… and then there was Georgia Mae...

My wife Anne and I raised one stalwart son and three wonderful daughters.

Those three daughters, together with their spouses, made us grateful and happy with nine grandchildren - three beautiful young women and six healthy young men, whom together with their spouses or partners made us still richer with eleven great-grandchildren - ten healthy boys and three adorable girls. The youngest one of the girls, who is not that little anymore as she tries, like any woman would, to make herself even more beautiful, ta-rah, roll the drums!! – meet my great-grant-daughter Georgia Mae!!!

Megan, the mother of Georgia Mae, and I were having a coffee in the Menno Home bistro about a year ago when her baby was just short enough by only half a centimeter to walk under the cafe tables instead of going around them, without hitting her little head. It pained me to see her not missing a beat as she walked under the table on one side, and appeared on the other, without any discomfort as if it was the most normal thing to do.

On a table in the corner sat an older woman in a wheelchair trying to get the attention of the little adventurer who did as if she was not aware of her. But in time she ventured under the table to the old woman and was well rewarded with sweet talk and hugs after she landed on her knee. The lady was ecstatic with the little one on her lap. The man accompanying her told us that his mother was 103 years old, and blind.

“She will remember this as long as she lives,” he said.

Meanwhile Georgia May just goes on, leaving sunshine in her wake where ever she goes.

When she was of elementary-school age, Megan Williams, little Georgia Mae's mother, and I sometimes walked a trail along the Sumas canal. We passed a bridge over a small stream which was dry in summertime. One spring-time we watched salmon fingerlings swim down the stream on their journey to the Atlantic ocean via the mighty Fraser river, only to return after four years to exactly the same spot where they were spawned, which is still a great mystery and wonder of nature.

We wondered about how these beautiful sleek fish, without an older leader to guide them, or a map to consult, never having gone to school, could find their way back to Abbotsford from across the immense ocean.

Megan and I were there also when a remnant, (only about 5% make back) who had started four years previous, were returning in the fall, but now had to climb the mountain in a creek bed which was in places totally without water. When they hit a water-less spot they literally fishtailed on their bellies to get from one little water pool to the next one, where they rested, sometimes for days before proceeding again to the final small gravel-bed where the female fish in a last heroic move fishtailed once more to make a slight depression into the gravel in which to lay her eggs, after which the mail salmon immediately fertilized them.

After fulfilling their last duty to nature of procreation, they died, their bodies carried down as far as there was water to carry them, and than the eagles would come and have a feast.

One time we climbed right down to the waterline of the canal where the wary salmon, on their up to mountain, were only inches away from our feet. It was easy to touch them. We witnessed all of that on several trips together down that trail so close to our house.

Megan has since grown up into an intelligent and beautiful young woman and mother, a person I love dearly, who is now showing Georgia Mae the trail we used to walk, she tells me.

She, together with the father of Georgia Mae, Justin Nodecker, decided that Megan would be a stay at home mother, to give their baby all the time she needs. As Justin works very long days, the weekends are exclusively for the three of them to enjoy, a lot of times which they spend with Megan's sister Katie – Anne, and Justin's family.

Justin and Megan are getting married Saturday , September 17, 2016 in Hope BC.

My congratulations to all three!