I lost my mother to cancer. She outlived her prognosis by six years. I wrote this not long before her death.

Six-and-a-half hours later Its 9:30 and I’m hammering down the hill from Rossland towards Trail, BC in the dark. I do what I always do at this point of the journey, which is to feel fully free to wander across the double yellow line hitting the apex of each of those 18 corners, its great man. Whether I shave any time off of my trip by doing this, I dunno. I used to run with a rag-tag bunch of devil-may-care skaters affectionately known as the Litigators, and we’d would howl down this same hill in the dark of night, at speed. I know this stretch like the back of my hand. Well past Wedding-Cake and I’m at Waterhole corner now, then I keep it easy through Warfield. I tap the brakes as I pass the fire station and I come upon a well lit intersection, right by the school my little brother went to. I pick up speed now past the community pool on my right, under a bridge and around a few more bends. Maybe I pass someone here. It’s miles in my rear view, but the freedom that slipping along relatively vehicle-free Crowsnest Pass affords me on a Thursday afternoon still courses through my veins. I slide into the gulch.

All lit up.

I do what I always do at this point of the journey. I make certain that Matt Good’s ‘Last Parade’ is cued up to play through the speakers and I drive in silence. I Slow things down now and rightly so. The streets are empty In Trail but I’m an adult for fuck’s sake. I behave! I come past some bar that’s had a hundred names and take a look to see what its called this time around. Now I take a right at this big intersection. Industry hums over the hill directly in front of me and some sodium lights beam upwards. Its Cominco, Teck or whatever. A ruinous blight on the land, the smelter swelters in the twilight. The financial heart of this community with a thready pulse.

Burnin’ futures in the mountains.

I take that right and head down a hill, past what was once a 7-11. Used to be a rag-tag, devil-may-care group of skateboarders would congregate there. I maybe see the ghost of one or two of those boys out of the corner of my eye. Victoria St. A.K.A. Hwy 3B cuts like a knife through this town, and on it I cross what is known as the Trail Bridge. I’m all brakes and easy does it because I need, for the first time on this trip, I need my progress slowed.I’m at the intersection of Third Ave and Vic. The light turns green and I press play. Gas. First little bit of this song is like a dirge and I calmly take these next left and right rolling corners at the speed limit. My headlights quickly haunt the entrance to the local landfill until the road straightens out. I’m whistling through what’s known as Shaver’s Bench, past a Husky station into a hamlet known as Glenmerry. The strings come in. In about 10 seconds I pass an RCMP station on my left.

It feels like time to let it go.

Probably no safer place to do so. I see, like, four or five police vehicles in the parking lot but I mean, the cops are all in there doing paperwork or hitting on whatever bored admin staff remain. The likelihood that these guys are gonna pour out the front entrance, sliding over the hoods of their cruisers eager for hot pursuit after they see me whip by is so fucking remote it gives me a little charge. I mat it into a mild left arc on the road, then another right. I head downhill now.

It feels like time cut your brakes.

I’m at 70 km now seeking 90, diving into this natural valley now where on my left, shacks and shuttered quonset huts lie dormant in the foothills of an unnamed mountain that juts up high and blocks out the night and its stars on that side.

It feels like just another day, like one more dead town’s last parade. Like we’re takin’ pictures of a tidal wave. On the shore, grinnin’ a hundred feet away.

To my right, I know without looking that there are a few rock islands out in the water. I look anyway. I can’t see their slick surfaces but I know they’re there. The Columbia River, as deep and black in the night now as oil, roils and churns around them. I breathe in and

It feels like time ain’t time at all.

Gas again ‘cause there are lights up ahead and to have a red one impede my progress at this late stage would just be too much to bear. It is green, I capitalize and rocket past the lumberyard where some thirty years ago, this boy stumbled around for a paycheque. Still more pressure on the pedal now ‘cause here we go uphill and this is the “home stretch”, son. In every sense of the phrase. Two lanes. At this point I usually pass maybe one other traveller. The only sounds are my engine with Matt’s stellar accompaniment. I feel like he’s both sad and angry here, but I don’t attach myself to that end of it. Whoever is doing the guitar here in the song, its like that sound has been in my soul for as long as I’ve been alive. I love hearing this yearning riff tonight in the hills, this close to Momma’s place. There is just so much hope and despair in the back end of this song and it just loosens up all of the wires I keep around my heart, if only for 90 seconds.

Just black out. Wake up foreign. Wander home, Oh, wander home

Heart is cracked open and I speed toward the last turn into Montrose. Fists at ten and two. My head tilts forward and I stare at the road ahead like Max Rockatansky might . If I wanted to, I could shoot right off the cliff two or three hundred feet out into whatever air that hangs past the road on that final turn. Just pull a Slash “Don’t Cry” move right off the edge and soar into the night time sky. I’m not gonna do that though. I hit that last left turn easy. Streetlights whip by at a frequency that suggest I oughta slow down to 60. 50, 40 now then 30 Almost no speed now as I take a right off the highway, then a quick left toward Mom’s place. In the middle of the dark I’ve got about a hundred yards to go. So close! I do what I always do at this point of the journey. I gas it to the end of the street because fuck you. Right then Matt goes, he goes, he’s all like,

Take me out, lay me down, let the dirt fall all around me now

And if I’ve played my cards just right, I pull into Momma’s driveway just as he wails,

Baby, ain’t it good to be back home?

Ain’t it good to be back home?

And it is, man. Its fucking great to be back home. I shake the road off a little while the guitar ends importantly. Momma comes on outta the house and greets me with the same wide and lovely Cheshire grin I know she has for all of you when you come to her door. The piano outro ensues and before the song is over, before the last note is struck, I’m in my Momma’s arms.