I don't quite recall noticing her before this afternoon, but the chocolate lab and we came across one another when we were halfway through our walk in the ravine. Of course, she wasn't alone, she was with her mistress, a woman advanced in years and like me well bundled against the icy atmosphere; cold, not quite as cold as yesterday at minus-7C, but there was no sun today and there is a stiff wind, so it's as well to be snugly clad.

As my husband and the woman became engrossed in conversation, Bailey and I got to know one another. Bailey is thirteen, and amazingly energetic for her age, given her breed. She's on a special medication that costs $200 a month, not cheap to keep an ageing dog frisky. It's a pain killer for dogs suffering from arthritis, and Bailey does have arthritis. She also has quite a few lipomas. One right on her muzzle giving her a lopsided appearance, which her gentle, inquisitive eyes correct very nicely. Others on her legs, her body; they're not very large, but they are quite visible.

Her once-glossy coat is not quite as smooth as it must once have been. It is slightly dishevelled in appearance, but perhaps my view is now more sympathetic than it once might have been; with our own two little poodles it is entirely possible I was more or less oblivious to many of the dogs we've so often seen in the ravine. Bailey was experiencing some difficulties on the many icy portions of the trails, slipping occasionally, once right over on her side, but she was quick to right herself, and took pains to try to avoid the icy areas when she could.

Bailey is somewhat memorable for me because she was happy to walk alongside me. I was attractive to her as a source of peanuts, and Bailey obviously loves peanuts. Her companion said she has an iron constitution and she lets her eat anything she likes. I'll bet she does; when Button was into her 19th year I'd cook a tiny portion of egg for her in the morning, because she loved eggs. She adored bacon and I'd give her that, too. Along with a bit of cooked potato when we were having them.

Above all, she had to have her raw vegetable salad to complete her evening meal. And, oh yes, daily helpings of chicken that had gone into the pot when I made chicken soup. Chicken bits sprinkled over her kibble. When it came to mealtime she was ecstatic; Riley a bit more fastidious, but eager enough for the same types of foodstuffs usually verbotten, minus potatoes and a few other items Button craved.

Bailey nosed about, alongside me, in those places where I regularly deposit peanuts for the ravine squirrels that she could reach, and retrieved the peanuts. Where she wasn't able to avail herself of the peanuts, she waited patiently for me to give her one in compensation. She was a very pleasant, albeit temporary companion.

I am relieved that the 29th of December is past. And with it the milestone of my 78th birthday, receiving calls from family in acknowledgement of that fleeting event. The abundance of hugs throughout the day from my husband representing one of the best gifts of the day. The other was his discovery of a forgotten photograph album. We have so many of them, chronicling the important events of our lives. And we treasure those albums, but rarely do we look at them, since there is always so much to catch our attention, things that must be done, and that take our time.

Riley (left), Button, hiking in New Hampshire

Yesterday afternoon, he insisted that I stop whatever I was doing and sit with him awhile, while he leafed through the album. It was one full of many photographs and quite a number of them featured Button and Riley, both young, though she was a full seven years older than him when we brought him home. It was a sad delight to look at those photographs; a tender and grief-full occupation but one that also brought smiles of remembrance and appreciation to us.

Riley, overjoyed with his first winter in the ravine

Today, the sun is full out, another bright day. The high for the day is minus-12C, so it is very cold, all the more so with the wind. Yesterday the weather began to change from perpetual overcast and mild temperatures that managed to melt most of the accumulated snow in the area, resulting in pools of water and slippery, mucky trails. Now the trails are still slippery, even more so, but slippery with slick ice, making it difficult for people to negotiate their way, and where there is no ice the rough condition of the trails after all the industrial-strength work in there reconstructing the three bridges for months on end, has left it difficult to walk on them. We don't expect there will be trail remediation until spring. A covering of snow would certainly help.

So, given the icy atmosphere and the ice underfoot, it is hardly surprising that in the hour-and-a-half we were walking through the trails no one else was to be seen. Except, that is, briefly, a woman in her 60s (we know, because she informed us so) walking her five-month-old Irish setter. The little dog had come bounding across a bridge that hadn't been replaced, far distant from those that had been, and came straight for us, delighted to see us, prancing, and bobbing and asking for notice, leaping at us, loving life and seeing no reason why others would not.

There is nothing like seeing new life in all its youthful exuberance and open happiness wanting to embrace everything it sees, to provide another perspective on life and its pleasures. While the woman kept calling her dog, ordering it to 'behave' as she laboured to catch up, we enjoyed its delirious romping and its inclusion of us, however briefly, into its little world.

Her young dog, she explained, was exhausting her. They had lost an elderly Irish retriever, and this was the replacement -- while they were still young enough; 'now or never', she had said, convincing her husband. And this little fellow was the result.

An odd dissonance has set into our lives in such a short space of time. It is difficult to overcome the feeling of bleakness. We each set about our usual daily routines, both singly and together, to achieve the crown of the day, in an effort to return to normalcy. It will come, doubtless, in time.

It's hard to find emotional rest now. We're both very fragile, and need one another, so we are grateful that we do have each other. But there's an elemental spark that has temporarily been snuffed, and a grating emptiness where before there was not. It appears that it is in our emotional makeup to care for and nurture others together. Over our 60-year marriage it was first our children, and then, after a lapse of decades, it became two little dogs.

Taking ourselves off for our daily walks in the woods likely does help. On the other hand, due to a weather combination that is fairly unusual for this time of year, the forest has shed much of its snow in the moderated temperature and precipitation that has fallen in the last while as rain, not snow. Everything looks as dismal as we feel; raw and desolate. So it's questionable just how much it helps us now, although it does to a degree.

Things, we know, should be proportional, and it's difficult to convey to others who ask, how we feel. We don't want to speak of how we feel, but with family members sometimes it's difficult to evade such things. Not many people can understand the emotional devastation that sets in with the loss of a 'mere' pet, an animal, a dog, for heaven's sake. Get another one.

