Obituary of June Lorraine REYNOLDS

June 2, 1938 – Carrot Creek, Alberta

October 5, 2019 – Okotoks, Alberta

Our mom passed away peacefully on Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 5:30 p.m., surrounded by love. There will be no service. She didn’t want one. She said she would be flying out into the universe, so not much point in a service. She’ll be cremated. She wanted her body donated to science, but being told she was too old, she shrugged it off. It made sense to her really. So, she will be cremated as her husband Bob was. She did not care much about the disposition of her ashes, as they really aren’t needed out in the universe. So, her children will be seeing that their corporeal remains at least are scattered together near the home they loved, while their spirits find each other among the stars.

She was born June 2, 1938. They named her, of course, June, a middle child - Roy and Ramona older, Lorne and Jerry younger. Violet, her Mom and Joseph, her Dad, loved her and provided for her, raising her on a homestead in central Alberta. She enjoyed bowling and softball in her youth, and learned to play the piano at fourteen, an enduring passion throughout her life. Pretty normal stuff really, but June was an unusual person and she wanted a different life. She got one.

She married as a young woman and followed an oilman around the world, living in hotels and exotic destinations, having children early. Her first two, Darcie and Rob, tagged along with her and her first husband, Gerry, around the world and eventually to Libya, where she had her second daughter, Theresa. Moving back to Calgary, she had three more children, Edmund, Jonathan and Carla. There was cleaning and cooking, hockey practice, riding practice, Brownies and Cubs. There was piano playing and gardening. Gardening was on an epic scale.

Her grandchildren, Randy, Justin, Tamara (Tammy), Matthew (Matt), Jacob (Jake), Logan, Kaleb, Kaylen, Jayden and Rori; along with her great-grandchildren, Jeremy and Alice, all called her Grammy. She loved them a lot. They loved her a lot. She would tell stories about them to everyone she met.

She knew frustration, struggle and suffering. She made an impossible choice that both ripped her heart out and saved her life and because of this she knew great love. She fell in love with Bob, moved out of the family house and started over. Together they created a Trucking Company (Reynolds Trucking) and when she saw a need, she became a Truck Broker. Years later, she and Bob started a heavy duty and auto mechanic repair shop. They named it Canoko because, well, they had their shop in Canmore and lived in Okotoks. For over thirty years she lived in Okotoks, ten of which were with Bob. After Bob’s passing, Mom filled her life with her passions for gardening, reading, music, and bird watching. She took great care of her grandchildren during this time. Through it all, she never got old, even at 81, she was young, still helping her kids and anyone else who needed it.

Her special power in this life was to make things good again and she collected all manner of used up and broken things and people and helped them to repurpose, she understood the process having gone through it herself. She was independent, tough, strong minded and capable. When she grew into herself she didn't judge but realized that life is not something we can control and we can lose our balance as we ride the waves of life's changes. Sometimes we fall, and in that, is the miracle. She lived life to the fullest every day. To our amazement and sometimes our frustration, she was able to enjoy her life through one simple adage “Oh well, there’s no point in worrying about that now”.

It was uplifting, in the last few months, to hear her talk about her coming journey through a black hole somewhere deep out in space. “I wonder what it is going to be like?” she would ask “I wonder what I’ll find?” You see, she put little credence in religion, with all its grand stories. No, her lot was caste with wonder.

Few moments of her life passed without her senses delivering a message of wonder to her brain. If you ever rode in a vehicle with her you were surely exposed to the running enchantment of quoting street names as you passed their signs. “Hmm, Spruce Cliff Lane,” she might say as she passed, “I wonder why they named it that?” If you were open to wonder you would take the journey along with her. From the Incas to the wheat crop, from owls to ancient river beds, she would find something of wonder to ponder every day. Nothing was off limits: bugs, twigs, galaxy formation, politics, cloning, children, bird nests, human migration, sex, queens, Christmas carols, horse grazing, quarks, the cosmos. Wondering about wondrous things, with the innocence and openness of a child first touching a worm, that was our Mom.

It was fun wondering out loud with her; sharing her amazement with some subject that either she or you had run across. An hour would fly by in a peel of a bell. And when you were done you felt uplifted, brighter, exhilarated and exhausted – the really good exhausted, like when you strive beyond your limits…and you get there. There was nothing better on earth.

The world remains full of stories, but tonight no small part of its wonder has left us.

Have fun going through that black hole Grammy/Mom. Can’t wait to talk with you about it when we see you next.

Condolences may be forwarded through www.McInnisandHolloway.com.

A tree will be planted in living memory of June Reynolds. McINNIS & HOLLOWAY FUNERAL HOMES, Fish Creek, 14441 Bannister Road SE, Calgary, AB, T2X 3J3, Telephone: 403-256-9575.