HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS
by
Marilyn Bueckert

       As soon as I got out of my vehicle, I could smell the ocean. I stood beside the van, gulping in lungsful of the sea air. Oh, I had missed that scent and it was as much a part of me as my genetic background. Yet, strangely enough the sage scented hills of my present home had also become almost as deeply imbedded. Sometimes I wondered where the “home of my heart” was.

       Around me, English Bay teamed with life. No longer were there stands with fish and chips you packed out in cardboard dishes, splashing them with vinegar and salt, but instead picturesque popcorn wagons and hot dog stands lined the edge of the road. Couples streamed by, holding hands, sometimes jogging in and out of the throngs of people and sometimes ambling along with arms wrapped around another and staring soulfully into one another’s eyes.

       Sedately dressed women in rayon dresses or polyester pants, moved along, sometimes with the help of a cane. There were men too, often wearing Tilley hats, shuffling along, perhaps lost in their own memories of times when they too raced along this sandy beach. Children still shrieked with laughter as they darted around one another, sometimes racing into the water’s edge and screaming as they were splashed with the always chilly water of the bay. Business people on lunch breaks, strode along briskly, cell phones attached firmly to their ears, immune to the beauty around them.

       I smiled, seeing the old bath house, still standing, although it too was showing its age. Years ago we would change into our swimsuits there before venturing down to the water’s edge for our Vancouver Sun newspaper’s swimming lessons. I didn’t think I would want to venture into the building now though as it could harbour all sorts of people, some perhaps not so nice. I remember the clammy feeling of the wet cement floors and how sand would be adhered to us, when we were changing back into our dry clothes, rubbing into our skin as we towelled ourselves dry.

       There was the Grill, a favorite meeting spot for years. I’d walk up from my bachelor suite on Barclay and meander along Denman until I got to the beach. I almost salivated, remembering some of the wonderful meals I’d had in there. Some of those meals had been pretty romantic too, but those days were gone now, replaced by a quieter, but steadfast kind of loving relationship.

       I wondered too if the little park was still down the block with its bandstand. I had seen pictures of Mum holding me on a blanket, beside it, when I was still an infant. She was stylishly dressed in a perky hat, gracefully draped blouse and a flowing skirt. I wonder what she would think of English Bay today and the casual non fashions on its visitors.

       Mum was why we were here today. We had decided to pool our memories to keep Mum’s memories alive in our childrens’ hearts and memories. She had been very dear to all of them but it had been such a long time since they had seen her alive and were sometimes forgetting who she was.

       This part of Vancouver had been such a vibrant place for Mum, her family and her friends. She worked here, fell in love, cried when her soldier did not return from the war and worked for many years in Woodward’s old store on Hastings. Many Sundays she and her sister in law to be had walked around Lost Lagoon, biked around Stanley Park, gone on cruises to Bowen Island, Wigwam Inn and other places. They had performed their own dramas in the attic of their house on Eton Street or when no one was around, on the very bandstand that used to grace the little park near this beach. Then she met her Mountie, married him and moved further south into the suburbs. Now they were all gone and all that was left were memories and photos, some faded in cherished photo albums from so long ago.

       There was my sister – already on the bench where we liked to sit, people watching, and just enjoying being a part of this vibrant city of Vancouver! I paused, watching the way the sun caught her curly blond hair, still vibrant all these years later. She had a stillness about her as she had truly found inner peace.

       I couldn’t wait any longer! I ran over to her, we embraced fondly, then sat for a visit of reminiscence. We would begin making our own memories too that could be added to the hearts of our children.