One last post for Martha

Martha on Lake Simcoe with my aunt Norah

A memorial site has been set up for my cousin Martha Mills, her fiancee Sean and their friend Peter Ambler. There are some photos of the three of them and some links to worthy causes and projects in their names. There is also a guest book for people to add their memories.

I wanted to finish writing about Martha with this photo above, because as I have already written, this is mostly how I remember her, as a little kid at my grandparent’s cottage on Lake Simcoe, north of Toronto.

This picture must have been taken in the early 1980s. The boat is my grandfather’s old 100 horsepower cedar strip launch called Chinook, named for the warm winds that blow down the lee side of the Rocky Mountains in the winter in places just east of Canmore, Alberta, where Martha lived most recently.

I think the last time I saw Marf (as we called her) was actually at Lake Simcoe in 1996 during a family reunion when we sold the place. The cottage (it was actually a huge house) was the centre of my grandparent’s family, and as long as we had that place, we were all close and in contact. Since then, with family spread all over North America in Ontario, Quebec, Minnesota, Alberta, BC and as far away as Australia, we don’t see each other much. My grandparents both died in the 1990s and with them in many ways went the glue that held us together, like many extended families in this part of the world.

Martha’s death reminds me of how much I miss those crazy get togethers at the Lake with my grandfather driving us like slaves to paint the boathouse or cut the grass or rake the leaves. Once in a while, if we were lucky and we had finished most of the chores, and if Grandpa Jack had tinkered enough with Chinook to get her working, we would get a chance to ride out into the lake with him, cutting over the water, sticking our hands in the spray, wind tossing our hair around.

Just like in this picture.

In this picture, Martha has all the happiness and promise of a life to come in that wide mouthed grin. She is covered in bright coloured safety gear – a trend which she never gave up, being an adventurer her whole life – and she has her hand in the water, connected to the elements around her, pulling away a little from mom, starting to become the independent, adventurous woman she eventually became.

I’ve been holding my aunt Norah and uncle Doug and their son Mike and Fred in my thoughts all week. I love them very much and wish them peace and closure and warm memories of this wonderful young woman who graced their lives.