Thursday, July 21, 2016
Dear Paul, Ian and Sandra, Jack and Delia, Bill and Lorraine and families,
We are so sorry to learn of Aunt Dorothy's passing and also that we are too far away to make it back on time to be with you at the service. You will all be in our thoughts and prayers.
I have many fond memories of Arnprior visits....the wonders of Mad Magazine, the fascinating hall tree that spoke of another time, the back stairs and the shock that came with realizing you had disturbed Uncle Archie or Aunt Dorothy napping on the passage through the back stairs, as it emptied into their bedroom. There were special dinners which sometimes included venison. There were sunfish I could catch in White Lake when everyone else seemed to find bass or pike or something less pretty but more desirable. The visits to Arnprior, often involved walking your dog around downtown while the bigger kids were off exploring the train bridge and the river bed but returning sooner to find a band practice forming on the driveway. When I took up trombone, my first real audition was for your visiting parents. I remember a 25th wedding anniversary with silver candles which seemed so cool to a kid ....that they even made them like that. I also remember your parents taking our dear friends, the Chao's,back and forth between their place and the church kitchen on a really cold Christmas day when their stove stopped working and our car stopped working at the same time. They were, back then, recent refugees to Canada and your parents rescued that Christmas experience for these newcomers in their station wagon. I remember Ian staying with us before a trip to a college in Toronto on the day of a Royal Wedding....no connection but it's funny how memory works. Last time I saw your Mom up at the Lodge in Renfrew, she asked me if the church in Stittsville, where I now play the organ and direct the choir your folks had been in, still had the turquoise stage curtains in the hall that she had helped make. It does. And that is the most minor of ways in which your Mom's legacy will live on but I know, even from the last few visits in Renfrew, once when dad was alive, and two since, that she will love on in the love and care she has invested in all of you.
Fondly,
Terry
Laura, Thomas and Katie join me in sincere sympathy
