Trying to cover my tracks, I made a big production out of greeting the cat and playing with him. He stalked off, tail held high, his dignity intact as I slunk into the garage and drove away.
I never did find out if our neighbour understood that I was talking to Fatso the cat and not her. Needless to say it was some time before we spoke again.
Calgary, Alberta
I TOLD YOU SO
It was Thanksgiving. I met my mother at her home in Chatham and then we headed to our cottage for the holiday weekend.
Along the way we made an unscheduled stop at Jack Miner’s Bird Sanctuary. Mom had grown up in southwestern Ontario and had often regaled me with stories of the Canada geese that stopped there during migration. The fields, she said, were “black with birds.” Why we decided to stop this year I don’t remember, but we did. It wasn’t like we did it often, and in fact, we haven’t done it since. I remember thinking it wasn’t worth stopping.
When we did stop it was apparent that the migration had begun. The field set aside for the birds was already full.
On the edge of the field there was an old-fashioned blackboard, on which someone had written that the geese would arrive daily at 4:00 and 4:25 p.m. Yeah right, I thought. I mean really, how could they know the time? I doubted that any birds would arrive at all.
Well, it was nearly 4:00 p.m. so I told Mom we might as well hang around to see what happened. I remember she smiled, a little smugly I might add, knowing full well what was to happen. We were in the midst of swans and mallards when I noticed a peculiar sound.
Out of the east, from the direction of Leamington, the geese came flying in. They came in by the hundreds, if not thousands, and they descended onto the field just across the road. On and on they came, a seemingly endless stream of geese, flapping and squawking as only geese can do, so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.
I stood for a moment, stock-still and stunned. I couldn’t believe the sheer number! When I got over my initial shock, I checked my watch.
My jaw dropped.
4:00 p.m.
Not a minute before or after, but bang on the hour!
The geese continued to fly in for several more minutes. I was beginning to wonder if there’d be an end to them. Eventually there were just a few geese in the sky. Most of the hundreds had landed on what was now a very full field. I’d just caught my breath when, wouldn’t you know, the whole thing started up again.
This time the birds came in from the direction of Essex. I checked my watch, and yup, you guessed it, it was precisely 4:25 p.m. I remember thinking that if the buses in Toronto were as punctual as those two flocks of birds, my daily commute would be far less painful.
I still feel awestruck by what I saw that day in late October so many years ago. By that, and by the fact that my mom never said “I told you so” even though she had every right to.
Edmonton, Alberta
HOW TO BE A BETTER MAN
My wife, Helen, and I were in love. We had two beautiful daughters—three years and twelve months old—and I’d just returned from my third peacekeeping tour in Bosnia. The reunions are the best part of the tours. You get the opportunity to fall in love with your partner again. Six months of separation causes immense emotion. The plane ride home is long and filled with intense anticipation. The joy of that first hug is magic. This reunion was further blessed with the knowledge that Helen was pregnant. We had no worries.
Life can change quickly. Three months later the ultrasound technician asked us if we had a history of twins in the family. In shock, we learned that Helen would give birth to a girl and a boy—Sofia and Connor.
After the birth we quickly realized that the work was extreme. The twins’ routine was exhausting. My career had evolved and I was busier. Work was stressful and I was falling behind. And now Helen had four children competing for her attention. We both became irritable. We had no time together to make things right again. There was no time for anything but the children.
I dreaded the late-night feedings and came to fear the way I felt about the twins. When I came home from Bosnia I’d been looking forward to reconnecting with my wife. But Helen was absorbed with caring for the children. This made me feel even more isolated. She didn’t seem worried about our loss of our intimacy. I felt guilty and selfish. I felt useless.
Helen and I began to argue about little things—things that weren’t important. I lost my cool a few times when it was my turn to feed the children. I blamed it on work, but it was more than that. I’d spend the next day shamed by my lack of strength and wondering whether or not I really wanted to keep going down this road.
One night I arrived home tired and unhappy after a particularly bad day at work. One of the twins, Sofia, was sick. She woke up crying around four in the morning. Helen was exhausted and I knew she needed more sleep. So I scooped Sofia up from her crib and sat on a wicker chair in the nursery, rocking my crying child and thinking about how I was feeling. I felt like a failure. I wanted time to myself. I wanted it to be like it was four months ago. For the first time in my life I seriously considered quitting. I’m no good as a father, I thought. I wanted out. I wanted to throw my crying child down and run away.
And just then I realized the crying had stopped. In the low light I looked down at my baby daughter, and—I will never forget this moment—right then my sick, helpless daughter looked up at me and did something she’d never done before. She smiled. The first smile of her life, given to me as a gift when I needed it the most.
I cried and cried, and my tears fell on her face. But she wouldn’t stop smiling at me. I held her tight.
I slept in that chair all night with Sofia. In the morning I laid her back in her crib and snuck into my children’s rooms to kiss them and silently tell them I loved them. I walked outside and took a breath of the fresh morning air.
It took me a long time to share this story with my wife. The next time I tell it aloud, it will be to my daughter. And when I do, I’ll be thanking her for making me a better man.
