by Susan M.Ellis of Key Life Journeys......

It has been over 25 years since I first visited Killarney, Ontario. I took my father who was vacationing from Britain.  It was on that visit that I was to notice the first changes that would herald the onset of Alzheimer's disease in him. I was never to see him again as the person whose wholeness could be clearly projected. So much of him would be lost in the years to come. But on this trip together, we had discovered Killarney. On our first evening there, the sun was setting on the west side of town. I wanted to film it. I have the print of the photo I took. My father posed for me. Binoculars to his eyes he stood in profile on warm weathered pink granite rocks. He sees the lighthouse in Killarney Bay and evidence of the South La Cloche Range in the background. An aged man on an aged rock. By him, a flagpole with the maple leaf fully unfurled, back lit by the light of the fading sun.  You can tell he was wearing a tweed jacket. He often wore tweed jackets. More than likely he was wearing a tie.  He always was a collar and tie man, even on holiday. The photo represents the full him, a sight I would never see again.

Killarney called me back several times during the next few years. Then, after an absence of over 20 years - and at least ten since my Father's death - I returned.  I had discovered that old photo and I needed to find that location. I had to reconnect with that moment so long ago where two spirits united in the exploration of a new magical experience.

So we walked to the end of Commissioner Street, my friend and I. At the end of the road the path rose up through trees and the smell of smoke wafted down to us from an inhabited hidden house. To the right, the trees thinned to expose the rounded contours of the Canadian Shield. It did not feel quite right. A well-kept log house sat at the north side of the street and obviously those rocks were on this private property. My father and I certainly would not have walked across obviously private property. We had not come on this street. So my friend and I backtracked and went to the end of St. Paul Street. It terminated in a slip road opening up to the reed-fringed lake. It was familiar. Was not the lake higher when I had been here with my Father? Had not this been the place I had seen a sailboat drawn up on the land, which I had photographed? Its mast at an angle penetrated the red sky and the sunlight had glowed, rimming its hull.  Back to the present I realized a grey sky was hastening days end. Further investigation would have to wait for another day.
 
We spent a day exploring Baie Fine and Topaz Lake in Killarney Provincial Park and then headed to find the sunset rock. To the western end of Commissioner Street we walked to the log house that was between the rocks and me. I walked up the verandah steps noting that the lawn had been cut that day. I banged on the door several times. No one was at home, but I felt comfortable that any neighbours watching would have seen me trying to make contact. Up the rocks we climbed. Yes I knew it was the right view. There were metal hooks embedded in the rock, perhaps once holding up a flagpole.

Then I looked to my right. I caught my breath. A smile erupted. On lower rocks a sentinel which 25 years ago had held a Canadian flag. I moved to the spot silently drinking in the moment. I did not take another photograph of the sunset. I just absorbed the residual energy that had lingered, waiting my return. The failing light softened the A.J.Casson-like white pines; the pink rock glowed with day's warmth. This I photographed.

We descended the slope to the slip road that led onto the bay from St Paul Street. That is the way my Father and I must have climbed up in the first place, never noticing the log house.

Finally I had said goodbye to my father. Dead these ten years, but living on in the 25-year-old illusion standing tall and whole, silhouetted against the strong northern sky.