You left this world, but not my heart – Unknown.
When we were living in Las Vegas, I had to travel at least 30 miles to the mosque every Friday to pray. Unfortunately, there was no mosque in Sidney, and I started going to the mosque in Victoria. Victoria was only 22 kilometers from Sidney. Lynda used to go with me to Victoria every Friday and do shopping and wait for me in the restaurant to have lunch. It became a routine for us.
Before we moved to Sidney, Lynda found out that there was a Sorority in Sidney which was connected to the Sorority in Victoria. Lynda already had information to get in touch with the Sorority sisters in Sidney, and it didn’t take her too long to start attending the meetings regularly. As usual, the Sorority sisters were very helpful to help us get acquainted with the local activities in Sidney and Lynda started enjoying their company and association immensely.
I used to be a member of the Information Technology Association in Ottawa as well as in Vegas. I found out that there was an Information Technology Association in Victoria, too, and decided to attend their monthly meetings. I met folks there who had been attending meetings regularly for years, and they welcomed me wholeheartedly.
Lynda encouraged me to get in touch with the folks in Victoria to explore the possibilities for teaching. I didn’t rush as I wanted to take my time to explore those possibilities.
Every morning right after breakfast we started going for a long walk to enjoy the ocean. On our way back from the walk, we used to stop by a restaurant on the main street and park ourselves on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant where they used to serve coffee. Sometimes, Lynda used to arrange her Sorority sisters to join us with their husbands for a cup of coffee and chat. It became our favorite spot for having coffee and watching people wandering on the street.
Life was good in Sydney. We also started meeting folks in the building where we used to live. Everybody wanted to know how come we chose to live in Sidney after living in a city like Las Vegas. We gave them the same explanation that living close to the ocean was our dream.
Our house in Vegas hadn’t been sold yet. When I asked the real estate person, she said there were some visitors but some of them didn’t like the colour of the carpet or drapes and a couple of them couldn’t get the mortgage. As asking price didn’t seem to be the reason for not selling the house, we decided not to consider reducing the asking price.
Lynda made arrangements to get Mom in Sidney. The airport and Ferry Terminal were just like next door. Nevertheless, there were no direct flights from Toronto to Victoria in those days. We decided to go to Vancouver to get Mom which provided us with another opportunity to ride a ferry again. We enjoyed the ferry ride from Sidney to Vancouver and thanks God that we had our Global Positioning System (GPS) to find the way to Vancouver airport. We were glad that the GPS we used had covered both Canada and the USA.
In any case, we got to the airport only to find out that Mom’s flight was late. I had been to Vancouver airport before when I was traveling with the Environment Canada folks to make presentations to their offices in Vancouver. But this was the first time for Lynda, and she was impressed with the airport. We spent some time in a restaurant and then we walked around until we got the old lady.
We asked Mom if she had something to eat on the plane and she said “No”. We took her to the same restaurant where we had something to eat. Then we drove around Vancouver to show her around the city a bit. She really liked the ride on the ferry, too. We didn’t rush to get her to see Sidney or the ocean as she was tired and she needed rest.
The next day, after breakfast, we pushed mom in her wheelchair to show her the ocean. She liked the ocean view, and we took her around to show off before we took her to the restaurant for lunch which was owned by the English folks. She also recognized the name of the restaurant and chatted with the owner. Mom liked the fresh air and ocean immensely.
If I remember correctly, Mom stayed with us for a while and we showed her anything and everything we knew in Sidney and Victoria. We told mom that she can always come back to stay with us anytime she liked. She promised to come back soon.
Every morning when we got back to our condo, I used to work on my laptop to check my emails and try to work on some kind of research until lunch time and then Lynda will serve a light lunch. We used to meet with friends in the afternoon to have coffee in a different restaurant and walk to the ocean. We used to sit almost on the same seats to watch the ocean. When we got back home, we used to nap.
There was a nice Fish & Chips place next to the grocery store not too far from where we lived, and we used to go there a couple of times a week. Sidney was a relatively small community, but they had everything there. We were getting used to the slow pace of life and had nothing to complain about.
Adam had a meeting with the DND folks and he stayed with us for a couple of days. We took him around to show off Sidney, and he was very impressed. Once he was gone, we went back to our routine.
We also decided that we would not go to Vegas in the winter even though Libby had offered to stay with her. She had a big house, and it was almost too big for a person. Our reasoning for not doing anything about winter was that we wanted to try and feel how bad it would be living in Sidney during winter. Everybody told us that winter in Sidney is mild and no snow.
