End of an era

For those of you that didn't grow up with us " Conklin's",  you might find this post a bit over the top...after all it's just Geography, right?....

when I was kid, we moved a lot, I mean A LOT. Sometimes twice or three times a year...We lived in Langley, a short stint in Ontario, Vancouver proper, New Westminster, Chilliwack,  Surrey,  New West., Burnaby, Whalley, White Rock, Revelstoke, Fernie,  Salmon River and Prince George, a lot of these places we lived we lived in numerous homes in the same district... Permanency wasn't something we knew a lot about...as a matter of fact I remember once, when I was quite young...going to sleep in our room in one house and waking up in a room in a new house... Mother always said it was to get out of paying the rent due...but I don't know if that was true or not...a lot of the time, when we did move we sold the furniture we had and got different furniture when we found a new house to rent...sometimes we didn't have furniture (well not all the pieces we needed) until Dad got a paycheck and could find something used that was decent.   So we moved and got different furniture all  at the same time, so we learned early to not get too attached to STUFF... Prince George was the longest place we ever lived that I can remember...although we lived in a couple of different houses there they were just across the alley from one another.  My family tended to move en-mass...too, that's to say, My  uncle and oldest brother moved to Pr.George and shortly after we moved there too...

Years later my older sister moved to Alberta and not long after my parents moved there taking Pam with them...I ended up there too and then they moved back to BC and a few years later my oldest brother moved to the sunshine coast.then my parents did..and then Pam left Alberta and moved there and then Peggy... brother Kelly moved down there.  When my first husband passed away my father and sister came for the funeral and my Dad tried talking me into selling and moving down there...and the sales pitch continued for a few months afterward...and I might have eventually done that if I hadn't met Robert...

Who knows how things would have turned out if I had...But the gypsy feet on my parents had stilled...and they stayed there until the end..it ended up being the longest place they had ever lived in..  On Klahanie Drive  about 7 miles north of Powell River...My brother originally had a lovely single level beachfront home, sold that and bought a lot across the street and built his own home, there was an empty treed lot in a pie shape between his place and the place my parents bought...At first my Dad really liked it there, took him back to his commercial fisherman days..when he owned his own fishing boat and moored it at Ft. Langley on the Fraser River. My Mom could have lived anywhere, since she basically sat at the window with her little table and did crossword puzzles, smoked and neighbour watched...as the world passed by. My Dad made friends there and liked to socialize...my mom not so much. She had an aversion to people..I think that's where some of us get our social retardation from.

There was another empty lot on the other side of brother David and then a lovely open lot with a rickety little trailer on it..but the most spectacular view of the ocean, see the lot was elevated enough compared to the others on that side of the road that you looked right over the roof of the house in front and saw the sparkling waters of the Pacific ocean..and off in the distance Harwood and Texada Islands.  Tall cedar and fir trees lined the rocky beach.  but the lot was littered with old abandoned kitchen appliances and car bodies...and the elderly gentleman that lived there was wanting to move into town but the natives who own all the land on that part of the coast wanted him to clean the lot up...my Dad had befriended the old guy a year or so before and they sometimes went fishing together...Dad offered to help him clean it up and haul it all to the dump with his truck...and eventually the old guy told him he wanted to sell the place if he could...but that it was worthless the way it was...he sold it to my Dad for $1.oo if my Dad cleaned the lot up...and he did...
The trailer was small...needed a ton of work inside...but he made some new kitchen cabinets himself...fixed it up a bit and gave it to my sister Pam, who was renting a place in town...so the girls (they were just little then) would be close to Granny and Grandpa..while Pam was working...it suited them all very well... and that's how three houses in a row were occupied by family... When  Jim moved in with Pam at her place on Klahanie...it seemed like a perfect fit...he had the little shop attached to the carport for doing his wood working projects...they made the place a home...although, in every home Pam has ever lived in as an adult, either good or bad, she has always made it cozy...she had a knack for nesting...She worked hard at improving the yard and eventually even erected the most talked about lawn feature in the family...my mother's old bicycle, painted ghostly white...and set on a tall pipe in the ground out in the back yard among the cedars...it's still there and we all love it...

When ever I flew down for a visit...sometimes 5 years would go by before I made it down, I always stayed at Mom and Dad's and then when that was no longer in the family I stayed at Jen's place in town but we spent most of time out on Klahanie at Pam's. It was Jen and Ayla's second home.  It became the axis of our little Conklin world.. I remember sitting outside around a fragrant cedar bon fire..... roasting marshmallows and catching up with family news...or playing a game of "dimes" ( a favorite dice game) around the table after another one of Pam's great dinners on a Sunday night.  I was horribly envious of her, back then, she had the best years of our parents...they had mellowed a lot by then.  Those Sunday night dinners and games...man... when I was kid I cried myself to sleep many a night fervently wishing my family did that sort of thing...and then...when I lived a thousand miles away...they did.... Those trips I took to visit my family were bitter sweet to me...I never wanted to leave...
Oh I'm not saying they were the WALTON's  or Cleaver's...but they were like the family I dreamed of belonging to... the gentle bickering, teasing, hugs, comradery and sense of belonging.  I would fly home, pick my car up from the park n'ride.. and arrive home to an empty house... no one excited that I was back...or giving hugs because they missed me...my son was usually staying at his friends overnight and Sid was out working... at night there'd be a hockey game on TV or some new girly magazine he was perusing...my son shut up in his room and I could never get them to sit at the table and be a family... the one time we ever managed to play a board game together..my first husband slaughtered both my son and I and so totally demoralized us in the doing of it that we never attempted to play monopoly again...as a matter of fact I still loath that game to this very day...

So when  I found out that my sisters daughter had put her moms old place up for sale I was filled with grief... silly I know.. but we can't help how we feel.

It is like someone just pulled the carpet out from under us.. My Dad's favorite little dog is buried there...for all I know my mothers ashes are there too...so much history... my first instinct was to buy it and rent it out... but the listing price is too high... it doesn't make financial sense to own a place so far away..and although my family lives there I have never become attached to Powell River like they have so retiring there is not an option. I need to be close to specialists and hospitals and a good movie theatre. hahaha
and so with heavy heart I am going to stand back and let it be sold. but it grieves me to do so..and I worry about my sister. It must be sad for her to see it sold, although she says it's not...It sure as hell hurts for the rest of us.  But be fore warned Pam, no matter where you move we will always find you...ahahha   It's just geography right?   It doesn't matter where you live your life...it's who you live it with that matters.. it's people we are a part of not a place. 

Still it is a shock to the system..when a crucial element of your family DNA is sold out from under you, especially for us, since we moved so often and never put down roots...until Powell River, that's why it's so emotional for us. So sad.

Oh well, that's life they say...the only thing constant in life is change...

I hope they remember to take Mom's bike with them to their new place.