On Monday, July 21, 2025, Mom and I had a junk company pick up a collection of items we’d gathered. Dad was always meticulous about clearing out anything broken, useless, or no longer relevant. In fact, the last pick up he had arranged was as recent as February 2024. We knew he’d be proud of the exhausting work we put in over the past week – one of only two summer “holiday weeks” I’m taking this summer. We cleared out an old sandbox, dug out two years’ worth of birdseed, and hunted down other items inappropriate for donation. Reassuringly, the junk company we use identifies anything salvageable to donate to charities, just in case something slips through that can be rehabilitated back to usefulness.
Early in the afternoon we received heartbreaking news that a dear friend’s wonderful rabbit had passed away due to unexpected complications from cancer treatment. Alongside the tears and sorrow for their loss, the moment stirred echoes of last summer’s tragedy, when Dad, too, faced “unexpected complications” after surgery. The grief opened a door, a door that opens with the faintest whisper of encouragement, and the trauma memories and thoughts from that time a year ago began to intrude, uninvited and overwhelming.
By late afternoon, with the final hours of my last vacation day slipping away, I wasn’t sure what to do next. The sky had been persistently grey, and the temperature felt more like a cool, damp fall day rather than mid-July. It was definitely the kind of day where simply hunkering down indoors was appealing. After a long, physically demanding week perhaps I could just rest – a luxury I rarely allow myself. My body, worn from days of labour and autoimmune flares, was aching. Maybe I would just quietly lay still for some maintenance and recovery time.
Lying down on the bed, I felt a restless energy I couldn’t shake. I opened a self-care app I’ve been using to track my goals and one of the remaining tasks for the day jumped out at me: “Do a quick body scan”. It felt doable. Over the past few weeks, I have found this simple practice of performing a quick body scan to be surprisingly illuminating – it’s always interesting (and sometimes surprising!) to noticed where tension and pain have settled in.
I settled in sinking into the bed and began at the feet, tuning into the soreness in my ankles and slowly working my way upward but the process was quickly derailed. A wave of memories from Dad’s final weeks in the hospital suddenly flooded in. I paused, took a deep breath, and tried again. My awareness made it up to my hips before similar memories flooded in. Another deep breath. I couldn’t understand why this was happening and why I kept being pulled under by these sudden, intrusive thoughts.
On my third attempt at the body scan, I managed to focus my attention past my hip joints. But as I moved toward my chest, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sharp, unbearable wave of emotional pain. A vast aching emptiness had opened across my chest – a bottomless void. I sat with the raw, gaping pain suddenly hitting me, gasping and stunned, on the precipice of falling in. I abandoned the scan and quickly straightened up.
Sitting quietly for a moment, I tried to tune in to my intuition and listen to subtle inner nudges. The message: take a walk. Oddly, I sensed I needed to dress with more intention rather than wear my usual casual clothes for this walk. I reached for a special shirt from the Oregon coast – one of two magical, spiritual places for me and my family. Dad drove Mom, my brother and I down south to the coast on a summer holiday along Highway 101 when I was in junior high. It was my first true introduction to the foam-tossed beauty of the Pacific Ocean – breathtaking; rugged; terrifying; sublime.
I began searching for a coat. I was thinking a shawl to wrap protectively around, but the ones usually tucked away in nearby baskets were further back in the closet for summer. My fingertips fell upon a purple hoodie in the front hall closet – too precious to be worn for nearly 30 years, yet always nearby on a hanger. Yes. This one.
Still in beautiful condition, it had only been worn a handful of times since Dad bought it for me, its value preserved by the memories it held. “Radium Hot Springs Lodge” was embroidered over the heart. It was cozy – perfect for cool mountain evenings. Just looking at it transported me back to those crisp evenings after a soak in the healing waters of the mineral pool below that would leave you feeling totally relaxed, blissed out. I was suddenly back sitting on the Lodge’s balcony, perched on the side of the mountain, eye to eye with lodgepole pines gently swaying and curious ravens, across from the hot springs pools and soft ice cream café, looking for Rocky Mountain Sheep and bears in the trees, as traffic far below winded its way through the red rock canyon.