Some, like my sister, do know what it's like to experience such a loss. It was useful for my husband to speak with her at some great length. But placing things into perspective, which is what society insists upon, is a hard taskmaster. Yes, we know, and we grieve at a distance for the horrible loss of life with yet another AsiaAir/Indonesian/Malaysian aircraft down. We imagine the desperate horror of the people in the Italian ferry that had to be evacuated, where seven people died in the process. We shudder with compassion for people in Africa, in Syria and Iraq assailed by fanatical religious psychopaths.

All of this sorrow in the world does nothing whatever to help with your own pain, which suffuses one's spirit with the agony of loss ... to think that the death of one very small creature could create such emotional havoc in people is difficult for others to find credence in, but that too is life.

Yesterday, like the days before, we came across few people in the ravine. It is too muddy, too slippery, to attract people at this time We did see one young man whom we've seen from time to time with his two dogs, a 7-year-old Bernese mountain dog, and a three-year-old Bull Mastiff. He is passionate and verbose about his emotional investment in his companions, in particular the Bull Mastiff. It's the second such breed he has had the care of; the first died at age three from the result of a cancer difficult to treat. Large breeds like those have exceptionally short lifespans. But he is devoted to them, and he will suffer.

It's just as well that we cannot, and have no wish to look ahead into the future. The present, and our undying hope and anticipation is what motivates us; without that we would hesitate to commit ourselves to anything, much less to love vulnerable creatures with whom we are able to communicate and treasure our lives made more fulfilling, with them.

There was little relief, this past week, from the gloom of heavily overcast skies, although some might think the trade -off that accompanied that perpetual dusk in the accompanying mild temperature was worth it. Some episodes of rain during that period aligned with the unusual mild weather resulted in a snow-melt leaving very little left on the ground.

Yesterday, another one of those days of dense dusk throughout the daylight hours, we drove over to the emergency veterinarian hospital to settle our bill there. We had deposited the required surety as required before they will undertake to begin any medical procedures, and were prepared to close the account that had been opened with them last Tuesday when we brought our Riley in for treatment.
The final bill was paid, and we hope never to see that place again. Not that they didn't try to save him, and not that he wasn't given compassionate and professional care.

No mere words can describe our anguish at his loss, so there is no point dwelling, in mere words, on what our loss means to us.

Afterward, we went for a long walk in the woods. It is restorative in a sense, though it doesn't stop the tears.

It has been quite transformed from the place we became familiar with 23 years ago, in so many ways. The latest transformation represented by the replacement bridges, finally completed, although the approaches to the bridges are quite dreadful; the earth dug up, compressed, the clay and sand that comprise the forest floor a sticky mess of snow and ice-melt. In some areas ice remains, in others the ground is bare, none of the usual fall detritus remains, and the main trails, widened to accommodate the large tracked vehicles used to deconstruct the bridges that were claimed to be unsafe, and to construct their replacements, have left a dreadful mess behind them.

Still, though parts of the ravine and its interlocking trails look dismal, and aren't lovely to walk through, there's a restful quality to being out there, and every little bit of help we can find to bridge us over this abysmally low period in our lives is welcome.

So much has changed in our little household. Wherever we look, it is a different aspect. What we expect to see just is not there. It hasn't helped much, taking away all of Riley's little beds and blankets, his water dish, removing his little porcelain dishes from the countertop, since they will no longer be needed.

I gathered together all of his towels, his blankets, his sweaters, and washed them. Heaven knows why. Usually when they're washed it's because they've been used and need to be cleaned. I thought: I'm washing away what we have left of his smell, and that is not what I want to do, but I did it anyway, as though it might help somehow in bringing closure to this dearly tender passage in our lives. Doesn't matter, I still try to gain an impression of his presence, gone though it is, forever. I've tucked everything away. My husband put all the beds into a large plastic bed. We don't know what we'll do with it all.

Doing as so many others of our acquaintance have done, bringing another dog into their lives after the loss of one beloved companion, doesn't seem open to us. We are now 78, we would sooner or later face the reality that a loved pet might outlive us, and then what happens to it, who will take it? The thought of a small vulnerable creature ending up in a shelter, at the Humane Society, awaiting adoption is anything but appealing.

The thought of constant concerns about the well-being and security of a small dependent we lavish our love on and who returns to us the only thanks we would ever require; confidence in our ability to nurture and protect it, and then having to experience the anguish of parting is hugely affecting to us now. 

To us, his loss represents a monumental shock. It's still early days, but we are trying to adjust. We hug and we speak quietly, taking comfort from one another, but the memory of his last hours and days with us, and seeing him on life support, then having it all taken away, and with it his suffering, will haunt us for the rest of our lives.

Every moment of our day there is a little trigger, expectations that come automatically from habit; to fill his water bowl, to see him sleeping comfortably as we arise from bed, to prepare him for a walk in the ravine, to anticipate his usual reminding me that dinnertime is approaching. The triggers are there, but he is not.

Lost. It's how we feel.

He is everywhere around us, here and there in the house, tracking us, asking us, companioning us. But when we look there is just a vacuum, a vacancy. All his beds, his blankets, his dishes and cushions have been taken away. We just couldn't bear to look at them without him.

His tag has been placed alongside Button's on a silver chain, and tucked into a jewellery box.

A photograph of him as a puppy, free in the woods we loved to ramble in with him now takes its place beside one of Button on the fireplace mantle.

A few days ago, just a few days ago, he was with us, our little companion.

How could something so catastrophic happen so swiftly? Would we ever have been prepared?

We comfort one another and try to be careful not to upset one another, but it's useless. The disquiet and deep anguish is just too raw.

This has been, for us, a Christmas Day to remember. Not a memorable day, as in future days thinking back with any wish to recall the day and its events, but a day of personal anguish, which time will never heal.

The first telephone call this morning from the veterinarian working Christmas Day at the Alta Vista Veterinarian Hospital was to advise us that Riley had passed the night after his Wednesday surgery fairly well. They were concerned with his blood pressure, much too low. He was in intensive care with 'round-the-clock vigilance and care, still being rehydrated, and heavily sedated, with antibiotics the order of the day.

