Return to Lake Louise

Seeing these mountains, reminds me the first time I saw them back in 2011. It was with mum, the trip of her lifetime perhaps...

There's a Crow crowing on the spruce tree behind me, and the mountains are reflected in the emerald waters of the lake before me. This is paradise, this is where mum sat on the lake shore and told me how peaceful she was, even though at the time she was occasionally, or perhaps constantly, tormented by the pain and suffering of her growing cancer. 

I saw it as a "mission" to bring her moments of peace and being able to forget. Forget that's she's in pain, forget that soon it will be the end of her life. I sought to make her remember, remember how life is so beautiful, how in the end everything is worth it and has much meaning. 

When she told me that she sat on the lakeshore and thought of nothing (there's even a picture of that... A hauntingly beautiful picture of her small figure against the backdrop of the beautiful lake and mountains...), I knew I had somewhat succeeded. 

Yesterday, my brother and sister-in-law sat on the lakeahore, almost the exact location where mum was. They seemed to be contemplative, reflective as they looked out at the lake... Perhaps they imagined what mum was looking at. Perhaps somewhere in the lake were ripples that contain her memories ("mumories") and her life beyond this world. 

This air, this wind, this whispering of the wind. Mum is gone, but the presence of her absence fills us still.