Eulogy for a friend
Dear Martha,
I've been thinking about what I want to say today. How can I possibly capture over fifty years of friendship in a few minutes?
I thought I'd start at the beginning. I'll share from our first three decades, a word and a whole lot of memories to describe each one. Then Paige will pick up from there.
The first decade I'd define with the word guts. You were such a gutsy kid. I was so in awe of you and did my best to try and keep up.
Our moms were friends so we grew up together. Remember all those Sundays at each other's houses? Your dinner table much bigger, in both numbers and noise than my own with siblings Shel, Lonnie and Darrin, eventually adding Steve and Lars and Mijo to the mix and then all your beautiful nieces and nephews. Your Mom's amazing roast dinners. What was it this week? moose? deer, beef? no matter which meat you would only want to eat the roast potatoes, with vinegar on them, not the meat. And you were always pretty stubborn about what you did and did not want.
We played barbies, choreographed dance in front of your parents mirror tiled wall, spent every day of the summers swimming. Going off to camp together. There was that time, when we were about 7 years old, that my parents picked us up from camp and took us to Marineland where you had the guts to want to go on the upside down roller coaster. I wouldn't go so my Dad had to join you, much to his chagrin. After all the loop de loops were over, as he would tell it, you cheerfully informed him, "You can open your eyes now, Mr. McGown."
You decided jumping off the second-storey roof of my playhouse was a good idea. And somehow, in spite of my fears, convinced me to follow. I followed you into a lot of adventure.
The second decade makes me think of the word gumption.
I can still hear you telling me that we were going to join the Outtrip Club. Not asking. Telling. It took a lot of gumption to step through that classroom door at lunch time into a room seemingly full of grade 13 students (might have helped that some of them were your brother and his friends).
That one step changed so much for me.
It was around those campfires that we first learned to join hearts and minds with others. It's where I learned to canoe. And where we discovered that the outdoors was somewhere we belonged. Where we made lifelong friends. Of course, on that first canoe trip, led by Uncle Mintz, as I called him, it snowed the first day and rained the next 8 and I thought anyone willing to submit themselves to such misery was outrageous. Thankfully, positive peer pressure made me go again and I learned how to pack and dress and got better gear and began to thrive under the leadership of Mr & Mrs Poole, Mr. Webster and your Uncle Jim.
In high school you also found out about the canoe technician jobs at The Massasauga Provincial Park. This began your long tenure of work with parks, including Superior, Sleeping Giant, Awenda and your beloved Killbear. We got to spend five days a week, paddling around Spider and Clear lakes, getting paid to be outside. Could there possibly have been a better summer job? Remember grown men scrambling to clean up their campsites when they saw us coming in our ministry brown uniforms (at age 17)? The rangers were on their way! We were pretty pleased with ourselves. The parks first female interior techs.
We learned to be independent, capable young women. Although our independence was occasionally compromised by radio calls to headquarters to tell our boss Dave he had forgotten the peanut butter. Or that unforgettable radio call when I'd forgotten tampons.
During this second decade of life, the FROG Sisters, the friendly rambunctious outdoor girls, came to be - you, me and your cousin Kristi. At age 19, the first time my parents let me take their car out of Parry Sound, we drove to Huntsville for Kris and I to register our Frog expeditions business and then, spontaneously, we decided to drive to North Bay to get frogs tattooed on our feet. Those tattoos look like the rash youthful decision they were, but are a visible artifact of a friendship forged with the mantra 'I am woman, hear me roar' I didn't want my mom to know about the tattoo. Of course she did know because you wore flipflops to church and sat next to her bobbing your foot up and down, flashing that frog. She knew if you had one, I must too.
Our third decade was defined by grit.
You headed to off to university at Guelph and me to Lakehead. Then you to Lakehead and me to Canada world youth. Finally in our 3rd year of university we were together in thunder Bay doing outdoor rec studies and living together on Bendell Street, dubbing ourselves and our roomies the Bendell Bunch.
You had a dream drawn on a map of Canada - a long black line on it tracing a canoe route - hung up on your bedroom wall. I said let's do it, and thanks to an expedition management class, we could plan the trip for credit.