While late yesterday when we spoke, there was some optimism that we could have him returned to us by Friday, Boxing Day; the following day at the very latest a later call informed us perhaps he might have to remain in intensive care a few days longer, given his vital signs.

Several nodules had been discovered on his liver during the surgery to remove  his gall bladder; the surgery had gone well, he hadn't reacted adversely to the anaesthesia, the organ was removed intact, and he was resting under heavy medication. The nodules might turn out to be benign, or cancerous.

The second telephone call of the day today, several hours following the first was to inform us that pneumonia had set in, likely the result of his having thrown up and some of it having gotten into his lungs. A condition, the doctor said, that likely came with him on his entry to the hospital on Tuesday. And while his condition was yet uncertain, odds had changed from an 80% survival rate we had originally been assured, to a 50-50 chance  of recovery.

There were some concerns; his blood pressure had to be stabilized, pain killers had to be administered. And, if his heart stopped, would we want extraordinary measures to be taken; aggressive CPR?

We left the house to drive to the  hospital. Christmas Day this 2014 in Ottawa was overcast, lightly raining, unusually mild at 5-degrees C.

Once there we were ushered into a "comfort room" equipped with sofas, where the veterinarian on duty went over the details with us. And reassured us that Riley had already experienced the worst trauma, through the surgery and they were doing everything they could to help him survive the surgery. We'd previously discussed his age; 14-1/2, and the concerns over his liver, and then attention had turned to his gall bladder which required immediate emergency surgery.

When we were taken to see him, after a lengthy interval of discussing his condition, the doctor informed us his blood pressure which had rallied slightly was now once again plunging and his breathing appeared seriously compromised; they would have to take aggressive measures at this juncture; his organs were shutting down.

We understood that this was utterly futile. We should have been kind to our beloved Riley and had him euthanized on Tuesday; his condition was dire at that juncture, and the already-aggressive measures taken urged by the veterinarians had only added to his suffering, and the agony of fear and hope we were suffering.

It was at this point where we finally garnered the strength to understand our selfishness in prolonging his agony, in wanting to do anything it might take to help him live longer, not for himself, but for us. And that is when euthanization became a priority, as we caressed our unawaare loved companion, spoke quietly to him despite the breathing apparatus and the IVs, kissed him and bade farewell.

We had called the hospital last night and this morning, a fairly useless exercise, for what else would those responding inform us but that Riley had spent a quiet, peaceful night. He was, after all, heavily sedated, along with the IV lines sustaining him and bringing him to a better physical place than his sudden collapse into ill health had left him after an exhausting week of declining symptoms into utter lethargy and quiet desperation.

But we did receive the morning call we were anticipating afterward, when the ultrasound had been conducted and the results examined by the veterinarians at the hospital. Who had concluded that it wasn't his liver after all that was the source of the problem, but his gall bladder which had shut down operation and had infected his liver. That small organ was in such a parlous condition it was on the verge of bursting, which made it mandatory if his life was to be extended, to have surgery immediately.

While we authorized surgery to proceed over the telephone, we made haste to drive to the hospital to sign the authorization and to pay up front 50% of the cost it would take to hope to restore him to health. Hope is the operative word here. Much can go wrong, including the application of anaesthetic, the discovery after a liver biopsy that there was a problem with that organ as well after all, or that bile had flushed into the liver creating complications. Or that, if he does indeed also have Cushing's disease, making him more vulnerable to infections that state might conceivably compromise his recovery, post-surgery.

But in life as in health as in attempts to restore good health there are no guarantees and none would be forthcoming, since as a reassurance, it is a false one.

We spoke to several of the veterinarians who are looking after our little Riley, each did his and her utmost to inform us with as much details and cautions as they could muster. We looked again at the X-rays, at the ultrasound photographs, listened to the descriptions of the surgical scenario and its aftermath.

In a sense a reassurance since removal of the gall bladder does not imperil his life; a diagnosis of cancer or that the liver is beyond repair, would. So where there is an avenue of remedy, there is hope.

After we left the hospital and undertook the long drive home under an aquarium-grey sky and falling rain, we spoke little, but did reassure one another in the way that complete fusion of two souls is capable of doing.

As we entered the house there was the sound of a male voice speaking; it was the surgeon preparing to operate and just touching base with us to give his own assurances, before proceeding. We picked up the telephone just as he was concluding his message, and that gave us an opportunity to talk back and forth for a few minutes; his voice kind and concerned, and, we imagined, reflecting his capable expertise.

Wishful thinking won't make it so. There was a strange feeling that I had overstepped the bounds of caution in writing yesterday that all was well with Riley, that the visit to the emergency veterinarian hospital on Saturday had solved the problem our little fellow was experiencing with the symptoms of diarrhoea.

When next we attempted to administer that noxious-smelling anti-biotic pill to him nothing we wrapped it in, from cheese to chicken would convince him to take it. I had made a small beef roast and my husband, taking a very thin piece of the beef wrapped the oft-rejected pill in it and Riley succumbed.

Problem is, though he had seemed to rally completely the day before, yesterday he was not too enthusiastic about anything. We had taken him out for a short walk and he ambled along very slowly, more slowly than he is accustomed to doing. So that wasn't a huge success. He slept soundly afterward, regaining his strength, we thought.

When dinnertime came around he was uninterested in his food, not at all typical behaviour for him. And he was drinking copious amounts of water. Earlier we'd observed that he was looking for blades of grass in the backyard, under the layers of snow and ice. And then we realized that he was using water as an alternative; it made him retch; he was looking for some relief from how he felt.

That evening he was wretched feeling, absolutely no life to him, quite dejected, though he slept for hours on my husband's lap until we went up to bed. At three in the morning he was restless and was taken outside where he peed. Normal enough, given the amount of water he'd consumed. Soon afterward he brought up most of the food we'd succeeded in tempting him with.

