“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
That sings the tune without words –
And never stops – at all –
Emily Dickinson
My mom always said, “I live in Hope,” which she did literally. But also figuratively.
When my parents retired, they moved to Hope, a small town in the Fraser Canyon, at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla Rivers, about an hour and a half outside of Vancouver. It was a town we all came to love, but Emily especially. Some years ago she pointed to a spot nestled in the mountains a little way out of town and said definitively to her Opa, my father, “This is where I will build my house.” For years now and up until just recently, she had been designing her dream house in a notebook.
Hope and its environs are an outdoor person’s paradise, abundant with trails running along rivers and up mountains; trains cling to the ridges of the Cascade mountain range, their horns echoing through the antechambers of canyons, an ostinato in this cathedral. Hope is a sacred site.
The Sto:lo First Nations people were here first, establishing this community somewhere between eight and 10,000 years ago as a major transportation hub and a stopping point for trade between nearby communities. Most people from Vancouver see Hope as a pit stop for gas and a bite to eat (I recommend The Blue Moose) on the way to the Rocky Mountains or the Okanagon or other vacation locales. Few stay long enough to immerse themselves in the subtle, vibrating mysticism of this town.
Our Emily recognised magic. She looked for it. And she knew it when she found it. This was one of her chosen places. With the old growth trees, the jade green and bruised blue of the two rivers merging, the swooping eagles, the bears, the ever-present clouds bearing down and holding in the mystery and magic of this tiny town, it is a sanctuary for those who take the time to recognise it. The First Nations people knew then and know now. Emily knew when she first came and knows now. It’s nuanced thrums and sotto voce murmurs are evident to those who have an open heart.
One of the memories we hold of this little town is my parents’ apartment, a little jewel box of treasures and treasured sitting atop the local bank on the corner of the main street of Hope. Large kitchen and living rooms windows face the action of the town and the comings and goings of the people. This, along with Mount Hope looming outside the windows, where one can see the first snows of the season and the mighty Fraser rushing and eddying to the right of their view, made for a rich movie played out in front of us.
My mother always called it “Kino ohne Geld,” or theatre without money. Indeed, we could gaze out of those second story windows for hours. My parents always knew when we were coming because they could watch us pulling up in our old camper van, spilling out of the doors, Emily and Charlotte racing up the stairs and into the arms of their Omi and Opa.
There would be long, happy days of hiking and trekking around the rivers, finding walking sticks, sorting stones, always with Emily, skipping stones into the rivers and creeks alongside her daddy or uncles or grandfather. The girls would come home and bake with their Oma, and be in awe of Opa’s meticulously organised but packrat-full “shop” in the back of their house, which held shelf upon shelf of tools and collections of all manner, including belts and screws and bolts of fabric and books. At the very back of the shop was the “honeymoon suite” where Don and I would sleep, the bathroom full of clocks, ticking vigorously, none ever displaying the correct time, as our en-suite.
The girls would stay in the room next to Omi and Opa’s, living in the lap of love. Our children were not expected by my parents. By the time Emily and Charlotte came along, all their other grandchildren were merging on adulthood. The joy they took in our daughters was a delight.
This part of the world, redolent with moss and ferns and incessant drizzly days, within a canopy of fir and pine and spruce and hemlock trees, is a holy shrine. When the time is right, we will be taking Emily’s ashes to Hope to distribute them at the confluence of the two rivers – the intersection of magic. We had already decided this when I clicked the image on Emily’s profile photo on her wechat app, the one we use for everyday communication in China. It was a silhouette, and I had assumed it was simply a generic photo, as people’s often are. I should have known better. Emily infused most of what she did with meaning. There was Emily, holding a stick and standing at this intersection of rivers in Hope. She knew where she wanted to be. We will honour this.
She will live in Hope and we continue to live in hope.