We set out on a journey to attend the Celebration Of Life for my dear cousin. My youngest sister kindly let us stay with her for the weekend, as well as my celebrated cousin’s older sister.
My celebrated cousin’s sisters both made long journeys to share the event. I had not seen them since a family get together in 2016.
After the celebration, my youngest sister hosted a delicious family dinner, giving us all an opportunity to spend time together.
The Celebration Of Life was lovely, organized by my celebrated cousin’s husband, son and grandson. Several of my her husband’s close friends assisted him with the event, as did my youngest sister. It was wonderful to see the lovingly created slide shows featuring my beautiful cousin, and to hear the loving tributes to her life.
I had not had contact with my cousin for many, many years. It was such a pleasure to find out about her life path, to see where her passion, drive, and intelligence led her, and to see how greatly loved she was during her life.
Thank you to my youngest sister for all her efforts for the event, and for being such a welcoming and gracious hostess.
The journey to visit family involves crossing Toronto and the surrounding urban areas. The drive is daunting, to say the least. It is usually a very slow journey, on very busy highways, and involves a lot of stop and go traffic, and many, many transport trucks that are often involved in accidents.
However, there is a toll road that one can travel, for a significant price. On our last visit with the family Attila accidentally took the entrance to the toll road, and we had to travel along it until we reached the next exit. What a difference it made! The traffic was much lighter, the road in much better condition, and there were no slowdowns.
For this trip I proposed that we try out the toll road, for its entire length across the metropolitan area. Attila agreed that we could experiment with this option for travel, knowing the cost. So that is what we did. The trip took three and a half hours, and was stress free. Our former journeys were five hours or more of travel, and most of those hours were very stressful, dealing with traffic congestion. Apparently, money can buy happiness. Now we wait for the bill.
One of the highlights of the trip was to visit my Mom in her new apartment. What a cozy, warm, and welcoming space she has created there. It is in a great location, walking distance to many amenities. The tree outside her window filters sunlight, shadows dance in the breeze. Her new home is charming.
The Celebration and family dinner allowed us to spend time with my Mom, my sisters, their eldest daughters, my youngest sister’s new grandson, and my cousins and their families.
I think my celebrated cousin would be happy with all the love and connection that came together in her honour.
We are back home again. I am missing everyone as I usually do after a visit. When we arrived home Attila spent quite some time watering the garden, and was very happy to observe that although it was greatly stressed, everything survived. We managed a walk at sunrise this morning, before the heat of the day began to build. We are slowly resuming our routines.
Ginger was not impressed with our absence. When we first arrived home he was quiet and watchful. After determining that we intended to stay home, he began to let us know exactly what he thought of our wandering ways. Today he continues to inform us of our misdemeanours, but to lesser degree. He is getting lots of lap time and attention.
Worldly
Weather
Yikes, the heat and humidity seem endless. We have had only a few minutes of rain since mid-June, almost two months ago. There is no cooler weather in the forecast. There is a 40% chance of rain for 24 hours coming up, but so far this summer, that % chance has come and gone repeatedly without shedding a single raindrop in our area.
The early morning temperature of 24C (feels like 32C) is tolerable for a walk, but just.
24°C
Date: 8:00 AM EDT Monday 11 August 2025
Condition: Mainly Sunny
Pressure: 102.1 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 24.3°C
Dew point: 19.7°C
Humidity: 76%
Wind: SSE 18 km/h
Humidex: 32
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1807 – 1882
I’m glad you had good visits with family, despite the sadness of the reason for the gathering.
Thanks Joan, although intense the visit did strengthen our affectionate connections.
It sounds like a wonderful gathering to celebrate your cousin’s life. This is a tradition that i really like. Love and Hugs. Sandy
Thank you Sandy! It was my first experience with an actual Celebration of Life, very moving and uplifting and emotional. I’d only ever been to formal funerals.
I’m glad you had that time with your family…
We’re having issues here with watering. We had one good thunderstorm but by the next morning you couldn’t even find a puddle. We’re not allowed to water and we also have a burn ban. I thought that one rain storm would make rain more likely but it hasn’t.
DH’s oldest boy was visiting us the last few days. Our girl dog Skye adores him. We brought him home today and she won’t leave the living room now. I don’t know if she’s just lonely and misses him or if she’s afraid we’re going to leave, too.
Thank you Teri for your good wishes.
The water issue sounds difficult to deal with. I hope your beautiful garden survives the lack of watering! We have a burn ban here, and at both our camps. Understandable, no one wants a fire to develop near them. We have papers to burn, but will wait until the snow flies if we need to, before burning them.
The chemistry between animals and humans is fascinating, I usually can think of no reason for it, but it is real, observable. Wishing Sky a speedy resolution to her concerns, I am sure she is getting lots of love to help her on her journey.
Skye was better today, more like her usual self. And we actually had some rain in the middle of the night last night. Every little bit helps!