After breakfast this morning we made an emergency appointment with the local veterinarian hospital we've used for the past 22 years, and were able to see one of the vets. They did bloodwork on Riley after a physical examination, and took X-rays, then the veterinarian explained the results of all of that. Bit of an enlarged heart, but a really enlarged liver, and it was his liver that was responsible for the alarming bloodwork results. She recommended we immediately take him to the Alta Vista Clinic with their more sophisticated clinical medical devices and vets accustomed to dealing with more serious health problems.

And there Riley is now, an overnight patient in the hospital that stays open 24 hours a day, always a veterinarian and technicians on duty. He is to be monitored while on IVs to stabilize his condition. After which an ultrasound will be taken of his liver to attempt a more definitive explanation for the alarming symptoms not only in his extreme lethargy, disinterest in food, diarrhoea alternating with vomiting, but more critically the white blood cell counts and other unusual results of that blood test.

If we're fortunate he will be diagnosed with Cushing's Disease, a treatable condition that will allow him more years of quality life.

Finally, thank heavens, Riley is feeling his own little self. No longer is he asking to be taken outside to evacuate his bowels, poor little tyke. And we have all enjoyed badly-needed uninterrupted sleep. Where until two nights ago we had four nights of experiencing him struggling out of the blankets to stand appealingly in his silent way to alert us that his body had signalled another diarrhetic paroxysm, that no longer occurs. And just as well, since no more than an hour-and-a-half or two hours would elapse between each such event.

Through it all, he was stoic and uncomplaining. He's such a good little fellow. We felt so badly for him. We felt badly for ourselves as well, sleep-deprived and concerned over him. He began rejecting the rice-and-beef formula that had worked so well in the past. Quite unlike himself, since he is a little dog who will eat almost anything. He had been picking the beef out of the rice, and discarding the rice. Over which had been sprinkled the minuscule crystals of the probiotic supplement meant to restore his bacterial gut flora.

So, given that reaction, where restorative efforts were being foiled, we felt we had little option but to proceed to more effective methodology, which could only be supplied through a veterinarian's inspection, advice and prescription. And that prescription was an anti-inflammatory to be given orally in tablet form: metronidazole. Thank heavens it has worked so expeditiously.

Although he had been able to drink a little chicken soup, he hadn't wanted food offerings dissimilar to what he is accustomed to. And so this morning, all symptoms back in the normal range, he ate his normal diet of Encana lamb and Okanogan apple. Not much was proffered, but it seems all he needs at the present time.

He's as alert and responsive as he usually is, and given to his senior years' long naps. Today we plan an outdoor excursion for him, something he's been physically restrained from experiencing, in our estimation, for almost a week.

Yesterday did present its problems to her, but it's yet another learning experience. Whenever she informs me of something that has gone awry, I comment to her that despite what the occasion and the outcome of any event, good or bad, it represents a learning experience. And she, having heard that little bromide from me over the years of her life, remains unimpressed; the phrase, in fact, is detestable to her. I must remember that and attempt to restrain myself.

Friday night, anticipating she would have to get up extra-early to catch that 6:30 am. departure from the Toronto bus terminal, she turned in at nine. Her room mate, a young woman from Moscow, had already left, having written her last exam two days earlier. She would be staying with an aunt living in Montreal until classes resumed at University of Toronto. Until, that is, they could once again take up residence at the university residence they were staying in. The residence would be closed from 21 December to 4 January. University students living there, many of whom were international students, would have to find other, temporary accommodation if they were unable to return home for the holidays.

So, having turned in early on Friday night, she was awoken intermittently until 2:00 am by the thumps emanating from the room directly on the floor above. A not unusual occurrence, and one she couldn't complain of too vehemently given hers and Christine's often rambunctious little get-togethers with their own friends on their floor in their room from time to time which elicited complaints from others about the exuberant noise they tended to make.

From two in the morning to the time she had set her alarm would still leave her with a few hours of sleep time, she reasoned. And then it happened; the loud, sharp signals and notice that the building was being evacuated for a fire drill. Not exactly a fire drill. She recalled with a kind of grim humour that only a few days earlier she had joked to some of her friends that all they needed now was for someone to trigger a fire alarm before the building emptied of its residents.

And so, it appears that someone up on the tenth floor did just that, the stupid clown. Down they went, all those drowsy-headed students who hadn't yet left for the holidays, to stand listlessly out in the cold, inadequately dressed, awaiting the signal to allow them to re-enter the building and escape from the dark cold; that all was well, after all; no fire just some stupid prank.

After that, despite being so tired, sleep came hard through her agitated state, but it did eventually overtake her. And next thing she knew was the realization that her alarm hadn't gone off as scheduled, and she was much, much later than would make it feasible that she could reach the bus station a very short walk from the residence, at the designated time.

She humped her rolling suitcase along the sidewalk behind her, her backpack pressing into her shoulders, her purse slipping off her shoulder, cursing the time. She arrived at the crowded station a full hour after the departure of her scheduled bus. Appealing to the station attendants gained her the reassurance she was desperately seeking; she would be scheduled for a 11:30 bus, so she could just return to the residence or wait it out there at the bus station.

She had already signed out of the residence and returned her key so that option wasn't available. She bought herself a muffin from a little kiosk at the station, sipped at her water bottle, called her mother and then her grandparents with the glad tidings.

Hauling an ailing pet off the the veterinarian is no different than visiting the doctor when need be. And nor is making a trip to the local 24-hour emergency veterinarian centre any different than that urgent trip to the emergency room of a local hospital. There are others there whose pets are in distress for one reason or another, their health impaired, due to injury or a medical condition of a chronic variety, or some nasty virus or bacterial culture that has taken advantage of a vulnerability.

It is not a pleasant way to spend a day, or a night, as the case may be, since in either case, rushing off to emergency does mean a whole lot of hours spent waiting, patiently or otherwise, to be seen by the magician that will make everything right.

