Geology of Memory

I will never be able to think of the Grand Canyon without thinking about my father. A world-famous natural wonder, a mile-deep geological record with over 40 types of rocks – layers upon layers of memories, some dating back almost two billion years. Occasional gaps – referred to as unconformities – where strata from certain eras are missing. My father’s life spanning seven decades. Layers upon layers of unconformities, hidden behind his ever optimistic veneer and attempts to escape with the help of alcohol. Two disparate timelines, now inextricably linked in my memory. 

It all starts with a hike down to Colorado River followed by a much longer and more strenuous trek back up to the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Sore muscles the next day. A slow day to rest and do laundry – we need clean hiking socks for the next leg of our journey in the mountains of Colorado. A call from my brother somewhere between the wash and rinse cycles. “Dad was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer a few weeks ago. He didn’t want to tell us.” The world stops; the washing machine continues to spin.

The next few days are a blur of driving across the United States. The red rocks of Utah merging into the mountains of Colorado, which, in turn, are flattened out into the corn fields of Nebraska and Iowa.

The last phone call with my father before he stops talking. His always positive and self-effacing manner. “You are coming all the way here just for me? You really don’t need to, darling. I will be okay.”  

A message from my father’s wife that arrives as we drive through Michigan. “Dad has just died.”

A roadside plaza with an ice-cream parlour and Panera Bread on the corner. A row of colourful Muskoka chairs along the wall. My husband pulling me out of the car. My face pressed against his chest. A cup of coffee pressed into my hands.

A call to my brother. Having to say the words out loud. Buying last minute plane tickets online. Buying black shoes at Winners. Getting on a plane to Warsaw, catching a bus to Lviv in the west of Ukraine followed by a train ride to my hometown of Chernivtsi.

“What’s the goal of your trip?” A standard border crossing question that makes me dissolve into tears. A night spent at the train station in Lviv. A street janitor recounting her life story on a bench next to me.

Hilly streets of my home town. Sleep punctuated by long walks up and down those hills. Sun beams streaming through the stained glass of a church window. Light bouncing off a chandelier, reflections dancing on the walls.

My father dressed in a light-coloured suit and white embroidered shirt, the way he always wanted. Unrecognizably thin, stiff and cold to the touch. Condensation on his face glistening like sweat drops, running down his cheek in one long tear.

A gaping hole in the ground swallowing the coffin with my father’s shrunken body inside. A dull thump of earth against the coffin lid. So irreversibly final.     

A gentle whisper of a stream coming from the tree copse nearby.

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Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a raging force at work for the past six million years to reveal the messages encoded in the Canyon’s rocks. Not enough time in the world for me to unearth my father’s stories, now irretrievably lost under six feet of soil.

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My father’s garden by the Prut River, its gurgling waters visible through a row of poplars and willows. Dad proudly shows me around: “What a great crop of apples this year!” He plucks one from the tree and hands it to me. Flowers along the garden perimeter, rows of cucumbers and tomatoes, a patch of strawberries, raspberry cages all the way at the back. My favourite berries – I pick some, savour the taste.

Raspberries in my father’s childhood home. A small village with fields stretching in every direction. Ponds lined with willows, long branches kissing their reflections in the water. Dad takes me fishing. I find it boring. “Watch out for bones,” he reminds me as I gobble down the fish soup he makes with his catch.

Dad’s business trip to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. He brings me along. Lots of blurry black-and-white photos in front of its various points of interest. We go to a soccer game. I fall asleep in the bleachers.

Daisies on my birthday. My favourite flowers. Their number always corresponds to my age. A painting of daisies above my desk. Dad commissions it for my sixteenth birthday.

The Fredrick Chopin Airport in Warsaw. I’m about to move to Toronto with my family. My six-year-old son is fascinated by escalators. He spends the night riding them up and down with my father as we wait for our plane.

My last year’s trip to Ukraine. Dad and I hang out on a park bench as I recover from COVID. He talks about my great grandfather who was once a migrant worker in Toronto. When World War I started, he went back home hoping to bring his family to Canada but never returned. Dad tells me about the time my grandmother refused to visit Bohdan Khmelnytskiy’s monument during her visit to Kyiv because of his role in linking Ukraine’s history to Russia. Air-raid sirens punctuate our conversation.

A bus station in Chernivtsi on a hot August day. A good-bye hug from my father, soon to be forever linked with the qualifier “last.” Dad brings me a container of raspberries for the road. He also hands me a headscarf, part of traditional clothing in many parts of Ukraine. In one of our bench talks, I mentioned I didn’t have time to buy one. The scarf is inky blue with magenta roses. I wear it to my father’s funeral.