Tag: cremation

Flights are booked

So, the flights are booked. The crematorium has been paid.

I leave Vancouver at 08:30 on Sunday and fly back from Edmonton on Thursday at 06:00.

I don’t know what I’m going to do once I get to Edmonton. Probably go check in at the crematorium first to see what they have. Next I’ll be heading off to Scott’s apartment to see what needs to be taken care of there.

Never really had any plans of stopping back in Edmonton, but I guess life throws a curve ball every now and again.

I’ll be staying at Hostelling International just south of Whyte Ave.

Should be able to get around by the LRT, bus, and by foot.

The last time that I was in Edmonton was in 2013. Prior to that I was in Edmonton in 2003. Prior to that I was in Edmonton from 1990 until 1992. And then prior to that I was in Edmonton from August 1978 until April 1983.

Scott and I also spent the summer of 1984 and 1985 staying with our grandmother. Wasn’t our choice.

I’ll have to go see my brother’s apartment and see what I can make of his paperwork. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a nightmare with creditors and such. If he was leasing a car or bought a car with a loan, I guess this goes back to the dealer.

I’ve already told the landlord that they can dispose of furniture, clothes, and other miscellaneous materials, but that I want access to any computers, paperwork, statements, etc. that might be in the apartment.

Probably have some paperwork to sign off with the Edmonton Police Service. And might have some paperwork to sign with the Medical Examiner’s office.

I always thought that I was going to die long before he did. But I guess he won the race and beat me to the escape first.

Still sucks that he didn’t even get an apology from the Department of National Defence or the Canadian Armed Forces for what they had subjected him to as a child.

Sick humour time……………

Skeletor always had choice observations.

What a weird week.

Never had to make cremation arrangements before, but here I am.

Gotta take some time off work next week to fly up to Edmonton to go through my brother’s paperwork to see what comes next.

Air Canada has bereavement flights.

I gotta book a hotel room for a few nights, the sad thing is that Edmonton is not a very transit friendly city. The good thing is my brother’s apartment seems to have been located near an LRT stations, so as long as I book a hotel near the LRT I should be okay.

The cremation facility is going to take care of notifying all of the required government agencies and credit bureaus. If he’s financed a car guess I’ll have to tell the dealership to come pick it up.

As I said previously, contact between by brother and I has been almost as non-existent as contact between my father and I.

I honestly don’t know very much about him, where he worked, what his hobbies were, etc.

But, that’s the way that Richard raised us.

I once told Scott that we pretty well lived feral on the bases and he chuckled about that.

And it wasn’t that Richard was just a neglectful and absent parent.

Richard loved to play mind games. It was my fault whenever Scott got into trouble, and it was Scott’s fault whenever I got into trouble. I guess that men like Richard will do anything to avoid taking responsibility for their issues.

And Richard saw absolutely no problem with allowing his mother to live on base to raise my brother and I. She was a woman that he described to Alberta Social Services as being “extremely cruel to his children, especially when she was drunk, which was frequent”. But he was okay with that as that meant that he didn’t have to personally spend time raising his kids.

So Scott and I grew up in a household where you kept your back turned to the wall at all times so that you didn’t get attacked from behind in a surprise ambush.

There were no emotions to be expressed as kids least Richard or Grandma would rage out. And on military bases, whenever the parents or guardians were raging out it was obviously because the kids deserved it.

So yeah, Scott and I spent as much time out of the PMQ and as far away from each other as possible as kids so that one wouldn’t catch the beating the other was receiving. Beatings, beratings, and derision were common place things in our household. Well, truth be told, in the military company towns that the PMQ patches were, child abuse and child neglect was rampant, it’s just that the Canadian Armed Forces had its way of “washing the laundry” in house so that no one on the outside world would ever learn about what was going on in the closed military family communities that were isolated from pubic view.

The Edmonton Police Service constable who is handling Scott’s file has agreed to try to contact my stepmother Sue to let her know about Scott.