Squeezing in another Friday out of our busy schedules, Kim and I headed down to the Niagara region for our 5th hike. It was late November and although the leaves were all gone, nature’s beauty offered us a different view on this late fall day. We started out in the western part of Short Hill’s Provincial Park where we had finished last time.
On our last hike, we had learned to check online for trail changes and reroutes. So I did check for that, but now as we left the parking area to enter the trail, we found this posting…
It was November 23 – we were safe!
We headed off through the woods to meet back up with the Bruce Trail where it was soon running along the Escarpment edge. Early on we crossed through the middle of a horse farm. Horses always hold a childlike excitement for me even though I work with them every day. A steep, single file trail descended over the escarpment edge from this barnyard down to their grassy pasture below – turnout was a little different for these equines! To maintain the farm’s fence, the Bruce Trail club had built steps up and over for trail access. These types of crossings may prove difficult for our canine companions at some point!
Beyond the sign and ladder, the ridge of escarpment stretched out in front us, and our walking had time to settle into a rhythm. This spine of land is becoming welcoming. Keeping cliff face to starboard, we know that we are heading in the right direction.
Grief is an evolving process. Sure “the stages of grief” have been studied and published, but I’m not talking about something so objectively defined. I’m talking about the morphing, heavy cloud of grief that smothers you. It changes your view of the world forever and no, it doesn’t “pass”, you don’t “move on”. You take it with you and you learn how to live together. It goes like this. Kim is two years beyond the loss of her husband , Brett. On this hike she said that for the first time recently, she woke up and didn’t have to choose to feel good, she just felt good. At first when you wake up grief sits so heavily on you that you have to force yourself up. Eventually you can make that choice more easily and get out of bed with less effort, holding grief by the hand. Then, as for Kim today, you wake up and grief is not sitting directly on you. For a moment you feel “good” or maybe even “happy”. But then guilt comes along. How could I feel good when my daughter is dead, can Kim wake up and feel happy without Brett?? So you grab back onto familiar grief, who is sitting not far away. Happiness becomes overrated, without grief it is empty, lonely. So together you get up and feel good about the day. As time goes on, no one else knows about your little buddy grief, because the feeling good becomes so practiced it is real. This is the hard work, and Kim is right in the middle of it. For me, almost 8 years on, I can now clearly see the difference between pulling myself up with the weight of grief every day to actually living with it as part of me. I call this the “relative getting better”. It is a process, not an end game.
Along this hike we crossed Fifteen Mile Creek in Rockway Conservation Area and then we finished in Louth Conservation Area along Sixteen Mile Creek. Looking at the maps there are also Two, Four, Six, and other “mile” creeks. The current Welland Canal is built along Ten Mile Creek. All of these creeks flow south to north over the edge of the Niagara Escarpment and into Lake Ontario. Curious about these most creative names, I discovered that in the 1700’s early settlers named them based on their distance west of the Niagara River. The places we know today “Twenty Valley”, “Fifty Point” all come from these pioneering geographers. And at this time of year, the creeks were beautiful with their patches of icy frosting.
As we walked that day Kim said, “So I have decided to put myself out there”. In grief-speak this means leaving the safe environment of home and the few people who have been your familiar constants. It means putting yourself amongst those who chat about the weather, their children, their latest crisis at work and worst of all they say to you with effusive sympathy “So how are you doing?”. I was terrified to be amongst people after our car accident. Grief and trauma are like a constant static and the rest of the world is difficult to hear through that noise. Johnny and I didn’t go anywhere for a very long time. And now Kim after two and a half years is going to “put herself out there”?! I waited with baited breath for the details – was she going to do curling? Speed dating? Dancing?
Kim then said (knowing that she was keeping me in suspense), “I’ve joined a crochet group”. A very big smile grew on my face. She was so gently stepping out into a safe, small group of women. Not at all what I was imagining. Especially since, if you know Kim at all, there is not a crafty bone in her body! And we laughed. And that is why I love these hikes.
Long midday shadows in early winter.
Our hike was 8.8km this day. It was shorter than previous hikes but we were glad for that. This one had a lot of up the escarpment then down the escarpment – truly a good workout!
Our hike ended at Louth Conservation area where yet another relatively unknown and beautiful waterfall cascaded over the Escarpment edge. Leave all the tourists at Niagara, we had this one to ourselves.
We were tired after this hike and needed to find some quick food before heading back along the QEW to our parenting responsibilities at home. We found Boo’s Bar and Eatery nestled in a valley in the village of Jordan. It was super cute, and the hot chocolates hit the spot.
We knew with the time of year, that it would be a few months before we hiked the Bruce Trail and the Niagara Escarpment again. In our first year we had covered 49.3 km. That may not seem like a lot but really, it was so much more.
And now here I am, writing this blog in April 2019, two days before we start up our hikes for this year. I don’t want to be working in a time warp and now consider myself caught up and ready for our next adventure!
Hiking the Bruce 