Hudson Bay Mountain
Huddled in a booth in the new Bulkley Valley Hotel, we and order old-fashioned comfort food, pie and coffee. The waitress serves my cherry pie a la mode in a thick blue-rimmed crockery saucer. It’s still warm, melting the ice cream, and the milky tea is comforting. The red of the cherries reminds me of another red.
The mountain ash trees in the yard were laden down with red berries and new snow when we left the house yesterday morning to bury Mompy. At the cemetery, her friends embraced us in the silence encouraged by new snow, their eyes misty. Agnes, our old neighbour, approached on silent feet, her large body encased in a smoky fur coat. Her embrace comforted me, and so did her few words of comfort, expressed in the slightly guttural accents of the Haida people.
As she moved away on light feet, I remembered how my mother once told me Agnes believed her youngest, Tommy, was a reincarnation of a baby she’d lost years earlier in a house fire.
After the funeral, I persuaded my brother to accompany me on a pilgrimage I hoped would comfort us both. The destination was Hudson’s Bay Mountain in Smithers, a few hours’ drive away. Dave had never been on skis, but he was game. Joined by an old friend who had helped us during Mom’s final illness, we climbed in the pickup and left early the following day, reaching the Bulkey Valley in mid-morning.
Blanketed in fog, the mountain was invisible as we drove toward it. All we could see were roadside fences, and behind them, cattle chewing slowly on the hay that had been spread on the snow for them. In this altered landscape, we almost missed the small side road up the mountain. Then suddenly, as we rounded another switchback, blue sky and sunshine spread out before us like a good omen.
On the first easy run down Panorama, I stopped to stand on my skis, gazing at the ring of mountains around. Below me, the fuzzy grey-white lap of cloud blotted out the shoulders of the mountain like a misty sea.
After Dave fell off the T-bar a few times, he and his friend decided to wait for me inside over hot drinks.
“Take your time,” Dave said. “We’re not in any hurry.”
I was still a novice, but that day my confidence grew. I skied faster and jumped off the chair more carelessly. The first spectacular wipe-out only made me more reckless; I laughed and sped off again. After the weeks of vigil at my mother’s bedside, it was such a relief to be outdoors moving.
The exercise raised an appetite I hadn’t felt since Mom had fallen ill. With Dave and Grant in the Chalet, I ate with gusto, then readied myself to be off again. The afternoon would be a short one. With the winter solstice only weeks away, the days were short and the mountain would close early. I skied a few times down the green runs I’d conquered earlier. Soon the signs of an early dusk showed in the changing colour of the sky. For the last run of the day, I chose the Cabin run, where I found myself utterly alone. I felt the stirring of fear. What if I fall? But the powder was perfect, the solitude was a balm, and fear turned to joy in that magic landscape. The only sound was the squeaking of skis – only one pair, mine. Not wanting the run, or the day to end, I stopped to gaze over the snug A-frame cabins dotted among the trees, catching a whiff of wood smoke before I noticed the smoke drifting from a chimney. Suddenly, I was filled to the brim with love and gratitude -- for life’s holy joy and mystery, and for the grace that comes to our aid when we lose the ones we love.
Alone on the mountain, I thanked God for the beauty, the peace, the silence, the fragrant mountain air. Intense gratitude flooded me -- for my brother, other family members and friends who remain. My mother has returned to the earth, yet even after weeks of watching her slow and painful death, life still rises in me like a sap. Standing on my skis I sensed the beginning of my healing – for my many failures, losses and disappointments, and above all, for this painful loss of my mother.
Then, by conscious choice, I turned on my skis – away from the heavy sadness that has been with me during these recent weeks spent in my childhood home with its every board and nail imbued with memories. At last I understood; there was never any reason to fear or dread the old house, the old memories, or the old home town. Alone in the snow, I began to weave these memories, the colours of my past, into my life’s tapestry, tying on the warp of the unknown future, opening myself to whatever it may bring.