There wasn't one single thing that led me to pack my bags and travel across the globe more than 10 years ago, but suffice it to say, the final years of the 2000’s were a pivotal time for me. I left a lot of things behind in Canada, and have tried to leave my mark on many people and things in my journeys abroad.

In 2008, I took my first overseas adventure to Tanzania, and that trip set the stage for me to set out on my own and explore the world. Around the same time, the business I built in Canada grew to take over much of my life, so much so that a burnout meant I needed a real break.

But these years were also ones where mortality came into focus for me in a way that it had never before. Up until 2009, there hadn’t been anyone close in my life who had passed away.

A Family’s Annus horribilis

Ross

My uncle Ross was the youngest and the coolest of all the uncles. He was always active, full of energy, and up to cool stuff like starting a jet-ski business in the tropics, riding dirt bikes, and still being friends with his many ex-girlfriends.

It was quite out-of-character for Ross when he didn’t show up to work one Friday in early 2009. When no one could contact him over the weekend and he didn’t show up to work first thing on Monday morning, the police were called to break down his door where they found him unconscious on the couch. An infection in his brain had put him in a coma, and he passed away a week later in the hospital.

Grandpa

Years prior, my Grandpa had heart bypass surgery, and they had used veins from his legs to make it happen. Over time, that surgery that saved his life meant that less blood flow was getting to his legs, and eventually the amputation of one, and then both of his legs. I recall not going to visit him in the hospital, because I wouldn’t know what to say. Complications from those operations led to him passing away only months after Ross.

Grandma

That summer I went out to visit my Grandma, and while driving her golf cart around the empty streets of the rural Saskatchewan town that she lived, she remarked how she was “ready to go” herself. She presented it in more of a matter-of-fact way, with no sense of the dramatic. She was done. I remember quickly firing back that there was plenty for her in this town and life, “Of course there is much for her!”

In the weeks before I left Canada, I tried and tried to arrange to go out for one last visit of my Grandma. She hadn’t been feeling great recently, and we just hadn’t managed to make it happen. When my father met me at the airport to see me off that late November morning in 2009, he had just made the 90 min drive from seeing her himself, and reiterated that she knew of my upcoming journey and was supportive.

Exhausted from the journey, I arrived in New Zealand 4 flights and ~24 hours later. The first thing I did was call my Mom. She told me that my Grandmother had passed away while I was flying to the other side of the world.

Memories are a curious thing. They can fade, evolve, and sometimes completely change into something new over time. In the case of writing this, I’ve had to ask several people to confirm the details of these events above.

The Wall in the Wilderness

It was Feb 2010 and about three months into my journey when I came across The Wall in the Wilderness in Derwent Bridge in the Tasmanian Highlands of Australia. A project of sculptor Greg Duncan, it was a massive 10 year endeavour where he was carving the history of the area on a series of wooden panels, each measuring 1 metre across by 3 metres high. It would be 100m long when it was completed, and I arrived on the weekend of the 5th anniversary, marking the halfway point of the project.

He had set aside a single panel for this weekend, for any visitors who came to carve their initials into. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

So I grabbed the tools to cut and slice my way into the wood over the pencil sketches I had just made in the shape of my Grandparent’s initials. I’m not much for traditions or rituals, but it felt like a good thing to do.

Cameras weren’t allowed, but later the gallery posted images online.

Image of a section of the wall on the 5th anniversary. Image provided courtesy The Wall in the Wilderness

“E&D Main” Image provided courtesy The Wall in the Wilderness

I do wish that I had got to known my Uncle Ross better. I think we would have had even more in common now than we knew then. And I do wish that I had gone to see my Grandpa in the hospital, even though I didn’t know what to say. And I do wish that I didn’t feel like I had to tell my Grandma what she had to live for.

But I don’t feel bad about any of it. I was doing the best with what I could at the time. We’re always learning, and as for me, I wouldn’t let these moments slip by in the same way that they did.

Epilogue

Several times over the past 10 years, I’ve thought about writing about this. First when it just happened in 2010, and again on the one year anniversary of my trip to Tasmania. Then every year or two after, as the anniversary passed again, always looking for the right time.

Right now, it’s about 10 years and 7 weeks after that afternoon I carved those initials on the wall, and I think that this is just proof that

there is no better time

than the present.

Memories On The Wall