I've been going out to Campbell River most summers for almost fifty years. It started when my paternal grandparents lived out there and my parents would drive us out every year to visit. The primary purpose of the trips changed over twenty years ago when my Dad retired and moved out there - then I started going out to visit him. And then ten years ago, when my child was born, the trips changed again - this time, I'm the parent taking the grandchild out.
Things have changed a lot since I first started going to Campbell River. The smell is the biggest difference... when the pulp mill closed it certainly the smell quite a bit. I remember as a very young child being quite baffled when I heard my violin instructor say that the ocean was a really nice smell. I was a little too young to realize that what I thought was whale farts was actually a pulp mill.
The scale has really changed too. When I was little, I remember thinking that it took forever to walk from my grandparents' house to the ocean. Not a long time... oh no, forever. My grandparents' house is still standing and it's not that far away from where my dad and stepmother live - it would have been about a fifteen minute walk.
But the biggest change has been in my role. Now... I'm the one who gets the big questions and gets quizzed on every minute detail of what I remember my Grandpa teaching me about fishing, logging and basic survival outside on Vancouver Island. I'm no longer the youngest generation and my dad is no longer the middle generation. That's all flipped - my grandparents are gone, so is my Auntie and now my dad is the patriarch of the family. I'm the middle. Our child is the future of the family.
And... of course, my grandparents and my auntie are gone. My Grandpa Walt died when I was quite young so I didn't really know him that well. But I sure knew my Gram and my Auntie. They're two very difficult people to describe, even harder people to pay any kind of tribute to and it's hard to even explain the difference their absence creates.
Of course, now that I'm the middle and my Dad is in his eighties, there's another change coming at some point. There's no real chance that I'll have my dad in my life for as long as I've had him. That gets me thinking about our child. I remember being 10 and it doesn't seem like that long ago. In that short of a time, if I'm still lucky enough to be aging, I'll be 88 years old. Will my kid be prepping for a similar trip to visit me with her own memories? What about her own losses?
And so I'm looking very forward to our trip and cannot wait to have every experience we have. But there's a certain melancholy to it. Life doesn't let any of us out untouched. Love every second you get.