Radium Hot Springs was the other sacred place for our family. A town of healing waters and where rugged pines stubbornly clung to towering ancient rock carved by an ancient glacier-fed stream, and wildlife intermingle with human residents and visitors. We returned to this enchanted place for decades: first with my grandparents, and later as our essential family of four. Dad and I also visited it together during the shoulder seasons – we were two nature-loving souls drawn back time and again and again to pay reverence to the extraordinary beauty at nature’s altar, Like the Oregon Coast, Radium is a place where the veil between everyday reality and the eternal is remarkably thin. Spiritual nirvana, and eternity itself, feels almost within reach.
The springs and town remain open, but Hot Springs Lodge was eventually closed, its cliffside presence deemed disruptive to the seasonal migration patterns of the Rocky Mountain sheep herd that make the rugged landscape home. Before it was demolished, I made a final pilgrimage to the town and up the mountain side to say a final goodbye. The lodge stood like a ghost of its former self – windows shattered, rooms abandoned – yet the energy traces from past visits still lingered.
On our most recent trips to the park, no trace of the lodge remained. Nature had reclaimed its ground. The outdoor elevator shaft, once carved into the mountainside to transport excited visitors to highway level to the underpass that leads to the springs, had been filled in. Grasses and wildflowers blanketed the mountainside. The land had quietly healed, returning to its own original rhythm. Connection with the source had been affirmed and reestablished.
I slipped on the hoodie and stepped outside.
Under the grey sky, feeling hollow and heavy, I once again sent a silent plea to the universe –to Dad. Please, give me a sign. Let me know you’re here.
As always, I was met with silence. Only the wind responded, rushing through the leaves with that familiar sound that leaves my heart aching. I am reminded The Wind in the Willows, the 1908 novel by Kenneth Graham that Dad used to read to me during our many story times. Despite its lighthearted charm, even as a child I sensed a wistfulness in its pages – a gentle longing for a more innocent time. The wind has haunted me through every season this past year. Ageless. Timeless. All-knowing. It carries the echoes of joy and sorry, the cries of those who have lived, loved, and been reabsorbed into the unknown.
Not fifteen paces later, I found myself face to face with a large hare sitting low to the ground. The hare was still and silent, eyes narrowed, back pressed against a cable box. A quiet sentinel at the threshold of my journey. I paused, struck by its presence. Continuing onward, the sentinel’s more animated friend popped out from behind the cable box, on high alert and nervous. My heart stirred at the sight of the two hares, a reminder of a statue of a rabbit parent and child playfully touching noses on my deck, in the same playful way Dad would have me stand on his feet as he walked around, or give me piggyback rides on his shoulders. The statue sits beside some favourite purple daisy-like flowers Dad loved so much. He’d picked them out last year in June in a nearby often-frequented greenhouse. This year, I chose them for him.
The tears began to flow freely now, and I shook my head, my heart balking at reading too deeply into the encounter with the hares. I pressed on, past the line of houses and down the hill toward the lakes, slowly approaching the boulders by the bridge. The shallow waters there offer a haven for young waterfowl. It had been the perfect place to bring Dad early in the pandemic quarantine, a tentative excursion offering a much-needed connection with nature.
A few ducklings paddled nearby. I crossed the bridge. And then, suddenly, it hits me like a gut punch – I knew why my body reacted so violently during the body scan. My body had known what my mind had not yet caught up to. A year ago today was the last full day of consciousness for my Dad. It was also the last day I had with the whole, present, beautiful version of him, although he was so very ill. We spent that day together in the ICU, filled with nervous anticipation before his heart surgery the next day. We were all so hopeful – looking forward to getting to the other side, to healing and to a better quality of life.
His appetite had been abysmal at the hospital, but I took a chance and picked up a malt Frosty from Wendy’s, a favourite treat. He managed two spoonfuls, closed his eyes, and said it was just the best treat he’d had. The moment was abruptly interrupted by a nurse monitoring his blood sugar. The nurse’s timing, like too many other experiences throughout the past two weeks, was deeply unlucky and unkind. Her disruptive entrance marked the shift to a more difficult part of the day, with late afternoon and evening challenges – transfer to the cardiac hospital and settling into a new room – each difficulty seemed exponentially more difficult than the previous.
