Various Veins
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Today I want to review the life of a man whose time on this old planet I have shared closely. This does not mean his life was more important than all those who shared the eight and a half decades with us.
Ralph McQuiggan lived in Straffordville and I lived in Maple Grove the first few years. We might meet at the swimming hole in the Little Otter on Sandytown Road, or at a baseball game between our schools. It wasn't a time of being really aware of one another as individuals.
I was closer to Ralph's cousin Bob Ball through teen years. That friendship played a part in bringing me closer to Ralph. I was attracted to a girl, paid a call on her once. When I confided this to Bob, he informed me she was Ray's girl. I heeded the warning and backed off.
Time passed and Ray married his girl. She and Martha became close friends after we were married. Both couples lived in Straffordville and our kids played together.
Ralph's father, John McQuiggan, owned the Red & White Store at the corner of Talbot and Plank Roads. Ralph took over the store. He hated it.
One day Ralph locked the doors and took up his real interest which was farming. That occupied him for many years, either share cropping for tobacco farmers, or on farms of his own. His chosen occupation didn't result in a lot of money. He used to joke, "If I win a million dollars, I'll just keep on farming until it' s all gone."
The McQuiggans as a clan were truckers. Ray's girl chose to leave him for another. He was a lost sheep for some years, took up trucking with a couple of his sons.
His life took another path that brought him in closer contact with Martha and me. He married her niece, and I became his uncle.
The first few years went smoothly until heart disease nearly killed him. Medication restored some of his vigour. I stopped at his home and asked him if he was ill. He assured me he was not.
Ralph wanted to quit taking the drugs. He was a determined character and likely would have reached the end of his days pretty quickly if Juanita hadn't joined with the doctors to continue his dietary and medicinal regimen.
Ralph and Juanita visited us at our cottage for a few days each year. I was working at extending the roof of the house on the property by four feet to repair a leaky area. Had a supply of kiln hangers from a farm near Straffordville to frame the addition. My nephew and I worked on it. He loaned me his table saw to speed things up. We sheathed the roof with plywood, and shingled it.
I'll confess younger guys pitched in on this job, for which I was and am most grateful. Us clumsy old goats might have fallen and broken our necks.
Whether the heart disease or a different trouble slowed Ralph I don't know. His memory began to fail and his pace slowed to a shuffle.
Often he wouldn't take part in conversations, but we knew he was listening. He chuckled at our jokes.
It was the short term memory that was fading. Often while we waited for Martha and Juanita to shop we'd sit in the shade and talk about old times.
While he was still lucid Ralph made his wishes known about the end of his days. He wanted no funeral service other than at the time of inurnment. No heroic measures to prolong a narrowed life. Bury his ashes and have a party.
He moved to a nursing home when his condition grew too much for Juanita to care for him at home. In a few short weeks he lost his ability to swallow.
He slipped away with his family around him.