When we first moved to this neighbourhood Imran was not yet born. His older sister Lovaleen was a little girl of about ten, and she resembled her beautiful, dark-eyed, raven-tressed mother. Now, Imran is in his second year of university. And Lovaleen lives in Toronto, not far from where we used to live forty years earlier. She lives there in a house she and her husband bought two years ago, and they have a baby son.

Yesterday, on our way up the street to the ravine entrance, there was Mohinder, raking up the rest of the leaves on his lawn. He hasn't been gainfully employed outside the house in decades. He suffered a workplace accident that left him with an impaired shoulder that caused him great pain. He had two surgeries; the first gave him brief relief before he once again succumbed to the effects of the original injury, and the second surgery simply wasn't successful. He lives with constant pain, but has learned to exert himself doing small physical feats of labour. Mostly, he depends on Imran to do things he had formerly done himself, and Imran is reliable, dependable, and never fails to heed his father.

Rajinder has worked steadily all that time. She is a mid-level civil servant, and she takes her job seriously. She is hard-working, holding down a full-time job and keeping an immaculate house. They drive down to Toronto often to visit with their daughter, son-in-law and infant grandson. And their daughter and son-in-law themselves frequently make the trip to spend week-ends with them, in Ottawa.

Now Rajinder is ill with what appears to be a mysterious malady. She is experiencing dreadful back pain, pain shooting up her right leg, and her right foot too appears impacted. Their general practitioner wasn't much help; he sent her for physical therapy and then she simply became worse. They've seen a neurologist and still the cause eludes detection. She is taking codeine for pain relief and has spent the last week-and-a-half in bed.

Imran too, in the past, has come up with strange symptoms that had him fainting during hockey games, and his heart raced madly. A cardiologist wasn't certain what the problems he experienced stemmed from, nor did a second specialist, and tests seemed to pinpoint nothing in particular. He was, though, finally convinced he could no longer play soccer or hockey, since those strenuous games precipitated these symptoms.