We set out, on this 9000km, 11 months total trip in May of '99. There were days that required every ounce of grit we had. Like paddling up the Winnipeg River in flood. Our rate of travel decreasing from a typical 5km/hour to 1km/hour. I hated it. And tried to convince you we should hitchhike to the top, zoom down it and get back to the top and carry on. But nope. You were determined to get up it. And with some cajoling and some subway in our bellies, off we went. Though we didn't hitchhike that time with a canoe, we did in northern Saskatchewan, the northwest territories and Quebec. Grit was also required when we were windbound on Lake Superior for 22 days between Marathon and Wawa and when we lost our canoe while camped on an island, in the Northwest Territories.
Thankfully, our trip wasn't all grit requiring. There were days that reminded us just how extraordinary it was to be out there, together, doing something so few people would ever get to experience. Like the time you headed out of camp to bury supper leftovers amidst waist high grasses. We heard a wolf howl from in front of you, then one answer from behind, then a whole chorus of howls, indicating that you were in the middle of a pack. Our eyes locked over the distance, both of us frozen, me wondering what I should do. The howls quieted and you quickly walked back to me. we stood there giggling, giddy with adrenaline and wonder. One wolf emerged and showed herself before turning and disappearing. we never heard nor saw them again.
While we were the ones in the boat everyday doing the hard physical task of self-propelling ourselves across our incredible country, so many had done so much to make that journey happen. None more so than your parents. From shuttles to La Pas, Manitoba twice, and Wawa, and Montreal to knowing the weather every hour of every day, your parents did so much to make sure that this dream and so many others of yours came true.
There was that time they were driving Darrin back to Trent and we were paddling the Trent Severn. Your Dad was so in tune with our trip that he randomly pulled over en route of the 230km drive, saying 'the girls should be here' and sent Darrin tromping through someone's backyard to look, and there we were, shocked to see this familiar figure on a stranger's boathouse waving us over. We shared in their lunch and kept going. What incredible strength our parents had to relinquish and trust us to God, the wilderness and ourselves.
And then, in this third decade, there was Jeff.
I do think introducing you to your husband by sending you his way for a pottery lesson (to which my Dad asked, has she seen the movie Ghost) deserves some credit. You two were slow burners, so I convinced you both to join me and another friend on a hundred-hour road trip to Baja and back for a week long sea kayaking adventure. Surely that would turn up the heat between you two!?! Not quite enough. It took a few more months of walks around Caronport while you lived with me, finishing your Masters in Global Studies, before you finally said to Jeff "i like you. do you like me?' or something to that effect. Happily, the answer was yes and you two put it in fifth gear from there, getting engaged shortly after and married a few months later, having celebrated your 20th anniversary this past August. You not only loved each other but liked each other. I can hear you making each other laugh, even a month ago, cracking jokes when learning I had booked Jon and I some travel on Wizz Air.
In your first years of marriage, I was a frequent guest at your apartment in Caronport, as was Trooper, the burrowing owl, since you were managing Moose Jaw's Burrowing Owl centre. When I was there, I got the guest room so Trooper got the bathroom. He'd get territorial when left in a space for a while so you taught me the midnight pee protocol. I'd have to don oven mitts, sunglasses and a hat to use the facilities - sitting on the toilet, having Trooper swoop at me, batting him off saying 'no Trooper' was pretty memorable.
Soon into your marriage, you and Jeff brought Ceci and Eli into the world. You delighted in your two kids. the pride of your life. How Ceci had your determination right from the get go and how Eli could make an adventure out of trying anything, like you.
When I look back on our friendship, especially those first thirty years, Mart, I realize how much of who I am is wrapped up in who we were together.
You were there when I learned to be brave. When I discovered the joy of adventure, the pull of wild places, and the confidence that comes from doing hard things.
You opened doors in my life that I didn't even know to walk through.
And I walked through so many of them because you went first.
Of course, over fifty years of friendship isn't all sunshine and dry, wide portage trails. There were mucky parts, like in any long canoe trip or relationship. We grew up, our lives changed, and we didn't always travel the same waters.
But through it all, our friendship remained a life defining treasure.
I've been thinking a lot about what it means to lose a day-one friend. Someone who has known me for my entire life. Someone who remembers the little girl I was, the teenager I became, and the woman I grew into.
You carry pieces of my story that no one else does.
And I'm privileged to carry pieces of yours.
I wouldn't be who I am without you, Mart.
I wish we had another adventure ahead of us. Another campfire. Another stretch of water to paddle. But what a gift it has been to have had so many. More than most.
Thank you for putting a paddle in my hand and encouraging me along the way. I miss you already. Love you, Mart.
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