Happy Halloween

...and happy birthday...

Mom!

(Even though she doesn't know about my blog.)

Yes, that's my mom as a baby, the baby of the Grant family. Today she is... 77? 78? The larger picture you see after clicking on the baby pic, is her family, the Grants, at the old homestead in Millview, P.E.I., out in the country a few miles east of Charlottetown. My mom is being held by my Aunt Ruth. Check out the flapper hairstyles on my aunts Mary and Ethel (2nd and 3rd from the left).

Of all this large family, only Mom and my Aunt Mary are left. That's kind of sad, but such is life. I'm the youngest of eight in my family, and I guess someday there will just be me and a few of my next oldest siblings. Not something I like to think about, but just one of those inevitabilities you have to deal with eventually.

The seated gent in the hat and vest is my grandfather, Vince, and the woman standing next to him is my grandmother, Winnifred (Winnie). I never met either of them, unfortunately. They died before I was born. But apparently, along with the strong physical resemblence, I'm a lot like my grandfather in other ways. Same quiet demeanor. Same dry sense of humour. He wasn't a big talker, but he'd choose his spots, usually when there was a lull in the conversational back-and-forth at social gatherings, and then he'd pull the pin on a witty comment, lob it into the void, and the room would fall apart laughing.

I always wished I'd known him, seeing as we seem to have been cut from the same cloth.
But maybe I know him better than I think.

Are you out there Vince?

Are you in here Vince?

So not only do I send Halloween birthday wishes to my Mom, the one who brought me into this world, but on this night when we pay tribute to the spirits of those who have crossed over, I reach across the divide to shake hands with the spirits that live strongly within me, whether I know it or not, colouring my life here and now.