As the anniversary of Edward's death on the 10th of April approaches, I am wondering what life will be like after the year has passed. The Celebration of Life service is in the early stages and no date picked. It will be family only. I am still not ready for the great outside world. I may never be actually. At 76 I do not have to be part of the great outside world. I can remain as I have been most of my life reclusive. Edward did get me involved in his life pursuits and it occupied a lot of my time actually running errands, standing in lines waiting at the bank especially when he was Church Treasurer. I spent ages doing deposits and other needs that he had for his volunteerism. As the years passed there were so many items that he became involved in and I came along to help him with all of that.
But now a year later I am involved just in my family and my pursuit of my one name studies. Probably I never would have gotten into the one name studies if not for George DeKay my cousin who needed a profile for my Pincombe family, an early immigrant, to Westminster Township now part of London, Ontario.
I managed to avoid doing any of that type of genealogical work for nearly 58 years whilst Edward was very much involved. Although Edward was working on his own with all of that until Gordon Riddle asked him if he would like to go to the Ontario Genealogical Society (now Ontario Ancestors) Ottawa Branch meetings in the early 1980s.
Gordon was his cousin and they had a mutual interest in their Kipp family apparently. I didn't get involved in those conversations as I did not want to be a part of genealogical studying. I had listened to my grandparents and knew quite a bit about my families and really did not want to go further than that. I helped Edward at the Family History Centre on occasion when he wanted to extract family names from various document sets. Mostly that was before the children but once in school he would take a day off and go to the Family History Centre and I would then go again also taking a day off because I worked at home proofreading and copyediting (and some volunteering at school which I enjoyed and at my Church until Ed wanted to go to his United Church rather than my Anglican Church and so I went along for that volunteerism as well although being a volunteer secretary at the United Church was a request made to me which was fine - I like to contribute to God's Church but was pretty happy when they finally hired someone to do that).
Edward was always glad that Gordon Riddle had invited him to go with him to the meeting as he became a devoted member for the next fourty years and absolutely loved doing that. Outside of work I would say that genealogy pretty much dominated his life from that day forth. Although Edward did have a lot of other hobbies genealogy became the one that was most important to him. I think in retrospect he was finding his father who died when he was two years of age. He spent all day with his father as a child because he was too big for his mother to carry around (she was barely five feet tall) as he was a large child and always tall for his age. The shock to a two year old's system must have been enormous to have the person with whom he spent his waking hours suddenly gone. But he could not remember any of that. He is with his father now and the reunion must have been wonderful. His face at death was happy and relaxed.
Life though has moved onward for me as I approach the one year mark. It is a bit blurred by all of this business with the Income Tax and getting it done. The sense of relief at sending his return by mail with be wonderful and mine can go electronically as usual. The strain though is enormous as I work my way through all of it.
I am glad that we decided to do the Celebration of Life for Edward in May or June. I want it to be perfect; something his grandsons can remember rather than the sadness of watching their beloved grandfather become less and less able to be with them. COVID-19 didn't help but already before COVID he wasn't playing with them anymore. Just watching them and enjoying that but little boys are physical beings and they longed for the grandpa who played with them. They understand that he is in Heaven with God and that now he is all well again. But still they do miss him.
Must get the Blake Newsletter done. Just the R-M269 people really to work away on. The rest will be fairly straightforward.
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