On The Road Again 2013 A Brief Intermision #4

I don't do funerals. I don't like them and if I had a choice, I suspect that I would never go to one ever again. I prefer not to grieve in public. It is not that I am embarrassed by my or anyone else's tears - I would just prefer to think about the person in the quietness of a forest or beside a body of water. Sitting in some cold, man-made structure whether it be a funeral home or a church always feels artificial to me. It is not the place I want my last memories of the individuals to be. In spite of all of those feelings, last week I went to a funeral.

It was the funeral for a man I had only met a couple of times and who I hadn't talked to for a few years. We had first met at a Gathering. He, like so many of us, had come to his first Gathering by accident or at least because of a strange set of coincidences. We spent hours and hours debating philosophy, the state of the world and why it was so hard for members of his community to become re-engaged in the culture of the grandparents. We also  argued about diet. I as someone who has consciously not eaten meat or fish for some years argued that if I were invited to a meal at his house, I would not eat the salmon, and that if he insisted then he would not be respecting my philosophy/religion. He, of course argued with equal passion that if he offered me some salmon as part of a ceremony, I would be disrespectful to him and his culture if I refused it. There was, of course, no simple resolution to the conversation. I don't think that we expected there to be.

They were great discussions and I treasured the memories of them for years. I suspect that if I had continued to live in BC we would have seen a lot of each other. But I needed to leave to head back to Ontario. As we were saying goodbye he went to his red truck and from behind the seat he pulled out a necklace that he had made and gave it to me. I travel with it - seldom wearing it as it is a bit bright for me. I wore the necklace to the funeral.

  I had for years carried in my pack a wide red and gold sash that I had woven. I was never sure why I carried it around....I never wore it. But when he gave me that necklace I knew why I had carried around, why I had brought it to this Gathering. I gave it to my new friend.

The following year I came out in May, rented a truck and drove up to his house 60 miles from Duncan. We spent the day together talking about the Rainbow Family and about the kids in his small community. I think we agreed that we had much to teach other. For the rest of that summer and the next, tentative plans to see each other were made but we never again talked.

The funeral was full of stories from friends and family about the silly things that he had said and done. People also talked about the gifts that he had shared, the songs that he written and his vision of a community made whole. He was a much loved man. I am glad I went to hear those stories.

Today my son and his family took me to a forest near Port Renfew. While much of the forest had been logged decades ago, there were still some cedars left standing that were so old that ancient does not begin to describe their age.

I said good bye to my friend today amongst those grandfathers. I said good bye to him in a grove similar to where we first met. It felt right.