Saturday, February 18, 2006

Remembering Charlie

Last week my step father Charles Creighton passed away unexpectedly at the age of 81. He passed away in the University of Alberta Hospital.

Charlie was born in North Dakota but his family came to Northern Alberta when he was quite young. They settled on a farm around the Hythe area. Their father died when the family was young and their mother had to raise 8 children by herself. Charlie occasionally told me a story about how poor they were. He left home when he was 13 or 14 to go work and I don't think he ever got to finish school.

In 1978 he met and married my Mother and they were always very happy together. I don't think they ever spent even a single day apart. They travelled all over the place together, in fact, I often had a hard time tracking them down. If they were not in their motor home camping somewhere they were flying someplace nice like Hawaii or Mexico. They spent a lot of time at North Buck Lake with my brother and sister. I'm very grateful for the time they spent together but I wish it could have been longer.

Before the funeral we were going through piles of photos. Charlie had a lot of grand-children and it was hard to find pictures where he did'nt have one or more of them sitting on his lap.

In all the time I knew Charlie he was always very kind to me, in spite of all the goofy things I did in my life. I'm still really in a state of shock. I realize that our family has lost someone irreplaceable, someone that was loved and respected by everyone who knew him.


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