HOMEWARD BOUND

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

On the opening page of this book are the following words of Alistair Macleod: Every man moves on, but there is no need to grieve. He leaves good things behind.

The reason becomes immediately clear on the following page, where Darren Calabrese describes the moment he knew it was time to go home.

A family tragedy pulled him back to his roots.

Returning to Atlantic Canada from their frenetic lives in Toronto would allow him to immerse himself “in long-held family traditions”.

“I needed those to help me cope with losing my mom – and to come to terms with my own longing to hold on to what remained.”

He and his wife and child landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, more suited to his career prospects as an award-winning photojournalist than the lakeside woodlot in New Brunswick that has anchored his family since 1786.

“It sounds like an entire province away from Dad, but it was only a morning’s drive.”

Trying to help his father cope with his grief and move beyond just going through the motions of living helped Calabrese deal with his own loss and sense of fear of losing his Dad, too.

With the passing of his father a few years later, he is faced with the fact that the steward of the property, the one who knew its history – and that of the family – was no more.

“All the values I hold dear – love, family, loyalty, work ethic – those were all born on this woodlot, and I’ve carried them wherever I’ve gone. My family’s story is here. My parents are here. Everything I believe started right here.”

A treasure trove of old photographs reveals his father’s family history in New Brunswick and that of his mother’s family in Prince Edward Island.

And Calabrese rediscovers an appreciation for the geographies, histories and people of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Although many who live on the Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador would find kinship in shared Atlantic Canadian roots, there is distinct unwavering pride and hard-earned respect in each province, community and county,” he writes.

I’m an inland kid. That’s how I explain myself when meeting folks from away who can’t believe I don’t like lobster. It became too tiresome to go through the myriad geographical differences in Atlantic Canada, so I eventually landed on “Inland Kid”. This identity still makes the most sense to me.

It is that sense of unique identity, and of good things left behind by those who came before us that Calabrese shares with his readers in a stunning collection of photographs and stories, both deeply personal and those of people he met along the way.

There are coffee table books that are filled with glorious images, inspiring dreams of vistas waiting to be explored. And there are coffee table books that urge us to look within.

Leaving Good Things Behind is both.