Deer on road
Bouncing away like bunnies
Sons giggling
Heat gauge sky-high
Side of highway
Refilling antifreeze
No problem
Twenty-minute fix
We’re on our way

Evening with two white-haired ladies
Eighty-six and eighty-eight
Great-aunt pulls out photo albums
Great-great grandparents
Great-great uncles and aunts
Next to a bush
Two tiny sisters having a tea party
Now here in front of me
Practically blind
Shrunken
Bent
Wrinkled
Tiny steps.

Family tree comes out
Great-great-great grandmother Susannah
Same birthdate as mine
Her son married British Hoddinott
Pissed off wealthy family
Then emigrated to Ontario.
Next generation came west to Manitoba,
Then to Saskatchewan
And here we are.

Curled up on great-aunt’s couch that night,
Unable to fall asleep,
So many mothers and grandmothers
Led to this life, me.
These women asleep in the next room
So changed from the little tea-party girls
They were over 80 years ago.

“You have a personality just like your dad’s”
An old acquaintance of Dad’s from 40 years ago
Tells me, hand on my arm.

Aunt A, my great-great aunt, was a nurse during the First World War. She brought home lovely things; this set of heavy copper has been passed down to me. I never met my great-great aunt, but I have seen many of the things she collected. My grandmother had a beautiful gold bracelet that once belonged to this aunt of hers. I used to borrow it all the time. Now it is mine.