The Scot in him is just like his mother. Who named him Scott. And Scott's mannerisms and facial expressions are just like his mother's. We've known him for half his life, on a slightly deeper than casual basis, but not much more since we usually come across one another in the ravine. He's had a difficult few years. He broke up with his live-in girlfriend for one. He lost his two little terriers, one after the other, about a year apart. 

 

About a month ago he told us, as he stood well back from us while we spoke, that he'd just been to see his grandmother. She was diagnosed with COVID-19, and since she's in her early 90s and living in a congregate setting, he knew it would be touch-and-go. A week later he told us she had died. But good things happened to him, too. He met another woman, a young nurse, and though it took several years they're now firm companions. Getting to know one another included going on trips abroad, once to Africa, once to Yugoslavia.

 

Scott brought home a new companion dog they both lavished attention on, a young rescue from someplace in eastern Europe. Because it was a puppy and rambunctious they were experiencing some difficulties training the puppy to be a little less physical, because it's a large dog. And now they've got a baby boy, several months old, healthy and an obvious new focus on their lives together.

When we saw him on Thursday he told us it was his day off, but he was listening to his two-way radio. There had been an explosion and a resulting fire he said. Looked serious enough to call in several fire detachment crews, and his might be next. He's a big strapping fellow, loves  his job, the best-natured, kindest young man imaginable.

 

The explosion and fire we soon learned, took place in a nearby business in an industrial sector nearby, one that built and repaired tanker trucks. The facility was gutted. Firemen were unable to enter it when they responded because of downed power lines and the inferno itself. Several people were taken to hospital. One has since died, and six others remain missing.

 

Life happens. People go to work, do their jobs, and some jobs are dangerous. One of the responding firemen was injured. The search for bodies continues. Those who worked at the facility who are missing are being mourned. It's hoped that all the injured will recover. 

It's the kind of news, close to home, that makes you grateful for a steady, calm, normal life where distractions and disturbances seem light in comparison to the plight that fortune brings to others. For us, today is another day of gratefulness. Our entire family, though geographically distanced, is well, and so are we. 

 

We've been experiencing a cold snap these last few days. Yesterday, with a high of -20C and wind under a blue sky we decided to give our daily forest hiking trails a pass. And then we feel badly for Jackie and Jillie, even though they're susceptible to the cold since they're so small. The temperature edged up to -16C by afternoon from the morning's -22C with a light wind, so we decided not to miss another day out in the woods.

With a forecasted overnight snowstorm tonight and an estimated 30cm of snow to fall, we might just not be able to get out tomorrow, making it quite imperative that we haul ourselves out today, and so we did. Jackie and Jillie were pretty frisky, neither indicated that their little paws were freezing as we hiked along the trails. Few people out today on the trails. We did see several over on far distant trails from the col between valleys, and came across one of our friends.

 

It was cold, and we were glad to be out to look about and enjoy the landscape and the sight of our two puppies disporting themselves and scrubbing about here and there. And we were glad an hour later to be back home where the fragrance of a lentil-vegetable soup simmering away for dinner greeted us.

It wasn't particularly early this morning when we finally arose from our comfortable bed, but it was very dark. Dark as in either the night hours or a raging storm outside under a bleak, black sky. It was, of course, the latter. Which explains in part our reluctance to emerge from sleep to greet the day, since the day's greeting wasn't particularly enthusing. Another night of rain. On an already well-doused landscape. What was a little different about this weather system was that in the early morning a surly thunderstorm broke the silence. Thunder claps right over the house, no less. And a sudden, brief flash of illuminating light from corresponding lightning flashing through the bedroom.

 

And not only arousing all of us, but sending Jackie and Jillie into a barking fury. Breakfast was eaten in comfortable darkness outside and warm and dry conditions for us. There was a sense of ease, no need to hurry, just take our time, since it seemed unlikely we would be given the opportunity to take Jackie and Jillie out for their usual tramp through the ravine today.

They too lounged about comfortably, and one wonders if they connect weather conditions directly with their chances to get out into the forest. They just seem to take everything as it comes. By early afternoon they were clearly anxious. Drooping with disappointed expectation on the loveseat in our bedroom. They had a hangdog look about them as I viewed them seated dejectedly in the upstairs hallway behind the balcony balustrade, as though behind prison bars.

 

But the rain stopped even though it remained darkly overcast and a glance at the sky told us rain was only on hold, not finished for the day by any means. Still, we went downstairs to visit with Irving in his workshop and suggested a brief hike through the main trail of the forest, and he agreed. We hurriedly put on rain gear and off we went.

 

 

Well before we reached the valley bottom of the ravine we could hear the creek churning and thrashing down below, full of the rain that had fallen, coursing downstream, carrying fallen leaves and light twigs on its way. Its width had grown impressively, and it seemed deeper and wider than it does during spring runoff. The trails underfoot were deep in slosh from an overabundance of rain. The leaf mass remaining on the trees shed droplets of rain, but the rain had stopped, however temporarily.

