I hear, and I wondered if he’d ever sat where I was planted.

Having Curtis come up for a visit was like icing on the cake! We walked barefoot on the beach and it was good brain therapy feeling the hot sand between my toes.

Leaving Rob and Tanya’s was a bit of a heart puller, but knowing I’d soon return made leaving a little bit easier.