Many people who grew up in the city grew up disconnected from nature. Luckily this was not my fate as I would often travel up north, whenever I had time off from school, and visited my grandmother. there, I would spend a great deal of time outside, seldom wearing shoes and frequently catching frogs in the nearby creek, netting insects in the cow field or fishing on the lake. I have always had some of my happiest moments up north on Sturgeon Lake, visiting my grandmother and being in nature. I would remember, she would always keep her pair of binoculars and a National Audubon Society bird book sitting on the coffee table. I went through that bird book constantly, even before I could read, so much so that my grandmother got me a copy for my seventh birthday. She always encouraged my passion for nature and photography, getting me my first camera and helping with many subsequent cameras. I would always showing her the photos I took and she would go on about how good a photo it was, despite not being able to see. One time I pulled up an out of focus shot of a bird, it was not a particularly good photo, only a blur, and showed it to her which got the same excited reaction. She may not have been able to see the photo but was always supportive.
When I was very young I had a bin of little plastic animals up at my grandmother's house, this assortment including a variety of rubber snakes. I would often use these snakes to decorate my grandmother's indoor plants thinking they looked "natural" there. After I would go home, and when my grandmother would go to water her plants, she would abruptly discover what I had left. I would do this just about every time I visited and inadvertently frightened my grandmother every time I did. One day however, my grandmother was gardening outside and noticed a small snake among the plants, thinking it was one of the snakes I often leave behind, she went to pick it up... until it moved. She was less than thrilled about that but always enjoyed reciting the story to anyone who would listen.
Up north, there was always a plethora of wildlife from the frogs in the creek to the insects in the fields and birds on the side of the road. So much so that I would often go hiking to see what wildlife I could find. One hike in particular, I went with my grandmother to Ken Reid Conservation Area. Despite the insatiable mosquitoes, we walked many of the forested trails but upon coming back to the parking lot we soon discovered that this was not the parking lot where we had parked the car. The car was instead on the opposite side of the park, it was a relatively short walk but as we started the sky began to darken, soon a torrential downpour ensued and we had only one rain coat between us. We held the raincoat over our heads, she was very particular about getting her hair wet, and my elderly grandmother and I slowly walked down the road as thunder and lightning crashed around us. As we got maybe halfway to the parking lot, a couple drove by and offered us a lift to the car. We eventually got home where we both had to change, and my grandmother spent a good deal of time drying and re-curling her hair. We were laughing about the predicament both at the time and well after.
I would often call my grandmother as she would get lonely up north and would always be interested in what I was doing. In the summer of 2020 I was working at Scales Nature Park and would often call her to tell her what I was up to and about the animals I was working with. This was during the pandemic so I would often ask how she was feeling, every time she would say she was perfectly healthy with so sign of being sick. Three days after what was my last call my grandmother, I got a call from my mother at eight in the morning telling me that my grandmother has had an aneurism and had been rushed to hospital. My uncle would come to pick me up from where I was working so I could visit her but before he could get there, my mother called again, telling me she didn't make it. I have so many memories of my grandmother from picking strawberries at a local farm to us bringing my pet turtle to Walmart because I didn't want to leave him in a hot car. It was difficult to pick only a few and difficult to write but through photography and storytelling I hope to keep at least a small part of her alive.
In loving memory of Jean McGillucuddy
1934 - 2020