A Eulogy for Half My Family

March 25, 2023

Hi, everyone. I’m Raine (or Laura, depending on who you’re talking to and when). I’m Ron and Brenda’s eldest daughter. The experiment in parenting, if you will, so don’t hold any of this against me.

It’s hard to sum up your parents, all at once, to a group of people who knew them from a completely different direction than you. Who we knew is so different from who everyone else did, and there’s a weird synchronicity in the day we celebrate our mom’s life being six months to the day of our dad’s death. The unexpected speed with which all of this happened unfortunately gives us the opportunity to not only talk about mom, but also dad, and the family they made.

You always think, “I have more time for sure” and then suddenly, you don’t, and you have to rely on the memories of the people around you to fill in the holes where your parents used to be. We knew mom and dad. You knew Ron and Brenda. Did they have secret talents? How did you meet them? What will you miss most? I’m pretty sure dad was what one would call a rascal and that mom had a crazy wild side. Boring people don’t learn how to surf (better than Bobbie!) in Hawaii or go on spontaneous motorcycle trips. When she got the hang of emojis and gifs, our group chats got a lot funnier too. There was a period of time when she couldn’t find the space bar on her smartphone and every text message was one long word that we needed to somehow decipher. We need more information. Family legend only goes so far.

For instance, I know dad got a possession ticket in 1984 because the babysitter my parents hired took the “this is your brain on drugs” commercials VERY seriously, used my parents’ camera to take a picture of the joint in the kitchen drawer and delivered said film, containing all the photos of my second Christmas, to the RCMP as evidence (that my mom was never able to retrieve). The address on the ticket was wrong but my mom panicked and basically pointed them at the criminal offense in the kitchen and my father was thus forever able to say “I can’t travel, I have a record” even if it meant going to Calgary. We found the notice to appear. Legend confirmed.

Mom was an arsonist? Allegedly, and I’m still going to say allegedly even though all the people who would be mad or embarrassed have died, our mother (with her three totally delinquent younger brothers, no comment on who was probably the ring leader) was playing with firecrackers in the bathtub and the house caught fire and burned down? I know some furniture was rescued and no one died, but mom was always a little bit cagey about what actually happened. She only told me that the kitchen table she took from grandma and grandpa’s (rebuilt) house on the farm was one of the pieces that made it out. That table, by the way, lived in the basement at the farm, under a gnarly yellow plastic floral tablecloth, next to the tube TV and the VHSs of Bewitched and Gilligan. It had a million layers of paint that my mother painstakingly removed, and a wobbly top that she and my dad pulled off and straightened. She gave it to me as a housewarming when I bought my condo and left a letter explaining its provenance in the hidden drawer. Does YOUR kitchen table have a hidden drawer? It should, it’s super cool.

That’s who mom was. Forever thoughtful and hardworking and crafty enough to make her visions into reality, and my dad had the skill and tools to take the wobbly top off a hundred year old table and make it suitable for use.

I remember thinking I was sneaky when I’d shove a blanket against the bottom of my bedroom door to hide the lamplight so I could keep reading, completely failing to consider there were three other edges to said door, and I’m sure mom knew what I was doing, and I’m sure she let me get away with it. Sometimes. I read because of my mom. I read wide genres because of my dad. Despite it not being a favourite pastime for her, mom filled our childhood with books, which means our childhood was filled with endless universes. And there are never enough shelves to hold universes.

Look, I come by my sentimentality honestly. And both Bobbie and I our stubbornness, actually. You can’t give two girls parents like ours and the clan motto “hold fast” and expect no resistance. Anyway, mom dragged us into antique stores every time we came to Nanton in the summer, and I definitely inherited the “oh my god it’s so old and smells so good and is so beautiful” gene. I also got the “oh, I can fix that” gene, but I think we can credit dad for that one too. And antiquing will forever be more fun than wandering around Fabricland for “just a minute.” Because of our parents, Bobbie and I love the smell of freshly-cut wood and the dirt of a quonset.

