My Fall

There are two major days in a Wiccan’s life, the initiation, and the year and a day. The initiation occurs after you accept Wicca as your religion and the God and Goddess as your deities. This rite is performed by your coven once you are accepted into it, or it can be sloppily done by yourself if you are a Solitary Wiccan like me. The year and a day comes, you guessed it, a year and a day after your initiation ceremony, after a year and a day of study, practice, and worship. 1

It was October twenty-fourth, a week before the largest Wiccan Sabbat, Samhain, and eight days before my year and a day. I had spent the last year searching for books, memorizing philosophies, and studying rituals, symbols, and books on the subject of Wicca. I was running around the house, secretly collecting candles, organizing my incense, and finding scraps of food for libitation for the big night. As I was scurrying around, I was called into my father’s office for the news.2

“Kirstin.”3

“Yup.” I thumbed through the papers on his desk.4

“Granny called; Grandpa is in the hospital.”5

I looked up, eyes wide, “For what?”6

“He’s still sick.”7

“Oh.”8

I walked back downstairs and closed my door, sealing in my found possessions. I was not surprised by the news. My grandfather had been sick on and off since August. They still didn’t know what the cause of it was.9

I spent the night reorganizing my thoughts; I had to plan two celebrations for myself and my Gods. The trouble with being a Solitary Wiccan is having to do everything yourself. By the next night, I had a basic plan of what both rites would entail, and my parents had a plan to visit my grandfather. The whole family was planning to congregate in Kamloops within the next few weeks.10

“I am going down Monday. They don’t know when he’ll be good enough to go back home, and I need to keep Cathy in check.” My Aunt Cathy was a nosy, opinionated woman who tried to run everyone’s lives on a schedule. As the oldest child, it was my father’s job to stop her from doing just that while taking care of grandpa.11

My mother sat with me on the couch. “We’re still deciding if we should go with Dad on Monday or not.”12

My breath stopped. I knew that my feelings were selfish and childish. I sank lower on the couch. There was no way I could do my year and a day in a hotel room with my parents in Kamloops. It was trouble enough to cast a circle in my own house since no one knew I was Wiccan. Although my family has never been seriously religious or gone to church, both parents had grown up in protestant households. Their childhoods were full of the usual amount of anti-witchcraft propaganda. My father is a large, loud man who is not afraid to share his opinion. Because of this, I am reluctant to share my beliefs which may end in his rage.13

It wasn’t that I didn’t love my Grandfather and didn’t want to see him, but my year and a day was a special event I had been waiting for. It wouldn’t be right to do it when we came back when it was a year, a week, and three days. 14

“I’m not sure if I should miss that much school.” I threw out the idea, knowing that it would make my parents worry about it. 15

“We’ll figure it out. Ryan can’t leave until the following Monday anyway.” Ryan is my older brother.16

I prayed for my grandfather every night. Monday came and my father left for Kamloops, but we did not. We were going to leave Friday morning. I breathed a sigh of relief. When Samhain came, all of my friends went out to trick or treat, or to parties, but I stayed at home with my Mom. We took turns answering the door for little kids while watching old horror movies. At midnight, I set out a plate of cookies and biscuits, as well as a glass of fruit juice, the closest thing I had to wine. This year, it was not only a libitation for my family and loved ones who had passed on, but for the one on the verge of passing on. I prayed for my grandpa extra hard, asking the God and Goddess to help him heal, hold on, and be happy. I went to bed with a knot in my stomach. It was a mixture of fear and worry for my grandfather and anxiousness for my year and a day the following day. 17

Once all the lights were out and everything had come to a quiet emptiness within my house, I lit my candles, one for each direction. Yellow is for the east, red is south, blue is west, and green is north. I cast my circle three times around on the floor of my room. After anointing myself, I raised my wand and prayed to the Lord and Lady to help me follow a positive religious lifestyle and help the world become a better place. I presented a libitation of juice and cookies to the God and Goddess then spent a moment praying for my grandfather. I went to sleep more relaxed than the night before.18

The trip to Kamloops was a long drive and I slept a lot. The late night had left me drowsy, but I felt a new calm welling up inside of me. I was proud of the small, homemade, and newly consecrated pentacle tied to a thin green cord around my neck, hiding just under the neck of my shirt. We got to the hotel around six and loaded our stuff into the room that my father had already been renting for days. 19

Early the next morning, we met my Aunt Cathy and my cousin Andrew at my granny’s house and we all had breakfast before heading over to the hospital to see my grandpa. After fifteen minutes of circling the block, we found a parking spot and walked back to the hospital. My grandfather’s room was on the sixth floor. The rooms were a pale blue, perhaps to make them seem less sterile and foreboding. It didn’t work. Sharing a room with three others, my grandfather lay in a bed that was folded into a sitting position with the touch of a button. I needed only the first sight of him to realize that the likelihood of him going home was slim. What had once been the frame of a stout but strong man; someone who had finished a Bachelor program only two years prior, a man who had climbed the dusty hills around Kamloops in an effort to find fossils only months prior; was now a frail and dying body with loose skin and white stubble around the cracked lips. His white hair fell loosely onto his sweaty forehead and stuck there. Over the weekend that I was there, he seemed to lose more and more weight, his face and cheeks fell jaggedly onto the ancient bones underneath.20

