THE CPR STATION, VANCOUVER. At the end of January 1946 I was finally back within a flight of steps from meeting my folks once again. The last time I had seen them was September 1941 when I had been home on embarkation leave. I gathered up my pack, said good bye to fellow passengers that I had met along the way, went over to the stairway and walked up the stairs. There waiting was Mum and Dad. Yes we were overjoyed to see each other and get and receive a hug or two. Looking back and thinking about that moment again the feeling was, Am I really here? I also feel that I may have appeared a bit distant . Why? I do not know but it had been a long while with just hundreds of letters from home that kept the home touch through all the intervening years. Had I left the boy behind or what? But Mum said you must be hungry. That was always like Mum, she fed everyone that ever crossed the threshold of their home.
We crossed the street to Spencer's Department Store and had a snack then on to the street car and home to their new home at 3504 William St east Vancouver. Mum of course wondered how I was? How was Orme? When you last was with him and questions about my coming back and spending some time in our old home town of Neville Sask?
My sister Marjorie was at the Vancouver General Hospital where she was a nurse in training and would not get off to come home I think until another day and my brother Don was at school, so was my youngest brother Arnold.
I was visiting with my brothers and sister on Saturday Oct 4th 2003, and recalled seeing my youngest brother Arnold as he appeared to me when I first saw him on my return some 57 years ago. Mum had just said to me that Arnold would soon be home from school. Arnold was almost six when I went overseas and now was now almost 11. Well as I looked out the window to see if Arnold was about to arrive and sure enough he came running down the street and into the yard and roared up the stairs hollering Gordie, you're HOME! Yes that was a great welcome from Arnold . Back to Arnold before the war when he was about four years old he stood for hours watching the hockey games when I was playing. He wore a sort of imitation fur coat. Arnold's yells of encouragement to me as he leaped up and down on the snow bank at the out door rink was, Knock them down Gordie! He was always a competitor. When Don came in from Tech school he was not as exuberant as Arnold but was mighty pleased to see me home. Don had grown from just a boy of 11 to a young man of 16and a half. When Marjorie came home from the hospital it was a day or so later. Marjorie was glad to see me home and had grown into a fine looking young lady working at her nursing career. Marjorie had really been a stalwart to Mum when Dad, George and I were away in the forces for which we owe her a lot. Now the only one of the family I was yet to see was George as he still in uniform at NDHQ Ottawa as a staff Captain and hoped to be discharged soon, then enroll in the engineering faculty at the University of Sask. Yes I was finally home. Quite a long route with some days when you thought maybe you would not survive but my family must had some pull with higher powers because I made it. HOME .