In our instance, being there, or even considering going there brought back painful memories of rushing our miniature poodle Button there as she approached her 20th year, after she had experienced a horrible seizure, two and a half years ago. The memory of that dreadful night still resonates and always will; we took her there, and returned home without her.

Riley has experienced bouts of diarrhoea before, now and again, but hasn't had such an episode for years. And then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, it happened again four days ago. Only quite a bit worse than we've been accustomed to. We responded in the usual way by changing his diet to a rice-and-boiled-ground-beef bowl (only this time I thought it might be more palatable to him if I substituted lean ground turkey), and sprinkled over it FortiFlora obtained from his veterinarian, to amend the problem.

And it seemed to work, for a day, his urgencies becoming less frequent and his stools tightening up.
And then, a complete reversal, the condition returning with a vengeance. Which would make the fourth night in a row when every hour-and-a-half or two hours he would ask to go out to relieve himself. Which meant, of course, getting dressed to venture out into the minus-14 degree snowy backyard with him time and again, and a whole lot of interrupted sleep.

And this morning, I decided that instead of the steamed rice and ground turkey alternative I'd prepared that he was turning his nose up at, I'd do the old tried-and-true rice and ground beef, and that was refused by him, so he didn't take in the FortiFlora I'd sprinkled over it. It takes a lot for that little fellow to refuse to eat, and we found that really concerning. All the more so when he threw up, after having had far more water than he generally does, because he needed to rehydrate himself.

So off we went with him, and the veterinarian who eventually examined him, when our turn came up, felt that on the surface nothing appeared to be wrong, and she prescribed an anti-inflammatory for him, and recommended we try wet canned dog food to see if that might spur his appetite until he returns to his normal little self.

Her grasping materialism aside, I admired some thing about her, primarily her sense of style, her panache. I did try time and again to be comfortable in her presence, to have her accept me, if I can put it that way, but nothing seemed to work. Perhaps it was my pretense at intellectualism that put her off, my knowledgeability of things that were of no interest whatever to her, if the topics I would broach went beyond fashion.

It used to irk me beyond words when she seemed to treat me as though I were invisible; I would speak to her, ask her a question and there would be no response whatever. It was indeed as though I was not present; at least for her. Her contempt for me was echoed in her contempt for her brother, my husband. We were obviously, she and I, not meant to be confidantes, let alone friends.

She was, in character and personality, quite like her father. And like him, she died of the effects of smoking, alcohol (though she was not an alcoholic) and garbage food. Garbage, used dismissively, is a word my husband, when we were young, used a lot, and that word drove her crazy. Heaven knows why, since her own vocabulary was limited. I assume it was because while she was confident in the world of popular culture, we were comfortable in the world of creative thought.

Strangely enough, we once had a discussion/argument over family ties. She insisted that 'blood is stronger than water', while we held that familial ties can be strong but there are other filaments of binding that must be present before family members value one another; shared values, perceptions and habits. We became estranged with time and no longer saw one another, much less talked to each other.

With that distance came, needless to say, a total blank about the others' trajectory through life, aided by a geographical distance to add to the emotional one. The family that was bound together by the irresistible bonds of blood, we have now learned, no longer is; those bonds were irretrievably broken by dissonances of personality, ideology, religion and quite simply, interference.

When she had interfered once too often in a matter relating to one of her grandchildren where her son threatened to cut off contact with the children if she persisted, he did just that. And now he lives, as comfortably as one can, with the reality of that estrangement, made permanent by the fact his mother died prematurely of a heart attack three weeks after contact ceased.

Does that signify a kind of malicious triumph?

When we were children in the late 1930s, and 40s, the Santa Claus parade was an event of immense proportions in its colour and fantasy, bright lights and clamour, crowds waiting on sidewalks to watch as the procession made its way toward other children further along the lines waiting anxiously to see the displays. For children who celebrated the seasonal Christmas events, and for children whose religion was other than Christianity, the event was the event of the year.


People looking at window display, 19??  T. Eaton Co. fonds  Reference Code: F 229-308-725-2
Archives of Ontario

But what surely trumped the parade were the store-front, full-sized street windows of the T. Eaton Company and Simpsons, Toronto's two venerable department stores, both of which decorated those windows with flare and the brightest, most attractive displays imaginable. The windows were stuffed with moving, mechanical automata and toys of all descriptions, of the kind of gifts that beckoned in children's dreams, and everyone flocked to ogle at the displays, enchanted by their raw, bold invitation to imagine.


Santa's Workshop window display, 19??  T. Eaton Co. fonds  Reference Code: F 229-308-0-713
Archives of Ontario 

But even those windows were second-place to the interior of the stores on the floors given over to toy sales, when fairies and elves and Santa were on full glittering display, both live and in cunning and appealing pseudo-doll form; mechanical beings beaming Christmas joy, busy at work hand-carving or building toys for Santa to haul around in his sleigh at Christmas time. And there was Santa himself, jolly rotund elf that he is, inviting children to sit on his ample knee, and tell him their dearest wishes.

Here in Toronto we had Eaton's and Simpson's, both their Christmas window displays at the corner of Yonge St. & Queen St. were quite famous for years. People used to make the trip downtown from far away places just to see those decorated windows with animated statues.

In comparison to what we saw then as impressionable children, displays now are all glitz and show but no wonder captured in their presentation whatever; amateur productions unable to hold a candle to what the imaginative creations of yesterday held on display for goggle-eyed children awaiting Christmas.

Work is progressing apace in the ravine. Not fast enough for everyone eager to see it all done and the work crews depart, but on the other hand, in this weather at this time of year the hardy men working on the crew to complete the reconstruction of the ravine bridges are without doubt equally eager to be done with it and to move on elsewhere.

They've faced many challenges in the work they've set about completing for the contract signed with the municipality in which we live. Not the least of which being the tricky business of getting large earth-movers and steam shovels and other tracked vehicles in tight places, having to widen trails, take down trees, dump tonnes of heavy gravel and dig out strategic spaces to create greater stability in areas given to periodic shifting, based on layers of clay and sand.