Later that day, after grabbing some lunch, the group of us came back into my grandpa’s room to find it full of chatting young women. Two of the girls from my grandpa’s art classes had called my granny last night to check on how grandpa was doing. She told them that he was still in the hospital and gave them the room number. Those two girls had now grown into a dozen or so. All of them were leaning over grandpa, propped on his bed, or leaning against the walls. There was a stack of new get well cards now on the bedside table and everyone was wishing he would get better. We snuck in quickly to tell grandpa that we would be back soon, and then we left to sit in one of the waiting rooms until the girls were done. On their way out, a woman around twenty-five with thick dreads and a peasant skirt, the same one who had first called my granny, asked my uncle if we could keep her informed on my grandpa’s condition. She wrote her number on a scrap of paper then was left in the same loud chatty fashion that I imagine they entered.21

Our days were spent at the hospital, taking shifts between the families to speak to and visit our grandpa. All of the children and grandchildren were there from Cathy and David with their two kids, to Richard with Greg, to us. The nights were spent shopping, eating out together, and catching up. I still prayed for grandpa each night. We tried as best we could to keep happy at these times, since the hours spent in the blue room left us depressed and pessimistic. 22

I remember a nurse talking to my granny on Saturday afternoon. “He can’t move around or stand anymore, so he’s getting bedsores. We need to borrow a special bed from another hospital to stop it, but it will take three to four days to get in. Do you want us to order it?”23

“Let’s see where he is heading by Monday, and then decide.” I could hear the pain in my grandmother’s voice. They were almost certain by now that he had cancer.24

I said goodbye to him that Sunday in the most chipper, optimistic way I could manage. I hugged and kissed him before heading off to the airport. 25

Back in Cranbrook, I spent the night alone, since my brother had already headed out to Kamloops himself. Monday night, I got a call from my parents. Grandpa had become unconscious that morning around five, and by seven he was dead. My mother and brother were driving home tomorrow and then we would both take the bus back to Kamloops on Friday for the funeral. 26

Being back so soon to the same place and the same hotel room was confusing. It felt as if nothing had changed and no time had gone by since that Sunday, but I knew that so much had happened. I was now unpacking my clothing that was meant for a funeral. 27

I met with the whole family for the fourth time at Malibu for dinner, a local restaurant. My cousin Jen was there this time with her father Richard, though Greg could not make it. We ate and caught up with what had happened in the past week. Grandpa’s obituary had been sent to the local newspaper as well as the newspaper at the university my grandfather had been attending. We had all helped to put it together on previous Sunday and my grandpa had approved of it before he passed away. It had been in Thursday’s paper and my granny brought a copy of it to dinner for us all to see.28

I shared a motel room with Ryan which was right next to our parents’ room. We got up early to get ready for the funeral. I wore an old grey patterned dress with new black shoes and one of my mother’s barrettes in my hair. My pentacle could clearly be seen around my neck without a tee-shirt but I tried not to worry much: no one would be looking at me. 29

We met everyone at the protestant church only blocks away from the hospital. Its tall brick walls towered over us as we walked down the aisle. We helped the priest set up candles and the table at the front of the church where my grandfather would sit in his urn. The grandchildren, myself included, waited at the back where we handed out the funeral service pamphlets and helped everyone get seated. The woman from the hospital with the thick dreads came to the service with another student. They looked out of place next to all of the members of the legion, the archaeology society, and the neighbours. We took our places at the front of the church and then priest started the service. 30

My granny was called up to thank everyone for attending before my father took over for the priest. He read off of a folded piece of paper, occasionally looking up to the crowd sitting in the booths. He spoke of his childhood and how the family used to move around from place to place depending on where my grandpa, who was in the navy at that time, was stationed. He talked of the different loves in my grandfather’s life, but mostly of his undying loves for art and wood work. My dad talked of how, as a young boy, he had helped my grandpa build anything from patio chairs and sheds to a row boat they used when they lived on the coast. My father has the same love for wood and I know it is rooted in his childhood where he had such good memories of his father and him building things.31

After my father, a member of the legion stood up and spoke of his fond memories in the Navy and the many decades of being a friend to my grandfather. He thanked us all for coming to pay our respects and touched on his sad feelings that there were less and less of the Navy veterans left each year. He then told us what had been planned for my grandfather’s ashes. Each year, a Canadian Navy boat would set out to sea with a crew of ashes. All of the Navy veterans who had passed on would be brought out to sea and their ashes would be sprinkled into the ocean to join their comrades who had fallen in battle all those years ago. My grandfather was one of those men, he had decided years ago that when he passed away, it was where he wanted to finally rest. With so many years in the Navy and even more spent living by the ocean, I thought resting in the ocean was perfect for my grandfather.32

The services soon drew to a close and after an announcement that a reception would be held at the legion in half of an hour, the priest stood again and asked us all to bow for a prayer.33

“We thank the lord that we could all join here to...”34

Lord and Lady, thank you for letting us all gather here with respect to my grandfather. Let him rest peacefully beneath the sea and let my grandmother live happily knowing that he is finally at peace. Let us all move on and live, knowing that grandpa is casting his loving light in our direction. May you watch over him, God and Goddess, and let him rest happily and eternally underneath the waves. Blessed Be.35

“...And shall we all pray that his soul is safe in heaven. Amen.”36