10 - Wednesday, October 31, 1996 - North Shore News Halloween brings back memories of Dad MEMORIES. Yes, I remember Papa. My Papa. Although no one called him that. Except Mom. She always called him Pop, Papa, or Ole. He called her Mom, or Mommy, with a gentle kiss, or ioving pat on the bum, But rarely Vivian. If they had personal names for each other, whispered softly and in- timaiely ina tender, private mo- ment, we never heard them. We never knew. To my brother Ted and 1, they will always be, Mom and Dad. One of my earliest memories is of my father. | couldn’t have been any more than two or three. Ted wasn't born yet, or even on the way. Just a twink!e in Dad's eyes. It was in the late 1930s, at the tail end of the Depression, and Dad was still working as a seaman for the Imperial Oil Esso steamers that plied the B.C. coast. Our dad worked all through the Depres- sion. We were one of the lucky families. Born and raised on an island off the coast of Norway, near Stavanger, Ole Severud had been co: aected with the sea in one way or another for all of his life. He left the oil carriers soon after this remembered meeting to work in the shipyards at the foot of Lonsdale, in North Vancouver, where he remained until his retirement in 1970, It was his shipyard work that kept him out of the war, but my younger brother was my mother’s added insurance for that. Or so she believed at the time. I can still bring back that time-distant memory like it was yesterday. My mom had taken me down to the docks to meet my dad as he came c.f work. It was dark, or getting dark at dusk, and the area was strongly lit by the lights of the wharf and on the red and white ship. I will always remember that heady mixture of smells of the salty sea air, the creosote on the pilings, and the oil from the ship and its cargo of liquid black gold. To this day these sights and smells give me a wonderfully warm feel- ing of peace and security. My American-born, Alberta? raised mother was as Irish pert and pretty as my father was Nor- dic strong and handsome. In her mid-20s, slim, with sparkling, vio- let eyes, and shiny black hair, she stood only an inch over five feet. My dad, in his mid-30s then, was five-inches taller, with bright blue eyes, and a full head of flashing yellow hair that would turn snow white with age. 1 was still small enough then to be carried and crooked in my mother's right arm, as | remember. It must have been a warm, summer evening, because | can still see the light-colored dress she was wearing, teased and rippl- ed by soft, gentle breezes. The wharf was high, or the tide was low, because we looked down upon the deck near the stern of the ship where Dad was working. My mother called out to him, and he stopped, looked up, and seeing his beautiful young wife and son, smiled broadly. There was such a feeling of love that passed in that moment as a con- Necting current between us that its magic still touches me today. It always will. The last memory I have of my father is of him lying semi- conscious ina hospital bed at the OUT OF THI: Norm Severud ORM Burnaby General. He was 88, and dying of cancer, and had but a few hours to live. Mom had died 11] years earlier while ] was living and working in Toronto. It was her death that brought me back to Vancouver to be near my Dad. I wanted to be with him when he died, holding his hand, as my brother and | had been doing for the last few days of the three weeks he was there. But the nurse in charge that final Wednesday had assured me that he would survive the night, so I decided to come home to get one more night's sleep, since | now planned to spend the next night awake at his bedside. But our dad did die alone, early the next morning, before my brother could reach the hospital. Ted called me from there, just as I was getting ready to leave my West End apartment. **He’s gone,’’ he said. ‘*Are you sure?”’ | asked, feeling cheated. **Yes, Norman, he’s gone." We met later that morning at the hospital to prepare for the funeral. It was a beautiful, bright sunny autumn day, and we both remarked in passing that it was a nice day to die. But our minds weren't really on the weather, or the orange-red leaves that were falling. The funeral was set for Mon- day, Oct. 31. Halloween. The minister and church were only available to us then. At first it seemed a little macabre to bury our father on Halloween, but we decided to go ahead. We think our dad would have chuckled over the connec- tion. The church service had'a mari- ner’s nautical theme. A wreathe in the shape of a ship’s anchor stood in front of the closed casket, while _ the flags of Canada and Norway were raised behind. It was a gloomy, cloudy day, and a light rain began to fall as the graveside service ended. [t rained even harder during the family wake at my brother’s new home, that our father had only seen from the outside, driven by in my brother’s car, as he was dy- ing even then, though none of us yet knew. But the rain and wake were both over by the late afternoon, leaving plenty of time for my young niece and nephew, Carlie and Jason, to eagerly dan their Halloween costumes to go out trick-or-treating that night. Their granddad would have wanted it that way. Life nist go on. LOCAL BLOCK teers offer the following saters tips for children doing the trick or know the Block Parent homes treat rounds this Halloween: e scar aheht colored costume: Block Parents offer trick-or-treating tips Go not criss-cross streets: edo net vo mside a strange house: eand do ner cat xour treats be- sour nuibabortood: fore a parent has checked them. ® never po out alone, fo become a Block Parent. contact sour local vlementary school or local police department. 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