The painful memories became too much, and I try to wipe them from my mind as I began to wipe the tears from my cheeks – both futile efforts I fail miserably at. The path around the lake is, at least, mercifully empty, granting me space to fall apart in solitude. Truthfully though, I’ve been living in my own disconnected world of solitude for a year now, whether or not others are actually physically present. The loneliness of grief has been a constant companion since that morning Dad passed – since I walked through those buzzing hallways of the cardiac ICU unit during shift change, shattered, numb and distant. The world moved around me, but I was no longer part of it.
The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I determinedly put one foot in front of the other, not unlike how I’ve approached every moment of every day this past year. The path curved gently left, following the contour of the lake, before gradually climbing upward. At last, I reached the trail’s crest, where the incline gives way to a gentle descent, leading me back to where I began – back to the row of houses and the bridge, which was the trail’s lowest point. Overhead, the heavy grey clouds still loomed, threatening rain. I paused, listening inwardly, asking if it’s time to return home. The answer is clear, though the reason remains unclear. I cross the bridge and begin the loop again.
I hastily was wiping tears from my cheeks, as dampness spread across the chest of my hoodie. A woman was approaching slowly slightly ahead, on the grassy section beside the path as a smallish shaggy dog of indeterminate breed sniffed the ground. Dad loved dogs – his face would light up with a gentle warmth whenever he encountered one, whether on walks, on tv, or on his annual DOG page a day calendar. From his early days as an only child with his beloved Scamp, the classic archetype of a man and his loyal canine companion held deep meaning for him. He never truly recovered from the heartbreak of returning home in Winnipeg after spending a summer’s day at Grand Beach to find Scamp gone, his careless grandmother only offering a vague explanation that his dog must have run away.
Dad would often reference John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America, a travelogue chronicling a 1960 road trip with his cherished standard poodle Charley. Eventually, Dad would have his own beloved poodle, a new companion with whom he shared a profound bond for nearly 20 years.
I passed the woman to the left of me, and we both instinctively averted our eyes, choosing to remain in our own private worlds. Her dog’s nose was down to the ground as he strolled, absorbed in his own quiet investigation. I could sense her exasperation at the pace, although she was still allowing him the grace of time. I glanced at the dog, a silent understanding flickered between us. She doesn’t get me, he seemed to say. But I do, I though, smiling inwardly. I understand you.
I headed up the hill once more, the path hugged by grasses and wildflowers and scattered bushes and trees and silence. The curve turned left again, and the trail descended. Just beyond the Perpetually Wet Spot – where runoff from the hill gathers and crosses the gravel and always leaves a bit of a muddy mess to cross – something catches my eye in the center of the path. I slow, narrowing my focus. The silhouette is familiar, though it couldn’t possibly be what I think it is. I stop in front of it, stunned. A light grey feather lies perfectly centered on the trail, steam toward me, feather pointing ahead. How did I miss this the first time around?
Birds have been a constant thread in Dad’s life, and by extension, in ours, spanning decades. In recent years, and amplified during the isolation of the pandemic, his bond with the birds and squirrels in the backyard was a lifeline – filling the bird feeder with black oil sunflower seeds and broken shell peanuts and the bird bath with water was a daily ritual that kept him grounded in nature. He was always ready for a visit with his friends, his pockets stocked with few peanuts for blue jays and squirrels just in case of a chance encounter.
In autumn and winter, we’d often make our way to the trails in Hawrelak Park and Laurier Park, carrying a container of black oil sunflower seeds. The tame chickadees were bold enough to perch on your outstretched hand for a treat. Their tiny feet felt cold against your skin; their bodies so light they were almost imperceptible. Often, they’d pause for a moment, tilting their heads as if sizing you up with their beady black eyes, before gratefully selecting a seed and fluttering to a nearby branch to enjoy their spoils.