We've seen the difficulties inherent in moving those machines during cold, wet conditions when the forest floor becomes a mucky morass, and at other times when freezing rain has turned the area into a slippery hazard of ice-covered ground, just as much for those machines and their operators as it is for trail hikers. We always have the option of using alternate routes to evade the worst areas, they have no such options, but were forced to struggle with the conditions until they were able to devise strategems to enable them to function.

We've have had freezing rain since yesterday afternoon. And since little Riley hasn't been feeling well, we thought it best not to expose him to the likelihood of getting too wet and cold during one of our regular outings, even with his winter snow jacket on. So, one of the rare times when we've had to eschew a daily outing in the ravine. The freezing rain will turn to snow overnight and perhaps we'll regain what we'll have surely lost in the snowpack.

And as well, another day will have elapsed where that hardy construction crew can exert themselves putting the finishing touches to the bridges to finally enable us to use them with ease once again. We can hear them hard at work from the house, the sound of the construction machines dully roaring on the overcast atmosphere.

The Utterly Unspeakable Wretchedness of Life in Pakistan

16 December 2014: Taliban attack on school in Peshawar leaves at least 141 people dead, 132 of them children

Funerals were under way in Peshawar on Tuesday evening

Victims were carried out of Peshawar hospitals directly in their coffins

Coffins were stacked at this hospital in Peshawar in readiness

 

Some of the injured were carried to hospital in people's arms

 

 

 

When Riley first joined our household fourteen and a half years ago, he was so small I took to carrying him about when we went out somewhere, over my shoulder in a small camera bag with a stiff bottom that I tucked a small blanket into. From that vantage point he would look out into the world he was being introduced to, whether the venue happened to be somewhere we happened to be shopping at, or in a natural setting along a woodland trail.

During one of his first introductions to the ravine, with Riley secure in that little pouch, we came across a small dog we'd never before seen and its companion, also never before seen in the ravine. The woman was affable and the little dog which she said was almost two was seemingly everywhere at once. What was remarkable about that little rascal of a dog was that it resembled what one might think of as a miniature werewolf.

Her name was Rachel, a name suffused with biblical reference, a gentle name to be ironically conferred upon a little dog whose whitish-grey hair stuck out at odd peaked angles, whose ears were stiffly upright, eyes slightly crossed, muzzle with the appearance that it could snap and break bones with ease; a perception of vision that could not possibly be more at odds with the personality of a friendly, happy little dog.

Eventually, on the odd occasion when we might encounter the pair during a ramble in the ravine, Rachel taught Riley the joys of scrambling down banks into the muddy atmosphere of a ravined rivulet, of rolling in rough grass, of tumbling about together in the pure joy of puppyhood. And although Riley considered Rachel a dear friend, their times together were few; while we roamed the woods in the ravine daily, they did so infrequently.

And yesterday we came face to face with someone who seemed familiar but we couldn't quite place her until we recalled the vision of a rollicking little grey dog with a demented aspect. When we asked, although the answer seemed obvious enough, it was to be told that Rachel had died four years earlier, a reality that could not be conveyed to Riley who would have been delighted to see her after such a long absence from his life.

News does get around in the underground community that represents this area's ravine walkers. For months the major topic of conversation has been the removal of the five bridges that link the trails in the ravine, permitting passage over the creek and its tributaries that run through the ravine. With their absence, all the habitual hikers of the trails in the ravine going through the forest (protected from 'development' by the very fact of the geological layout with deep valleys interspersed with heights made it unlikely that property development could take place, and ensured the ravine in its length and breadth throughout the area would be protected by law) have been forced to take awkward alternate measures.

The ravine is beloved of a certain segment of this society we share. Mostly not the young and energetic, although sometimes young people use it to bicycle through using it as a short-cut to a destination. Mostly, the walkers are older people, including the elderly like ourselves, who exert themselves physically for the pleasure and the challenge of temporarily basking in nature's inner preserves. It is an environmental treasure, a place where area wildlife can live out their lives, where migrating birds find haven, where urban dwellers seeking some relief from the strictures and stresses of their lives can find a place of renewal, inner peace and appreciation of nature.

Finally, yesterday, we ventured down to the trails that lead to the first of the two bridges that have been under reconstruction, and glory be! they're in the late stages of completion. Concrete poured over the huge wire nets full of rocks and rough gravel, over the areas excavated of clay and soil so given to deterioration through erosion, the steel laid over, the wood floor and sides have been installed on the two of the bridges, and although they're still officially off limits since the approaches are extremely rough, we were able to duck under the wooden restrains on the bridges, cross over and venture with relative ease toward our old trail jaunts where formerly we'd had to bushwhack and undertake much longer approaches to attain them.

And as it happens, as we were re-discovering ease of approach to our old trail circuits so too were others of our trail-walking community and yesterday we came across old familiar faces, all sporting the same grin of appreciation that we did. It was a day of beautiful weather, the sky fully blue, sun glancing through the naked branches of the overhead trees, and relatively mild at minus-one degree, the treacherous ice conditions now nicely covered by the 25-centimetres of snow that had fallen a few days earlier.

And now we can be assured that the bridges will all be completed and open for use within a week or two, after a long, frustrating wait during which time we were certain that work would be abandoned for the winter months, not to be resumed again until the following spring. It's most gratifying to be wrong on occasion, in instances such as these.

In my opinion there are few sights as ravishingly beautiful, albeit transitory in nature, as a forest upon which a snowstorm has recently lavished its burden. The landscape that reveals itself, with the soft billowing snow resting lightly on every surface it touches is breath-taking in its scope and aesthetic.

The enchanting sight compensates for the wind and the cold icily nipping through winter-protective clothing, and the difficulty of navigating through foot-deep snow on forested trails. We're thankful for the number of people who do appreciate their proximity to this natural resource we live so close beside, since their earlier forays onto the ravine trails make it possible, in forging a narrowly flattened trail, for little Riley to be able to trot along.

