Ghosts

I finally embraced them all.  Having languished patiently in a carton in the back corner of our basement, our ancestors, loved ones and accolades were today unwrapped and installed in places of honour.

I had been meaning to welcome them here for a year-and-a-half, but hadn't got around to it.  With B away for three weeks in Houston, I have embarked on several projects, one of which is to give life to all our dearest ghosts.  Out they all came: 

• my Dad's chemical engineering degree from McGill, 1923, signed by Sir Authur Currie, WWI General of disputed repute;
• my late brother's degree from Carleton, a brother who commited suicide at 32 because he was homosexual and his lover had decided to marry;
• a $5 passport photo of  my mother, taken by Yousef Karsh in the '30s, magnificent (even way back then, in the '30s, Karsh made everyone sign a waiver stipulating that if he didn't like the photo, you didn't get it);
• my 1968 Carleton English degree;
• B's father's Master Mariner's accreditation;
• my grandmother Lillian Stapledon's 1975 congratulatory certificate from The Queen and Bill Davis on her 95th birthday;
• 1966 pictures of B as captain of the London House tennis and squash teams; 
• B's degrees from Sir George, Carleton and Concordia;
• tributes to me from my time at 'Expo '86';
• tributes to B from his time in Correctional Services;
• tributes to my mother from The Salvation Army;
• certificates from three Holy Fathers;
• my "Free Trade" certificate from my years on that task force;
• my "Certificate of Appreciation" from my time at Fisheries and Oceans;
• tributes from my time with "PS 2000"; and

......many, many others.

We don't know what we have accomplished until we look at the framed evidence.  It is very comforting to have my predecesors and a few accolades now joining us in our office.