There is something ethereal and enchanted about shed feathers that have captured our imagination. Sometimes Dad would collect the most beautiful ones to share with me – artefacts of soaring flight, a freedom we could only imagine. Two of his most treasured gifts was an iridescent magpie feather he’d found, and a peacock feather fan he had discovered decades earlier in an antique shop, which he had kept displayed among some of his oldest books before he felt the time was right to pass it on.
We were always in awe of birds in flight. Our keen shared interest was first ignited when he took me to see the 1985 IMAX film Skyward, with remarkable close ups of Canada Geese in flight. Dad later took me to the 1996 movie Fly Away Home, which told the story of Bill Lishman – “Father Goose” – a man who taught Canada geese to follow his ultralight aircraft, guiding them along their forgotten ancestral migratory path. A few years ago, I found a remarkable print capturing the ultralight soaring with geese in formation. Dad kept it in a cherished spot in his bedroom.
Dad resembled an owl in many ways – wise, thoughtful, and deeply devoted to books. In his later years, he surrounded his desk with owl statues and imagery. Of all possible owls, the Great Grey seemed to embody him best. Dad was the Great Grey Owl, and we’d refer to him affectionately as such.
The morning of his passing, as we returned home – hearts shattered, moving through the surreal fog of grief – we stepped out of the Grand Caravan and noticed something extraordinary. There, perfectly placed on the driveway, a small, dark grey feather lay, as if waiting for us. The symbolism was impossible to ignore: Dad had transcended. He had taken flight.
As we stood in stunned silence and tears, a gentle breeze lifted the feather from the concrete. It floated gently into the garage, beckoning us to follow. Even in his passing, Dad was guiding us.
Later, as we began sorting through the estate planning documents, we discovered that the urn he had carefully chosen years before for internment was titled Take Flight.
Over the past year, at the most meaningful and emotionally vulnerable moments, birds, squirrels – and especially feathers – have appeared, as if nudged toward us with quiet purpose.
A feather blew onto the driveway when I finally found the strength to tend to my yard in September after a summer steeped in pain. Two magpie feathers framed my brother’s house when we gathered outside for the first time in the fall. Another feather lay in the center of my driveway, as if guarding the house, during the excruciating stretch between Mom and Dad’s anniversary and Father’s Day.
One feather was tucked into a subtle corner of the front flowerbed Dad would always check out when he’d visit me several times a week, at a time when I was questioning whether or not I had the strength or will to tend to the flowers. Single feathers showed up at Mom’s house – one guarding the front, another in the back – while we finished yard projects Dad hadn’t been able to complete last year. And on and on they came.
There’s always been a quiet hope that these feathers were signs, lovingly nudged into place by Dad. A part of me fears that is too optimistic and that the “frequency illusion” is at play, while another part holds onto the hope tightly.
Back to the feather on the trail.
When I came across this tiny, exquisitely perfect light grey feather – smoother and a lighter grey shade than the fluffy dark one that greeted us last year after returning from the hospital –I stopped dead in my tracks, staring, overwhelmed by the weight of the moment and the symbolism it potentially carried.
My mind raced. How had I missed it the first time around the lake? Why was it so perfectly centered and intact? What does it mean and what do I do next? And then ridiculous mundane questions were popping up – what about bird flu? Could the feather be contaminated if I were to pick it up? I proceeded forward, taking a few cautious steps around the feather and then onwards forward on the trail, my heart full yet confused and thoughts racing.
“DADDY!!!!”
The cry rang out across the lake, sharp and startling. I gasped, my hand flying to cover my mouth.
“DADDY!!!! WAIT FOR ME, WAIT FOR ME!!!! DADDY!!!”
On a 90-degree sidewalk that intersected with my gravel path about 30 feet ahead, a small child – more than four – was running downhill, arms flailing, voice desperate.
“DAD! DADDY, WAIT FOR ME!!!”
I stood frozen, eyes wide. I followed the boy’s path with my gaze, extending it forward until I spotted a man walking far ahead, his back turned, moving steadily away.
The boy with chubby cheeks, breath heavy, slowed to a walk, then cried out again – “DADDY, WAIT FOR ME!” – before summoning his strength and breaking into a run before the figure once more.
