What dreams may come

Ok, so I too dream of being a writer. Which I suppose in this venue is akin to admitting you like flying at a flight school. More on that later. First, a couple of stories.

I always thought that writers wrote fiction. Scholars and famous people wrote Memoirs and such. Who would want to read about little old me and my life? Yet, why not. My sister reminded me of something last night. Of the, I don’t know how to explain, other than to call it the “Calvert Humour”.

The Calvert’s are my Mom’s Mom’s family. There is even a Calvert Drive in our hometown named for them. It is directly across the river from our family homestead; the same my sister lives in today with her family. It has been in our family since 1897. It was my Great Great Grandfather, John Calvert born in 1852 in County Down, Ireland, who originally bought the place. He immigrated to Canada in 1865 with his older brother David. The Calvert clan though originally were from Yorkshire. They were part of the English settlers who were brought to Ireland with their Lord, same Calverts who went to the US and settled in Maryland. I haven’t traced them past John & David’s parents; I have some work to do on them.

So I’m rambling. Point is, the Calverts had a certain sense of humour. It was never at anyone’s expense, except maybe their own. Although it was never deprecating. For instance, there is a great story we were told that happened the day of my Grandfather’s wake back at the house (the Calvert Homestead). The year is 1974 and Grandpa D died at 65 of liver disease in Hospital in London; probably at the Old Vic. I was 6 years old, my sister would have been maybe not quite 2.

Well, first off I want you to picture all 5 Calvert sisters (in the photograph above starting from the right w/Grandma) the night before at the visitation at the funeral home and they are all around Grandpa’s casket at the front of this long room. You’ve just walked into what you would expect to be a very solemn and sad place. Nope. There they are, all 5 of them, laughing and telling stories and I can just hear my Great Aunt Jo’s laughter ringing through the room, and it makes me smile.

The next day they are cleaning up after the wake back at the house after the funeral & internment. They’ve all got their hands full of dishes and cups and they are leaving the living room. SMASH, follow by another WHAM they hear behind them — and 2 pictures that I guess Grandpa hated fell off the wall. Grandma turns around and says to the empty room – “All right Terry, that’s enough”. My Grandpa’s name was Terrence. And of course, once she’d emptied her hands of dishes she marched right back into the Living Room and put the pictures back up. You can see where the wood was broken off on one of the corners.

Even in the face of what must have been the saddest time, her sisters were all there, telling stories and reminding her of the good times. Making laughter ring through the dark hallways of grief. Death is part of life, after all, and life does go on.

And so shall I.

Lexi was reading my story ‘To thine ownself be true’ and she said I had some of the Calvert humour in my writing. I’m not sure it was conscious or not, but I see now it is a gift they gave me. To make laughter ring in my heart, even as I struggle with my grief. My only motivation was to not be the “Debbie Downer” of WordPress . ;-)

I have come to a tough decision. I don’t know that I’m going back to London now. My sister was not very happy about it, at first. I’m not sure quite yet where my path is leading. I know though that I want to write. I want to take pictures and share. To share whatever it is I have to share. Whether that be here, via blogging, or, I really don’t know now. The decision is too raw and new to fathom yet what direction this will take me in. I am though going to for now just keep on blogging away, but now with a renewed purpose. Or, maybe now with a renewed license to see “what dreams may come”.