 

 

At our feet the fallen colourful foliage scintillated in their heavy varnish of rain. Uphill and downhill clambers called for careful negotiation, but unlike the woman we'd come across yesterday who'd slipped  and fallen, we were in no danger of doing likewise. There were scant few other people out but we did meet up with one of our trekking friends and he was in a funk of a mood. Usually we stop briefly to chat then move on, he at a much faster pace than we muster. Today he stayed with us for the duration of our tramp that turned out much longer than we had intended.

 

 

He needed to ventilate, he was taut with anger and his anger went beyond a mid-life crisis. He had suffered poor health caused by a number of conditions but finally he was over all that. A man of action who sought out tense situations by profession from a long career as a special-action forces policing agent, he was given to athletics of the most extreme kind. Now that he is older and feeling much better than he had in a decade, he yearned for adventure and certainly not a sedentary life in a city. His wife has decided life in the city is just what she needs and the tension between what each of them foresees for their future together is mounting.

 

 

We listened, commented when we felt it might be useful, gave no recommendations on a course of action that would satisfy each of them from the height of our age and experience, but hope that anything we might have said would be useful, give him pause for thought and reduce his resentment toward a partner who had shared that life with him for forty years.

 

Rain did come down, heavily as the sky heaved itself into a darker mood, but by then we had returned home. I gave Jackie and Jillie their little fresh vegetable salads, and put on a harvest soup for dinner for us.

Still

Sometimes you come abreast of a situation that informs you starkly that although all is well in your world it isn't necessarily so in the world that others inhabit. Of course, all you have to do is read the morning papers and story after story sketches out scenarios of conflict, deprivation, starvation, mass atrocities. We become accustomed to reading about countries -- usually geographically far off from our own -- that either have fallen into dysfunction or never were wholly functional. Those stories appall you and you feel a twinge of regret for the poor people directly exposed to the effects of civil strife, government incapacity, discrimination, and misery.

This morning while I did the laundry Irving went out to empty some of those garden soil bags into the wheelbarrow for distribution around the front lawn with the intention of re-seeding the grass. It seemed the perfect time, the atmosphere cool with a good stiff breeze to cool it down even further and he carried on while I did  household chores. Eventually I joined him out-of-doors and carried on with my self-imposed task of trimming cedars and old junipers, and tidied up a bit more around the gardens.

Jackie and Jillie did some restrained exploring, wandering off to the neighbours' lawns until we were ready to go off to the ravine for their afternoon hike through the forest trails. There's the thing about taking a circuit through woodland trails at a leisurely pace; it has a psychologically calming effect, relaxing both mind and body while entertaining the mind and exercising the body.

We came across several friends; one a young man who always likes to hike alongside us and discuss matters of interest to him. I leave those discussions primarily to Irving. What did come out of their discussion was that on our return home, in response to the  young man's own experience in re-scheduling a second dose of vaccine, Irving made the requisite call in view of the province just equipping the city with an additional number of doses, to reschedule our own second shot. And this time it's for Sunday at a site more congenial to us geographically.

After we parted from our friend, we suddenly came across another old acquaintance whom we haven't seen in a while, walking her dog Millie. She smiled as we approached one another, then said she had bad news for us. Her husband had died the week before. That's the kind of news that is similar to being slapped hard across the face; you can't believe it's happened. He was 62, and though he had a family history of strokes at a young age, he was examined regularly for the condition of his heart and all appeared normal.

They'd had their second dose of vaccine. She felt extraordinarily lethargic, her husband experienced a different kind of discomfort which grew over the next few days. He felt tired and began to feel breathless, but wouldn't hear of seeing their doctor; he was fine, just fine, the discomfort would fade and he'd be back to normal. Two days later he took his car in for an oil change, and when he returned home he rushed up the stairs and collapsed on their bed, his heart beating wildly. She checked his blood pressure and it seemed reasonable, but his pulse was wild. Go to the hospital? Forget it.

She spoke to her sister-in-law, an emergency room nurse who advised her to get her husband to emergency as soon as possible. She called an ambulance and was told en route in the ambulance by the paramedics that they were heading directly to the Heart Institute; doctors were awaiting their arrival. An echogram revealed he'd had a heart attack and it had blown a hole in his heart. Surgery was scheduled urgently; two matters to be addressed, a severe blockage and the hole. 

They have three sons, the youngest, 24, lives with them still. They were all at the hospital with her, and they were devastated. Each was permitted, one after the other, to go in to the hospital room where their father was hooked up to life support and where he spoke to them quietly and calmly. When she went in her husband reminded her of everything that had to be done, then he said it was too difficult for him to talk, much less breathe.

A week ago the decision was made on the advice of doctors that the now-comatose man should be pulled off life support. As she told us everything in great detail, she was calm and collected. Her face expressive but impassive, her voice steady and determined to describe everything. Ventilating is often a comfort. We stood there, listening, quietly commenting briefly, but it was her show and she was determined to eke out a description of every bit of detail, and we listened, shocked. 

She spoke in that hollow detached way that inclines the listener to think that emotion has been repressed, tamped down of necessity to carry on. She was carrying on.