Let it go

Every New Year’s Day, beginning in 1997 (the first one after we bought the house), Mike and I would go for a walk to our favourite place on the island.

We’d walk along by the water and spend some time sitting on this bench, hoping to see otters or seals.

When we first sat on this bench, we were touched by its plaque.

It was even more touching when another plaque appeared below it.

These walks in the late nineties would be after celebrating New Year’s Eve at what was then the best restaurant on the island.

This is where we scattered Mike’s ashes in 2011.

Every New Year’s Day since his death I’ve gone there on my own. I’ve got sunnier pictures than the one above, but that one is the one I took yesterday. No, not sunny, but there was something quite lovely about the sun, peeking through the clouds to hit the snow on the peaks of the coastal mountains.

I visit other times in the year. It is, as I said, my favourite place on the island. But on New Year’s Day I always take time to sit on a log near the place where his ashes were scattered and just be.

When I said “we scattered his ashes”, I’m talking about his son, daughter,  daughter-in-law and granddaughters. 

That was before his son (and executor), contrary to his assurance that our mortgage line of credit debt would be paid off as part of settling the estate, announced he was going to dump that $40,000 on me – this despite him knowing full well that every penny of that debt had been incurred by his father, including a very substantial donation to the cost of replacing said son’s Toyota Matrix with a people carrier for his growing family.

Needless to say, I was disappointed and hurt by this decision. So much so that I consulted a lawyer who told me that, not only was I entitled to this money, but could make a much larger claim on the estate. Of course, the lawyer advised, this could drag on so long that legal fees might swallow up almost everything, but it was my call.

I didn’t know what to do. 

So, I went to that place on a day when the tide was further out and I could sit down on the rocks close to the actual spot. I lit a cigarette and talked to Mike. There were two things I knew to be absolutely true. The first was that Mike would be horrified by his son’s decision. The second was that the last thing he would have wanted to see is my in a legal battle. I finished the cigarette, said goodbye. And on the way back to the car I suddenly heard a voice in my head say, “Let it go.” I’m not claiming it was Mike’s voice, because it wasn’t. But it did feel as if Mike was telling me what to do. And so I let it go – along with his son and daughter. 

I was very fond of Mike’s daughter and fairly fond of his son. I was certainly fond of his granddaughters, both of whom are teenagers now, with a younger adolescent brother born ten months after Mike died. I would have liked to have seen something of those girls over the years, but I haven’t. 

I’ve heard it say of Scorpios (not that I’m a believer in astrology) that we sometimes forgive, but we never forget. In this instance I’ve done neither.

On a brighter note (even though it was an overcast day), here’s another photo I took yesterday.

Happy New Year, Mike, wherever you are.