Taking Things Slowly

Yesterday, my son David and I finished up most of the essential tasks related to my sister's interment and the clearing of her apartment. It gave me a rather odd feeling to reach 30 inches down into a hole in the ground to place the bundle containing Jean's ashes in their final resting place, then concluding a brief ritual with a stammered benediction. That done during a rain shower, we moved on to her former apartment to pick up a few last items to be saved or distributed to family members. By noon, the chaps from 1-800-Got-Junk franchise had loaded their dumpster about 2/3rds full with whatever remained. We then completed the vacuuming of the floors before leaving the empty apartment. At precisely 12:15 pm we handed the keys to the manager and took our leave.

Strange as it may seem, drivign home along Hwy. 407 we talked about little else than what I would want for my funeral and settling of my estate when the time comes. David will have some if not most of the responsibility for that too as joint executor with my bank and his sister Diane.

This morning David called me to tell me that he has been advised by a local jeweller in Owen Sound that some of the jewellry might well bring a few more hundreds of dollars to Jean's estate
when sold in an auction this fall or next spring. A stamp dealer we consulted a couple of weeks ago also had called to inform him that a collection of RCMP medals we had left with him were worth about $75 to an interested party. So a little more is garnered to defray the estate expenses.

Now it is time for both David and I to take things slowly. I am going to read an excerpt of book about which I found an article in Maclean's Magazine yesterday, "In Praise of Slow." If all goes well, David is to head for the Merton family cottage north of Mont Laurier, QC over the weekend.

John Shearman