It’s been two years since I last stepped foot in Victoria. I was born there, and my childhood nostalgia is tightly linked to the city. Now I’m riding a borrowed bicycle through its streets. I’m not seeking out the memories, yet they confront me, nonetheless. The map of memories becomes a literal map I use to find my way home. Lost in the dark streets at night? There is the church your parents were married in—you know your way from here. Not sure when to turn off Foul Bay Road? There is the yard where you gathered pine cones as a boy; turn now.

The memories flow even thicker as I let myself into my aunt’s house, which was once our family’s home. The building is over a hundred years old, though the fire that burned the city records makes knowing its exact date impossible. Bookshelves fill every corner, and the remaining wall space is lined with framed artwork of tall ships. The floor creaks, and its sound summons the past. There is the room where I sat on the couch next to my dad while he walked me through the stories in my childhood Bible. That’s where my sister’s cradle used to be—I can still hear her wind-up lullaby music box. There is the kitchen where my mother made bagels and cheese sticks. I’m hesitant to enter the backyard, as even the smell of its soil conjures stories.

My aunt enters my room and pulls out a heavy photo album dedicated to my family. In every photo, Mum is bright-eyed and radiates cheerfulness. She seems fresh, not yet wearied by raising a strong-willed first-born, followed by three more children. There is my daddy, handsome in his dark hair. His modesty seems apparent even in the photographs. Memories of his kindness shine through. And there I am, the little man himself, hair wispy and blonde, face round and beaming. He is happy and beloved, and he knows it.

My aunt is getting ready to attend her goddaughter’s 18th birthday. In English tradition, a godparent is responsible for a child’s spiritual upbringing and is present at every major event. I was always a little disappointed my parents never assigned me one, mostly because it meant fewer birthday gifts. I cheerfully complain about this to my aunt, but she doesn’t see any humor in it.

“Of course, you had godparents,” she tells me. “When you were born, your dad approached three people and asked each of us to commit to praying for you during all your formative years.”

Well then. No one ever told me. “Who were they?” I ask.

“Myself, Dave Eggert, and Ken Smith,” she says. “And we kept our word.”

Later, almost by accident, I end up spending time with all three of these saints. Ken Smith, a retired math teacher with a rich Scottish accent, invites me into his basement suite, where his wife Kathy serves us tea and biscuits. He walks me through the formative decisions that shaped his life and career and how they reflected God’s faithfulness.

I bump into Dave Eggert when I visit SALTS, the ministry that brought my parents together. This wooden tall-ship program, with its voyages up and down the coast and around the world, are legendary in our family’s history. I attend a prayer meeting in the hull of a boat my parents helped build. It will set sail that afternoon, filled with kids from local schools. I sit next to Dave and, as part of the meeting, he spends several minutes praying for me once again.

How does a boy turn into a young man? How is he steered away from the natural inclinations of sin and selfishness, and towards Christ’s redemption? How does he change from a child of flesh alone to a child of the Spirit and the church?

I was away from my family that week in Victoria. But I was reminded again of the steps they took to build a heritage for their son.

On Sunday, I attend my aunt’s Anglican church. My parents were married in this same congregation. It has changed names, buildings and denominations, and it’s undergone a painful schism from the Anglican Church of Canada. This trial of conscience and conviction was a sad, wounding time, but the resulting sense of clarity and purity is apparent this morning. This service is filled with older congregants—old even for Victoria. It’s a small act of God’s grace that they make it up and down the pews without injury. Yet appearances deceive. Their worship is vivid and vibrant. They sing with joyful abandon. I’m refreshed by the liturgy, so rooted in the Word and the gospel. It reorients me to the true reality.

We celebrate communion. One by one, the white or greying heads make their way to the altar to receive the bread and wine. Suddenly I recall a memory even deeper and dustier than the others: my parents taking communion years ago in this very church. It’s a blurry image of dark wood, white robes, blue glass, and the scent of wine and wafers. My parents would leave me to make their way to the front. I didn’t understand what was happening. How could I? Yet I remember the serious joy of the occasion. I knew it was something; something significant. Occasionally my mum or dad would break off and offer me a small sliver of wafer. It tasted foreign and familiar, and it was always too small. I couldn’t partake fully. Not yet.

Then, every night, my dad would walk into the darkness of my room, lay his hand on my forehead, and pray Moses’s blessing:

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord make his face shine upon you.

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you.

And give you peace.

Some of these words made sense to me. Most didn’t. “Make his face shine upon you” provoked a not-all-too-wrong image of God having a shining, serious face that smiled down upon me. I had no idea what “countenance” meant, but it sounded special—like those rare occasions when my parents would lift up their film camera to take my picture. “And give you peace.” A piece of what? It could only be a promise that someday I too would receive a piece, a whole piece, of communion. That I would partake as freely and as regularly as my parents.

And now I’m here, twenty-two years later, in that same church family. I walk forward, kneel between strangers, and am given a whole piece. “May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserve your body and soul to everlasting life. Take and eat.”

And so, I do.