London, Ontario
THE FIREMAN
My son Luke loved firefighters as a boy. He also loved costumes. Over the years Luke dressed up as all the well-known super-heroes—Superman, Batman, Spider-Man—as well as some of the lesser known characters. Characters, I learned later, that were a figment of his imagination. I helped Luke make super-hero costumes: we sewed onion bags on his coat sleeves for Spider-Man, attached capes to his clothing, and cut out letters to attach to his T-shirts. The neighbours loved it.
His favourite alter ego was “Fireman.” He wore an old navy jacket of mine that reached his knees, his fireman hat, and his Wellington boots. And he always brought along his trusty fire truck with the extension ladder. We even constructed a fire hose out of wool and foil. At the park Luke would play on the climber, slide down the fire pole, drive his truck to the scene of the fire, and then save the day with his fire hose.
One day, while we were playing, we heard the sound of a real fire engine. We lived in a big city at the time, so that wasn’t uncommon, but on this particular day the truck came down the street and past the park. We watched it whiz past and then stop suddenly in front of an apartment building that was billowing smoke. It was very exciting.
Luke quickly grabbed his own fire engine and took off down the street. By the time we got on the scene the firefighters had the blaze under control.
As I watched the action, I became aware of Luke setting up his truck and taking his hose out of his pocket. Just then a firefighter, who I guess had noticed this small boy dressed as a fireman complete with wool hose and miniature fire truck, came over and said to him, “Come on, let’s go, we’ve got a fire to fight!”
Luke looked at him, in shock, and said, “I’m not the real Fireman, I’m just a small boy.”
Arnprior, Ontario
FADED LOVE
I’ve forgotten whether Mireille’s room was on the sixth or seventh floor of the ancient walk-up apartment building at 7 rue St.
Martin. It doesn’t matter. She was a small Norman woman from Urville-Bocage, but I met her in Paris in 1970.
Mireille’s single room served as a kitchen, living room, and bedroom. The loo was in the hall. Beneath her bed she kept a large stone crock of cherries soaked in calvados, the fiery distilled apple spirits of her native Normandy.
Our actual acquaintance was brief: a month in the summer, and another in December of 1970. George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” was topping the charts, and Mireille, who was nine years my senior, called me “My Sweet Lord” and “Robert, you clever boy.” Truth to say, in 1970, I was, in many ways, still a boy.
Mireille cooked splendid French meals for me on a tiny hot plate, and through the small dormer window of her room, pointed out the hermaphrodite gargoyle on the cathedral across the street. That was the year it snowed in Paris before Christmas, pure white flakes the size of silver dollars dissolving like fallen angels into the black waters of the Seine. Mireille asked me not to leave for North America before Christmas, but I did. I took a cab to Orly on Christmas Eve, and flew to New York on an almost empty 747.
She wrote me many love letters, and I wrote back. She asked me to come live with her on her father’s farm in Normandy and raise “a half a dozen of cows.” In one letter, written from that farm, she enclosed a pressed violet.
At the end of 1996, which had been a singularly loveless year for me, I busied myself moving old papers around my apartment in a vain effort to convince myself that I was actually accomplishing something. I came upon Mireille’s letters, and reread them all again. It had been more than ten years since I’d last looked at them. They were poignant and touching and made me feel the fool, or much worse, for having rejected her love. At last, as I knew that I must, I came to the letter containing the flower. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that it had faded so. But I was surprised by how little of the indigo summer of twenty-five years ago remained.
Richmond, British Columbia
FROM FATHER, FINALLY
I was at an antiques show in Abbotsford, British Columbia.
I was wandering around the fairgrounds looking at the odds and ends when I suddenly said to my friend, “That’s my father!” We were looking at a wartime picture. The face, my father’s, was a real photograph and the body was a cartoon drawing of a man strutting with his chest stuck out to show his new rank. In the lower left corner was my father’s nickname, on the epaulet was “PPCLI,” and in the lower right corner was an inscription: “To Alan from Daddy with love, Christmas 1942.” My father had known my brother for about a year before he was called up to fight. He had never known me.
My mother and father were divorced after the war. Dad married a nurse from Winnipeg whom he’d met after being invalided out of the Sicilian campaign. In 1944 our mother sold off the family farm near Georgetown and moved back to her hometown of London. She must have cleared out Father’s memorabilia and given it to his relatives near Limehouse. We never heard from Father again.
I bought the photo, packed it up, and sent it to my brother. It was the first time he’d seen it in fifty-nine years. It was of particular interest to him as he’s had several strokes and is sometimes more interested in the past than in the present.
It was a special moment, finding that photo, and I’m so grateful to have found this new, and only, memory of our father.
White Rock, British Columbia
CANADIAN TIRES
I was born in Arvida, Quebec, in March, 1959. My father, an Alcan man, was transferred to Riverside, California, in 1966.