The man, perhaps a hundred feet ahead of the boy, never turned around. He kept walking, steady and focused, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
I stared in disbelief. This can’t be happening, I thought. It’s too surreal. Questioning my own senses, I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo – just in case, in case I couldn’t trust what I was seeing or hearing.
The man crossed the bridge and disappeared into the distance. The boy, now silent, kept running and eventually crossed the bridge too, fading from view.
I turned left onto the sidewalk, and once again made my way toward the bridge, my mind still struggling to process the unfathomable. Then my thoughts returned to the feather. I needed to take a picture of it. I knew I had to circle the lake a third time, approaching it the same way, so I could capture the moment exactly as it had appeared in my view.
My pace quickened.
Crossing the bridge once more, I followed the gentle curve of the path. The adrenaline from everything that had just unfolded seemed to heighten my senses, sharpening the world around me. I began to notice things I’d missed on my first two laps around the lake – the greens of the teeming foliage were more vivid, the mirror-like stillness of the water, the moody, churning grey sky overhead. Clusters of heather-like purple wildflowers caught my eye, nestled among the grasses and bushes.
I noticed some crushed red berries on the gravel path, and my thoughts turned to the four cups of raspberries I had picked the day before. Dad loved my raspberries – he would have been so thrilled with this year’s abundant crop, ripening so beautifully. I had taken the first ripe raspberry to him in the hospital, but he wasn’t able to try a taste then. I always made sure to flash freeze some, so he could enjoy them in his cereal first thing in the morning during the depths of winter.
My mind was in overdrive, darting between the present moment, heart warming memories of Dad, and sharp painful recollections of last year’s hospital days. Grief, love, and memory were all colliding.
Halfway around the lake and breaking through the racing thoughts I felt an instinctive, urgent pull: I need to pick up the feather. But what about the risk of bird flu? Looking down at my phone, I wished I had something I could use to safely handle it. If only I had something to pick it up… I reached into the pocket of the hoodie not worn in over two decades, half hoping, half doubting. My fingers closed around a soft tissue tucked into the left pocket.
I passed another person walking two larger dogs and carefully navigated through the Perpetually Wet Spot once again. Breathlessly I approached the feather. It was still there – undisturbed, waiting. I took a few photos of it in situ, before gently picking it up with my left hand in the tissue.
Connection. Completion. A homecoming of sorts.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the sky had changed. The ambient light had brightened. I looked up. Between the vast grey folds of clouds, the sun had found a small opening – just enough to shine through. It was overwhelmingly profound. I actually started to hyperventilate.
The light poured through that narrow crack in the sky, illuminating the lake… and me. Thin layers of cloud would drift in front, but the sun held its place, shining through that one break in the heavens. I stood there, stunned, thinking, this can’t be happening.
Laughing through gasps, I pulled out my phone and began taking pictures – video too – desperate to capture what I knew was something far beyond coincidence.
In true Dad fashion, he’d orchestrated it all with unmistakable symbolism – leaving no room for doubt, no chance I could miss or dismiss it. It was beautiful. I felt the connection, the joy, the love – pure and radiant, filling my heart.
After a couple of minutes, the break in the clouds gently closed, and the sky returned to its moody uniform grey. But something inside me had shifted – profoundly. I felt lighter, connected to him… a connection transformed but forged in the affirmation of presence. His presence.
As I turned to walk along the sidewalk behind the row of houses once more, I heard their serenade – the chickadees, flitting among the trees beside the path. They had come out and were singing their sweet familiar songs.
As I approached the bridge, I knew I needed to circle the lake one final fourth time before heading home. I needed the time and space to process, to gently come down intensity of what had just unfolded and immerse myself in the gratitude of the experience.
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The experience that unfolded on Monday, July 21, 2025, was so deeply emotional and profoundly moving that I feel compelled to record it just as it happened. Photos included were taken from the same day, with the exception of the rabbit statue photo, taken on day of publishing. There are no embellishments, no post-event edits. Every moment, every thought, occurred exactly as I’ve written below, with the exception of some additional details/context provided for Radium Hot Springs, the Oregon Coast, and birds and feathers.
