Long Drives

I miss Mike.  He's one of the only guys I ever hugged (off the ice). It's that lingering, almost phantom limb type feeling I have each time I walk through the back door into the Nault kitchen during the holidays, expecting to see him sitting in the blue rocker.    Or that feeling I get when I hear his voice saved on our voice mail singing Happy Birthday to Owen.  It's made me question why things happen the way they do, my own mortality, and has made me face my own fears of losing another who is close to me.  He has changed my outlook on life. 

Owen has helped me rationalize the past 9 months.  Owen and I often drive, just the two of us, down to Ridgetown to visit my parents on Lake Erie.  We leave after dinner on Fridays so that he can sleep most of the way. It was on one of those drives when we were climbing the escarpment on the 403, a beautiful sunset shining across Hamilton Harbour when a small, tired voice from the back asked, "Why did Uncle Mike get a boo-boo?"

I still don't know the answer to this question. I skirted it with Owen, instead rambling on about how his Uncle Mike used to call his dad 'Ronstadt'. Which meant I had to tell him the story of how Matthew for a time actually thought my last name was 'Ronstadt'.  And how Matt actually called my Mom Mrs. Ronstadt when she called the Nault household one day. I told Owen how Mike played football.  I talked about how I was so intimidated each time Al and I visited Mike, Brad, Goon and Jay's house when we were at Queen's - not physical intimidation, but the fact that I knew I had a lot to live up to in Alison's eyes.

Of course Owen ended up asleep, but I ended up with a bit more peace inside me. He's asked several similar questions since then, and each time I've been able to cut a bit clearer through my feelings of loss, anger and frustration.  I have better answers now.  And stronger memories of Mike.