Day 7 Blue Lake

Just after posting my blog last evening, right before we were about to call it a day, we received a very sad email. David’s cousin Suzanne and her husband Rick lost their son Jeremi to a short, vicious battle with melanoma.

When we first came to Ontario and knew no one else in the province, they were the family that became our friends. 29 years ago David and I had our first “baby experience” together when Jeremi was born. I remember so well those early days, delighting in his first discoveries, feeling so blessed to be part of their family. We of course had no idea then of the heartbreak that lay ahead for them; of the horror that has been the last three months of their lives.

In April they came to visit Cecilia and told us that they were on their way, later that week, to Whistler. Jeremi had been living and working there for the last couple of years and had been having some recent health problems. Being the parents they are, Rick and Suzanne went to be with him. Quickly discovering the terrible news, they brought him home to Ontario to begin the fight.

The last while has been hell for them as they watched Jeremi fade from a strapping, fun-loving young man to “a cancer ravaged body in 3 months. He was skeletal and had nothing more to give. He fought hard and never a complaint.” (this from an email I received last night from his Mom), a horror no parent should have to endure. Jeremi’s suffering ended this week.

I lay awake most of the night thinking about all of them. The loons cry was particularly mournful to my ear through the darkness.

I struggled with whether or not to include this in my blog today. This was intended to be a record of our travels and today has certainly been coloured by this news. But I know it is also being read by many who are not quite as uplifted as you might have expected when you logged on today. Today as we hiked through the forest I came to the realization that I must include this entry. Many of you have sent messages of encouragement for the voice that I bring to my writing. Today my voice held only sorrow and to record anything else would not have been true. As I pontificate on the beauty that surrounds us, it would be callow not to acknowledge the pain and despair that life can also hold simultaneously, sometimes also in abundance. Most of all though, to fail to mention his death, might be a failure to recognize that the world is just a little less brilliant today because Jeremi isn’t in it.

Sunset over Blue Lake