There would never be enough thanks

My parents Al and Marie are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on July 6.

This past weekend we held an open house for friends and family to celebrate their milestone, which we followed up with a gathering at our camp in Meteghan.

Even if I tried I could not adequately sum up all of the thanks my family and I owe these two people. Actually, I think my oldest son Jacob summed it up best in a speech he gave at the open house that moved people to tears. The fact that he would stand up in a room filled with people – many of whom he didn’t know – and would speak so emotionally and lovingly about his grandpere and grandmere further speaks, I believe, to just how special these two people are.

Sure, we like to tease them about their awful sense of direction. If we’ve been at a hockey tournament and you were supposed to turn right coming out to the hotel parking lot to arrive at the rink in five minutes, they’d turn left and would only arrive 50 minutes later, usually getting lost somewhere in between.

But the real direction that matters most is the direction they’ve steered us in as a family.

We’ve learned to be helpful to others. We’ve learned to be loyal friends. We’ve learned that time spent together as a family is precious and meaningful. We’ve learned to lend a hand where needed, and not to be ashamed or embarrassed to ask for help when we can’t do things by ourselves.

There are still things I haven’t learned, though. Despite listening to my dad launch into the lyrics of The Wayward Wind more times than I can count over the past five decades, I don’t even know all of the words to the song. In fact, as I was writing this I decided to listen to the song on YouTube but I could only get through the first two lines when I decided, once again, I’d heard enough. (Sorry dad.)

There is nothing these two people wouldn’t do for me or our family – and believe me, they’ve been tested over the years. But they always come through. Want to know the definition of love?

It starts with dad and mom helping me clean out a deep freezer of spoiled food at my house following a prolonged power outage and it ends with dad walking across my driveway – towards a fire pit – carrying a rotted, bloated, dripping, disgustingly-smelling Butterball turkey, yelling out to me and mom “It’s gonna blow!”

Way to take Comeau!

Aside from the fact that I wouldn’t be here were it not for them, I also wouldn’t be who I am without them.

I remember a friend once telling me that she and her son were going into the Tim Hortons in Shelburne when he started exclaiming quite happily, “Al and Marie are here!”

“Who?” she

Marie!” he said.

She wasn’t clueing in to who he was talking about until he said, one said. for Team “Al and “Justin’s grandparents!”

My mom and dad have been a fixture at so many of my kids’ hockey games and hockey tournaments that the other kids have gotten to know them as well. What I consistently hear the most from people I know is, “Your parents are so nice.”

It’s a trait I try to live by daily too.

Last week, after covering my 50th-plus high school graduation while working in this newsroom, after the ceremony I was talking to YCMHS graduate Drake Johnson. I was his Vikings hockey team manager the past few years. I wished him well in his future and said, “Remember my words of wisdom, well, if I gave you any.”

Without any hesitation he told me, “You always showed me what it means to be kind.”

I know where that comes from.