At the house in Grande Cache, the couch was against the wall and the kitchen was on the other side. We weren’t allowed to sit on the back of the couch. We obviously did it anyway, and were convinced mom was magic when she somehow always knew instantly what we were up to and told us to get down. We had a fish tank and she could see us in the reflection. Took ages to figure out. Kids are so dumb.

Mom never ever failed to show up. She was right there for every band trip, gig, and play for me, and every wrestling tournament and basketball game for Bobbie. Yeah, we are VERY different people. But mom always cheered the loudest. She was still going to Bobbie’s beer-league baseball games as often as she could and was the team mom. She put us into everything, she wanted us to have every opportunity and every happiness and she was devoted to us. That’s not something that can be replaced, and losing that is not something that you can adequately prepare for.

Dad loved bluegrass (I support it) and country (no thank you, but Bobbie likes it) and “classic rock.” I wonder at what point he learned that his generation’s music was “classic” and how he felt about that. Now, stuff from the 90s/2000s is “classic rock” and I want to throw up. The 90s were like 10 years ago, this cannot be happening. Shout out to my dad though for Fleetwood Mac and Jethro Tull still being in my playlists.

He was a war history buff. I remember we went to the Lancaster museum when we were younger and did the whole, climb-up-into-the-plane tour and my dad’s eyes were so big even though I know he’d done it before. There were other people on the tour and one asked the relatively young guide a question about what some cubby or something like that was used for and the guide was like, “I actually don’t know the answer to that,” and my dad said, “I DO!” The guide was stoked, the other tourists were stoked, my dad was living his best nerd life. They were all asking him other questions about the plane and it was just awesome to watch.

Dad was a softie for us. Even as adults, a “daddy!” with a huge smile would get us handed a $20 or whatever it was we needed. We did not abuse this power, I can assure you, though we *occasionally* used it to get our way with mom because with dad on our team it was three against one. This tack worked particularly well when his friends were over. You wait until the shop is full and ask for whatever, and your odds went immediately from 70/30 no to “sure hon.” In writing this I don’t think I can assure you there was no abuse of power, actually. Oops.

He’s the reason I have better power tools than a lot of my friends, and know how to use them. Mom is why I say, “I can do that” and try. Dad is why cribbage is our favourite game. Mom is why I love to garden and why Bobbie loves things to be clean and beautiful and balanced. Mom is why I love old furniture, dad is why I love the history of it. Mom is why Bobbie plays sports, dad is why she’s too stubborn to quit at anything. Dad is why I love puzzles and to put things together, mom is why there’s a stocked and well-used toolkit in each of our apartments. She’d never let us be without the literal tools to succeed. I’m pretty sure mom is why Bobbie loves to travel. The balance of our personalities came from the communities we were raised in and the people who surrounded us and if you loved our parents you had excellent taste, so you’re good people.

Bobbie and I have both been overwhelmed by the support we’ve received. It means so much to us that we’re not alone in our grief, that all of us near and far can share the burden of the emptiness they’ve left behind. Please help us fill that emptiness by sharing your memories with us. There will never be a time we don’t want to know or read a story about our parents that will brighten for us a facet of who they were. You can’t look at all sides of something at once and we don’t want to miss anything.

On a final note, without our parents here to confirm, Bobbie and I will have to insist we didn’t turn out too bad and we know for a fact that our parents loved us in a completely foundational way. Mom was built by living on the farm, she talked about hating having to pluck chickens for dinner sometimes, she grew up a little rebellious and more the best aspects of both her parents. Dad worked on the Streeter ranch for a million years, where he did hours of manual labour that conditioned him for honest, hard work. He helped Harry cut and wrap the beef in the summers. Both of our parents were rural-strong salt of the earth people who we know would be so proud to have produced not one but TWO vegetarian socialists.

Thank you everyone for coming, and especially to our Uncle Len and Auntie Darlene for making this happen here today. It means a lot to both of us and we hope to see all of you at the house for BBQ and drinks. There are photos everywhere. Bobbie and I want to honour our family and learn more about the half of it that is gone but not forgotten. We are firm believers that it’s possible to put the “fun” in funeral and that the best kind of crying comes from laughing. We would love for you to help us grow these memories. Thank you.