When he was younger we used to be the ones who would be first out making our way through newfallen snow. Back then he literally became accustomed to 'swimming' through the snow, continually leaping to get ahead. He hasn't the physical energy and stamina to do that any longer, and nor do we. Striding or attempting to, through deep snow coverings takes a toll on the energy resources of the elderly. As difficult as it is to think of ourselves as being 'elderly', we are among that contingent.

Yesterday the snow had been trodden down sufficiently to make it relatively easeful for us to negotiate our way through a ravine walk. Slipping and sliding on the uneven trail, even with our cleats pulled over our boots. Even now my husband is busy replacing the old screws with new, sharper ones that will go far from preventing us from having another slide and subsequent fall on trails that have become icy.

We came across our good friend Suzanne taking one of her neighbours' little dogs out for a stroll in the snow. She and her husband have never replaced the golden retriever they lost to age and ill health a dozen years ago, and she enjoys taking others' pets out for ravine walks to keep her company and give them the opportunity to enjoy the freedom of the trails. She had with her a tiny miniature, long-haired dachshund, whose owners are busy coping with a strong-willed black Labrador puppy given to their care to raise before it can be trained as a working dog for someone without sight.

It is beyond hypothesis, indubitably fact that women are more prudent, sensible and averse to rushing headlong into situations they feel they will be unable to swiftly extricate themselves from with safety. Men, which is to say many men, tend to act first, think later if they think at all about what they're committing themselves to.

For them, it is as though they have an anti-survival compulsion to tempt fate.

It is one of the reasons that psychologists and insurance agencies, not to speak of governmental statistical agencies point to, for the longer life-expectancy of women in any given society, all other things being equal. Men are just more likely than women to place themselves into situations where they may come to harm than are women.



A team of British researchers researching the field of Male Idiot Theory have satisfied themselves that in this particular instance of the differences between the genders, "idiotic risk-taking behaviour" happens to be a reality. What they did is to assemble and dissect a 20-year span of the Darwin Award nominees. Males comprised 88.6 percent of Darwin Award winners over the period of the study in what was described as the first systematic review of its kind.

They looked at past winners of the Darwin Award and came up with some dandies, including the story of an Iraqi terrorist who mailed a letter bomb with insufficient postage and when it was 'returned to sender', he opened the package which exploded in his face. Another man died when he hitched a shopping cart to the back of a train which dragged him to his death.



Since the award is for the tongue in-cheek  recognition of men who voluntarily distance themselves from the human evolutionary track by putting themselves out of commission, thus self-selecting out of the gene pool, we should be grateful, in a sense that they do come acrop through their own stupid devices, rushing into situations they haven't adequately thought out to their conclusions.

Their noble self-sacrifice to further the human evolutionary track on the other hand, is admirable.

Of the 318 validated cases studied by the Darwin Award selection committee, 282 men were awarded the prize for idiotic risk-taking behaviour, as opposed to a mere 36 women. Good to know that women are recognized as fully capable of committing themselves to self-destructive behaviours as well; wouldn't do to damn all men, after all, since we love them so dearly.

"I think we should be teaching people that there are high-risk situations where they will be tempted to act upon their impulse, and that maybe they should just pause, give it a second thought and then maybe take action. I think women do that naturally", opined the study co-author Dennis Lendrem.

And that is, in fact, what most mothers attempt to impress upon their impulsive sons in an effort to steer them away from potential disaster.

Just as well that we had an all-day snow event yesterday. Plodding through the ravine on the trails we now take as alternatives to our usual circuits while the bridges are being reconstructed required a little more effort, but on the other hand, provided a relief to the icy conditions that had prevailed for more than a week. The snow will adhere to the ice and the footing will become more assured.

Besides which, it's just plain beautiful to view a forest during a snowstorm, with the pure white of the new-fluffed snow etching its beauty over the landscape. As many times as we've been exposed to it throughout our lifetimes, those scenes still make us catch our breath with the wonder of it all; nature at one of her most painterly devices, aside from the miracle of spring rebirth and the parting colours of autumn.

The trails on our side of the ravine that the work crews labouring on the bridge reconstruction have widened to permit the passage of their huge tracked vehicles and the smaller ones as well, look little like their original presentation. They've been widened, some trees taken down, and what was once a nature trail has become a hard-pounded cart track, with ridges frozen into place, and droppings of large pieces of rock and dredged clay frozen into place, alongside wide areas of flattened ice-packed earth and clay. Difficult terrain, truth be told, to comfortably stride.

And since there has been such a prevalence of ice given the freeze-and-thaw and reversals that normally take place and which, surprisingly haven't hindered the work crews, large tracts of ice present themselves. To which presence we have resorted to pulling cleats over our boots. And they generally work wonderfully well, giving us ease of movement and security of footing. Except, that is, when they fail on occasion.

As occurred with me a week ago; one of those times when you feel yourself gliding, then sliding, your balance disrupted, unable to right yourself though not for lack of trying to, and then falling with a thump and finding yourself flat on your back. Thumping down on the very same ice surface that caused the slide; not a very gracious position to find yourself in and a hard bed to lie upon. And a week later, in the very same place, despite that we were wearing our trusty old cleats, it was my husband's turn.

On each occasion, we both dusted ourselves off and carried on with our hike, feeling discommoded slightly, but not incapable of continuing. At our age that kind of fall could be a real problem, so we're fortunate that for us it was not. For each of us several days following our fall, meant a few aches and pains; for me it was primarily an elbow, for my husband a shoulder.

So it's clear that the screws on our pull-over cleats are due to be changed for new ones, sharper and less likely to usher us into another fall. Still, with the new snow that has been dumped over the ice, there's no particular hurry....

Inevitably age takes its toll on all living creatures, and our little toy poodle Riley is no different. The older he gets the more curmudgeonly he becomes. Ill temper becomes him. Only because he is so small and actually inoffensive. And his temper is aroused only when he is disturbed. At age 14 he has aged temperamentally and physically so that he is more aware of cold temperatures and the discomfort accompanying them. When the sun shines he is in his comfort element.