On a fine March day when I was in grade eleven, five friends and I left Riverside in my buddy Brad’s Plymouth Fury II. We were heading for the San Bernardino Mountains. We wanted to “go to the snow”; it was spring break and we loved to toboggan. The mountains of the Cajon Pass can be full of interesting surprises. Most of them having to do with the weather.
The car was typical of a high school kid’s car. We had just enough gas to get home and all four tires were of different makes, though equally bald. Between the six of us we had about $1.85 in loose coins.
When we arrived in the mountains at mid-morning it was sunny and clear. At about noon, however, it began to snow: big, fat flakes that floated down slowly and stuck to the stuff that was already there. Throughout the day, the rate at which the snow was falling steadily picked up. I mentioned this to Brad and he said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll be fine.” So, we kept tobogganing.
The snow got deeper.
After a couple of hours and maybe eight to ten inches of fresh snow, Brad decided we should leave before the California Highway Patrol closed the Cajon Pass. He handed me the keys to his pride and joy and said, “Here, you drive. And if the cops ask any questions, let me do the talking.”
We piled into his Fury II and away we went, only to be stopped by the long line of cars heading to the highway on-ramp.
The Highway Patrol had the on-ramp blocked. They were turning cars away. We crept forward slowly. It kept snowing.
As we got closer we could see that the highway—all four lanes leading back to Riverside and all four lanes going in the opposite direction—was fresh, white, and pristine. There wasn’t a mark on it.
After half an hour of inching forward, we made it to the road block at the on-ramp. I rolled down the window and some snow blew in, followed by a cop’s head. The cop’s head said, “Where are you boys going?”
Brad leaned forward and said, “Sir, we’re going back to Riverside.”
The cop looked at me and said, “The Cajon Pass is closed because there are ten to twelve inches of fresh powder on it. You have a two-hour wait until the plow arrives and you’ll need chains on those tires.”
Brad leaned forward again and said to the cop, “Yes, sir.” Then he pointed at me and said, “He’s Canadian.”
The cop looked at me—in awe—and said, “Are you really Canadian?”
“Yes sir, I was born in Quebec,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what this was all about.
The cop pulled his head out of our car, turned to the other officers, and said, “It’s okay, this one can go through. There’s a Canadian driving.”
They stepped aside and away we went. And we drove home without incident.
Windsor, Ontario
THE CELLO
On Easter Monday my family’s life came to an abrupt halt. My daughter and son-in-law’s first baby was stillborn. It was such a shocking, devastating event. All the hopes and dreams of a new generation, all the expected joy of arrival, now turned into the grief of departure. I flew to Toronto to be with them and was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from family and friends, many of whom had travelled long distances to attend the funeral of a little girl they’d never had the chance to know.
During the days that followed the funeral, we spent a lot of time talking about life and death, trying to make some sense of the purpose behind this loss. My granddaughter was named Strummer, after the musician Joe Strummer who also died before his time. In lieu of flowers, my daughter and son-in-law requested that trees—red maples—be donated to the Joe Strummer Memorial Forest on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
This was a wonderful idea, but I wanted to do something to memorialize Strummer’s death that was more personal to me. Alone at night in my hotel room, I thought about what I could do that would help me turn a little girl’s death into something positive. People are communicators. We use words, movement, art, and music to tell our stories. This is what makes us human.
On Monday morning I walked through the door of Heinl’s music store. A young man approached and asked if he could be of help, and I replied, “Yes, I’d like to buy a cello.” I knew nothing about cellos and had never played one, but it had always been in the back of my mind that I’d like to try. A used one had just arrived at the music store. I was quoted a price and told it could be shipped to Nova Scotia. I said that I’d think about it. I phoned the next day and bought the cello. And not long after, I f
ound a wonderful music teacher who’s helped me learn to play.
I never had the chance to hold my granddaughter or to hear her laugh, but when I pick up my cello and hold it close to me, when I pull the bow across the strings and attempt to play the music of many generations gone by, I feel that the little girl left me a great and wonderful gift. It led me out of great sorrow and into a world full of song and hope.
Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia
THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN
One of the most treasured moments of my life happened on a night train bound for Thunder Bay from Sudbury. It was Christmas, sometime in the late 1970s.
Three of us, all sister teachers, were going to visit a family at the lakehead for part of the Christmas holiday. We boarded the train at 10:25 p.m., on December 25.
It was one of those perfect winter nights—crisp, cold air, crunchy snow, lots of stars, and a bright, bitten-cookie of a moon shining down on us as we pulled out of the Sudbury station. The train wasn’t full. I wondered about the people who shared our car—alone on Christmas Day. I’m sure they wondered about us, too.
The car was calm and quiet. We passed Levack and Cartier, where the dark pines heavy with snow were Christmas card cutouts. It was beautiful.
Just as I rested my head and closed my eyes, something wonderful happened. In the dark, a clear voice began to sing “Silent Night.” One by one other voices joined in.
When “Silent Night” was finished someone else started another song, and then another and another after that. Not a word was spoken as one Christmas carol after another rang out—no stumbling over words, or hesitation, or even discussion as to what to sing next—the music just poured out spontaneously. Each of us taking part.
Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange Page 4