My father, Eddy, passed away on this day 20 years ago. I was thinking about how the farm both nourished and depleted my father. Often he would be exhausted and worried about how to make ends meet. He did not have much time to spend with us, or choose to work instead. The rare trips overseas to visit family in Switzerland or New Zealand would allow me to see a part of my father we would not often witness on the farm; relaxed and playful. However the farm sustained him in a way that he would not of been able to replicate elsewhere. I think it was the responsibility he felt to the natural world that held him closest to the property. It was my father that was my first spiritual teacher, and the forest was his religion. The animals were safe on our property as he had stopped hunting by his mid twenties. Even when a coyote ate his favourite dog or would maul one of his cows my father would let the animal be.
These anniversaries of my father's passing have changed over the years. Initially I was disabled by grief. At some point in the day I would be overcome with sorrow. I don't remember when it shifted, but it has. My father has come back to me in a way that is hard to describe, there is a presence, not unlike your own shadow. As a daughter I knew my parents were there to support me in whatever way they could, and now I have that same feeling again. It is both comforting and empowering.
This picture captures the sense of tension of managing a ranch in Canada. I have always imagined the envelope on the table to be yet another bill that has arrived.
My father visiting me while I was a University in Victoria. It was good for me to see a more relaxed version of my father on this trips away from the farm.
My father soon after he first arrived on the farm in 1948. The farm initially had milk cows, shifting to a beef operation a few years later. My father was consistently gentle with the animals under his care, and tender hearted in a way that sometimes would make ranch work difficult for him.
I remember.....
I remember stepping in my father's footprints,
my foot fits in his heel.
He is ahead, leaving a misty trail of tobacco.
We are looking for calves,
Easter eggs hiding between warm rocks,
red and white, a neat bundle with large eyes.
When found an ear tag is shot in.
This morning the ear bleeds.
The calf is shocked, betrayed,
crimson on my father's fingers.
A frown, a hurt deeper than the calf's pain.
I follow my father home.
We leave double prints, mine are smaller.
"The calf" I say "Is sleeping now".
"Yes", he nods in the quiet air.
I wrote this poem when I was in my early 20s. It is about an experience that my father and I had while out looking for newborn calves when I was about 10 years old. One of my father's most enduring characteristics, and also his most challenging, was his need to get a job "done right". The day that this poem describes was an example of his frustration of not getting the tag on the calf in a way that did not cause pain as he had nicked a blood vein. I remember sensing his displeasure and trying to ease his discomfort by reassuring him that he calf had recovered.
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