A Headlight Dimmed, Ten Years On

A headlight dimmed, a fire dropped, a stack capped, rods lashed to running boards - signs that a mighty steam locomotive had rolled its final miles. 

When my Dad snapped CPR 3632 at Montreal's Angus Shops days before its scrapping, he likely spoke of watching it work Glen Yard in Westmount.

I've previously written about the impact that my Dad's life had on me and others. Before humans began to chisel and to write, it was left to offspring, and to future generations, to speak often of departed family members. They believed that if they didn't, the departed would no longer inhabit the after-life. Now we have biographies, headstones, obituaries and many more ways to mark the legacy of people important in our lives. Ten years ago tonight, we got word...

Trackside Treasure had turned five years old when my Dad left us. I'd already been missing him for years, and I dedicated the year 2014's posts to him. Now, as I write a post ten years on, I think back to his gift of documenting things - family history, correspondence and photography, newspaper and magazine clippings - and I think what kind of blog would my Dad have hosted? Imagine some of the topics he would have covered, and the scholarly, but not dry, and definitely well-written approach he would have taken to each one. His blog would have been the very best blog on the internet.

Both my parents had journeys through the world of long-term care. The least I could do to regularly visit the two people who had given me so much. But it was not always easy. As I turned from Queen Street onto Sydenham Street, the same thought always came to me. I was about to see my Dad, and I would focus on the light in his eyes. Those same eyes that beheld me as a newborn, viewed with interest my little accomplishments in life, that beamed proudly at our wedding and at his grandchildren.

As the Oprah generation, our emotions are to be on full display. What's the danger of that? Our grieving can become the focus, not the life of the one we're grieving. We're no longer a death-marking society; we are now a death-denying society. At Cataraqui Cemetery, looking at the lettering carved into that polished black surface, my eyes went to the linked wedding rings and date that my Mom had had added in the centre. I focused on how happy my Mom and Dad must have been on that day.

You won't often read posts like this on Trackside Treasure, so thank you for reading and thanks for your indulgence. It's just how I decided to mark this date, ten years on. But in the end... 

The headlight has not dimmed. It still burns bright.