Some people make parenting look easy. They wear it well, soothing and diffusing with grace, patience and minimal fuss. To those of us contemplating father or motherhood, these people are mentors. We all want to be them.

Others, however, make parenthood look positively undesireable. It’s those unfortunate folks you watch you for a moment and think, Woah. What a mess. This is the camp I belonged to today.

Evan and I ventured out on a Reel Babies date, where they open a movie theatre in the middle of the day for moms and dads with babies in tow. The lights are on, and you’re free to do as you please – walk around, jiggle, bounce and play to the cacophony of several dozen babies yelling, giggling, crying and feeding all at the same time. If you’re lucky, you might get to actually watch the movie as well.

It was fate, you see. Before the movie started, the mother in front of me asked, “How has he been for you?”

“Great,” I said. “He’s been really calm. He’s a pretty happy kid.”

On cue, Evan shot her his very best ear-to-ear grin, stuck out his tongue and said “Owwwaa!” It doesn’t get any more adorable than a happy baby performing on cue, especially post-boast.

We left the theatre not even halfway through the movie, utterly defeated.

He went from fidgety to bored to uncomfortable to pissed off to turning himself inside out. Insert a poop-a-lanche in the middle, too. The kind that ends up everywhere.

We got outside and heaved our circus act into the truck, both of us sweaty, exhausted and grateful to be away from explosions and bad one-liners. He sighed, smiled and goo-ed softly from his carseat as if to say, Thanks mom. I feel better now.

I can’t resist saying it: it was a ‘shitty’ movie anyway.

“I talk to her all the time, like she’s still here,” said Grampa Joe, a couple of years after Gram died. “The neighbours think I’m crazy.” And he smiled, like he didn’t mind a bit.

She has been here, after all. I sense her now and then, sitting quietly and catching up on me and my life. Then she goes on to someone else. It’s those solitary moments when a person long gone inexplicably pops into your head, without provocation. They’re walking along beside you, willing you to notice them.

That’s when you start talking.

If it were up to me, everyone would design their own heaven. Grampa would probably choose his pipe, a big basement and his workbench, a solid boat, and his Billee by his side. And the chance to come and visit his earthbound family now and then, just to make sure we all have our ducks in a row.

Two days ago Evan wrapped his chubby, spitty hand around Grampa’s finger and said Baah! (baby for ‘gotcha’).

Grampa smiled. In that determined little grip, immortality. His legacy, standing in his lap and holding his hand.

He’s gone now, and we’re all very sad. I can imagine Gram’s voice in greeting, though, when he went through that door.

“Hellooo, Helloo!” She’ll have so much to show him.

Justin is forever spoiled. Nothing else in his career will ever quite measure up. Eight seasons as a ski patroller at Cypress Mountain is what did it.

Finding the patrol hut deserted after a day of skiing, I’d go inside and wait for Justin while he wrapped up the day. Before long I’d hear the growl of the snowmobile and the tramping of ski boots, and a larger-than-life crew would rumble through the door in a gush of wind and snow – beards, helmets and like-mindedness making them almost indistinguishable from one another.

I always wished I could freeze those moments. Seeing Justin so satisfied with his place in the world. Heavy, Cypress-brand ‘elephant snot’ snow clinging to his boots, soaked to the skin, flushed with work, relishing the day. And in such good company.

These guys were pretty intimidating. Deeper reserves of energy and strength than I’ve ever seen in anyone. Amazing skiers, hard workers. Affectionately tough on each other, like brothers. I always felt safe for Justin, being with them.

How was your day? I’d ask.

Busy, he’d say. The usual broken wrists and knees, two head injuries, a broken back. And some kid went off the back side and got lost, so we went after him and found he’d gone off a cliff and got stuck in a tree well. He’s okay though. Then we did some avalanche control, and after that this lady hit a tree and part of her jaw kind of came off. The ambulance had to come up three times.

And he’d be smiling. Always smiling. Then he’d say, How was your day?

And I’d say, Not bad. Another one of those long meetings.

I wish Justin could be a ski patroller forever. That’s what he is. That’s what they all are. They go on to do other things – police officers, doctors, or fire fighters like Justin will be. But somehow, those things are all second choices to a true calling.

Justin doesn’t talk about it much. Cypress goes on without him, and that’s not easy to hear. He doesn’t want to know that the spring was the best ever, that Skychair still sways precariously in high winds, or that someone’s posh new skis got duct-taped to the ceiling again. Or that his locker now belongs to someone new.

That’s what seems to happen when people leave – they can’t go back, not even just a little. The memories are just too sweet.

When you grow up in Halifax, you grow up knowing what 200-year-old gunpowder smells like.

You poke at beached jellyfish by the half-buried shipwreck on McNab’s Island, in the shadow of the point where they used to hang pirates as a warning at the harbour mouth. Your elementary school’s hot dog picnics are at fort ruins, where you scramble and screech victoriously atop shiny, blackened cannons.

This is my Grampa Joe.

Seaworthy, salty, impossibly clever. All the things a maritime grampa should be. He’s sick right now, so we bring Evan to jump on his bed and spit up on his floor and grab his glasses off his face and give him kisses and hopefully bring a few smiles.

Grampa had a boat called Pygargus who lived at the Armdale Yacht Club, an island of mortar and rock that was once a jail. When I was a girl I used to wander through the old prison, fascinated by the stone walls and iron gates, cells now filled with coils of rope and sails in heaps.

Armdale was the best place to go junk fishing. Grampa Joe attached a giant magnet to the end of a rope and every time we went sailing, Andrew and I would crabwalk along the edges of the piers, jigging for junk.

We’d land all kind of fabulous things. Rusty old nails, bits of wire, coins. Sometimes the magnet would get caught on the pier cables and I’d tug and tug, hoping I’d snagged an old treasure chest. A treasure chest would be too heavy for a regular-grade junk fishing tackle, so who would expect I’d actually land it? Just tugging on it was exciting enough.

I can’t wait to be alongside Evan as he discovers his own junk and treasure. Will he find any at Martello Tower? Or in the waves of Shediac Bay? Perhaps under the watchful eye of his own Grampa Joe? I hope so.

Happy five-month birthday, kiddo.