Healy 2019
In 2019, I took my first real vacation with Alicia. We visited my parents camp at Healey, Ontario, near my hometown of Chapleau. As close to any place in the world ever could be, Healey is my home. It's where I spent my summers until I departed for university, and where I hurried back to when those university summers allowed. It was special to me in a way no where else could be.
Alicia and I spent the week exploring the lake (Como Creek, Grazing Inlet, the falls, the ghost town of Nicholson, packed with living Petroskys and Tremblay), fishing, hiking and exploring dead logging roads. Plant and animal identification guides in hand (soft cover books, your kilometres, or a lucky hill, away from reception) we looked at flowers and mushrooms and tried to figure out which red berry was which. At least sugar plums/service berries/Saskatoon berries, blueberries and raspberries are easy and rewarding to identify.
Chapleau is a place with little left for me, although I was looking forward to my final visit this summer. I was going to plan it like one of my central Ontario outlines, focusing on claims to fame, old restaurants, weird signs and the like. There's have been enough for an afternoon and a video. And I'd have liked to have done that.
Alicia got an informal version of they trip, the adventure that came four years before the first cancer adventure. It was nostalgic for me, and as always just a little bittersweet. Chapleau isn't the Chapleau I knew (nor should it be, I left).
The next trip I planned with Alicia was past the pandemic, past a mental health crisis or two, past diagnosis, HIPEC's failure and past this last round of chemo. On July 5th, we were to set out towards Alberta to meet dinosaurs and the ruins of Frank and accidentally be in Calgary during the stampede and none of it ever happened. Because that week the cancer won.
The cancer was ways going to win. And I don't care that it has. My capacity for adventure has decreased, but I'll wake up every morning seeking it. And these days, I'm pretty good at finding it, too.