After leaving his home in Norwich in 2001 and surviving another long stint at the Psych Hospital on Highbury Avenue in London, he settled into Parkwood Hospital and its daily routines for a few years.
Most Saturday afternoons found us driving country roads in Oxford and Elgin counties, Tim Horton’s coffees on board, chatting quietly about the beauty of the landscape, birds and old barns.
Dad called run-down barns ‘old soldiers.’
And on Remembrance Day he could be found near the corner of Wellington and Dufferin on the Parkwood bus.
On his final trip to remember the war years, his part in it and his friends, I approached the bus from behind and walked along the left side while looking up into each window of the bus to see where he was sitting.
Halfway down the side of the bus I found him - staring at the cenotaph, fall skies and rustling leaves in the trees - lost in thought, I suppose.
["G.D. Harrison, good smile, middle of front row": circa 1943]
I tapped the glass lightly, not to startle.
Whenever he smiled he had a good one and he gave me one of the best I can recall.
And he mouthed my name and waved me inside.
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