He rarely goes about without a little sweater; light ones at home and heavier types when outdoors over which a winter coat protects his little body from the elements; freezing rain events or snowfalls, and even without either of those, the prevailing cold that winter brings us.

He now spends most of his day dozing. In front of the fireplace, on a soft cushion, all his own, permanently stationed there. He has his own beds scattered throughout the house for those times he wants to use them; the one in the breakfast room beside the patio doors gets the most use when the sun shines and warms it up and he is able to ensconce himself within it to take full advantage of the sun's warming rays.

He accompanies us daily for a hike through the forested ravine we access up the street from our house. He starts off agonizingly slowly, reluctant to actually proceed. Nothing new about that; he's been doing this for the last five years at least; slowly, grudgingly making his way down the first hill accessing the ravine. He picks up his leisurely pace eventually, so that by the time we're halfway through our usual hour or two-hour ramble in the forest he's trotting along quite nicely. 

He always dreaded being bathed, unlike our miniature poodle Button, who loved water. Bathing Riley always required that aside from being carefully dried with a succession of fluffy towels, he would have to be wrapped in blankets -- or in the summer lie out in direct sun contact -- until his body core temperature had corrected the temporary chilling effect of the bath. Which is why he seldom gets bathed anymore at all, as he ages.

He does, however, require grooming, and although I no longer brush his hair regularly as I had done when he was younger because his hair has grown so thin and he dislikes those ministrations, I do from time to time, have to cut his hair when it grows too long where it does grow; on his face, his legs and his paws. And that's an ordeal for both of us.

But it's when his nails need clipping that we come face to face with real resistance. When the little fellow whines and pleads, snaps and becomes helplessly belligerent. And no amount of verbal and physical reassurance serves to sufficiently allay his fear and his annoyance.

We were on the lookout for possible sightings of snowy owls along the Eastern Parkway, since there has been another winter influx of them, and we were hoping to spot one, but no such luck. Their flyways tend to be more on the west side of the city, so that's where they tend to be seen logically enough. We saw only the black shapes of crows against the pewter sky, and a group of three geese flying above the Ottawa River.

It's a chilly day, even though the temperature has risen today to a relatively mild minus-one degree under heavy overcast. A vast improvement over yesterday with its stiff winds and minus-ten degree misery. The river is just beginning to show a thin ice layer in some sections, but it's dark and coldly inhospitable looking just now. When it does ice over the snow that will eventually cover it much lightens the atmosphere. Before freeze-up, however, remaining geese take advantage of the yet-open water.

At the Byward Market we did our usual shopping for magazines and ducked into our favourte cheese shop for specialty items, and then stopped as well by the Rideau Bakery for good rye breads and onion buns. No one bakes rye breads of all varieties like a Jewish bakery.

Rideau Street is far more lively with pedestrians than the pedestrian areas of Byward Market at this time of year. All its bustle is now over, though it remains just as difficult as during the summer, spring and fall months to find a parking space nearby. The difference is instead of strolling about and looking at the outdoor vendors' wares, everyone who frequents the market now is installed somewhere in the interior of its full selection of eateries.

And the only outdoor vendors at this time of year are represented by those selling Christmas decorations made of imaginative use of pine, cedar and spruce, enlivened by bright ribbons.

Anyone who does venture to the sidewalks to pursue whatever goal lured them there, walks briskly, booted, hatted, gloved and winter-jacketed. When we saw a frail-appearing woman obviously suffering from osteoporosis, pushing a stout walker before her, we thought how useful it was that she was dressed in a startlingly white winter coat, to make herself fully visible, for her head had been forced by her medical condition to an unfortunate permanent downward cast.

Some years ago I happened to walk by a book shelf in the basement loaded with a number of copies of literary journals dating back to the mid-70s which had published some of my short stories and poetry and I thought at that time, why not re-publish them all, in a different venue? So I undertook the winter of 2009 to gradually transcribe all of those short stories, essays, book reviews, articles and poems to a blog that I named 'Lost and Found'. Among them also were pieces that had never seen publication.

It took months to complete the project, and when it was all done I felt kind of accomplished, yet bereft of an assigned task. So I decided I would keep writing new short stories and poetry and publish them as well to that same site.

From time to time I note that someone, somewhere, has accessed one of those articles, essays or short stories, and this morning it was a story I had written and which had been published in 1979 in a  literary journal of a university located out in eastern Canada. I decided to re-read the story, despite having experienced a re-acquaintance of all those old stories back in 2009 when I decided to post them online.

Insect Collecting

A marsh hawk soared high over the hamlet. He stood watching until it drifted out of sight, knowing it was headed back for Mer Bleue, the bird sanctuary a few miles away; recalled how Mr. Ferne had taken a handful of boys from the science club there once, on a field trip. Red-winged blackbirds, juncoes and warblers - ducks, and in the distance, in the far reaches of the marsh as far as they could see over the cattails a Great Blue Heron, daintily picking its way, high-stepping the grasses. Fish too; they'd seen silver backs arch the water, so quickly it had seemed a figment of their imaginations.

And it had been Mr. Ferne who'd sent away to Edmund Scientific for optical lenses so Billy could complete his microscope in time for the school science fair, last year. He'd been almost embarrassed about the whole thing, but the gilt cup with its inscription sat on the shelf in his room above the books on tree identification, animal tracks, butterflies and insects. He missed Mr. Ferne, wondered what was so great about raising sheep on a farm near Kingston, Ontario.

He shuffled up the roadway, kicking stones at the curb, and made his way up Mrs. Franck's driveway, then knocked at the front door. No answer, so he sat on the stoop and eased a click beetle off the ground from under a global cedar; placed the beetle on its back in the palm of his hand and waited to hear it 'click', righting itself. But it played dead. He nudged it gingerly with his index finger and it flipped.

"There you are, Billy!"
"Hello, Mrs. Francks." She'd always been a big woman with a big ready smile. Now the smile was still there, but it sat in a gaunt face drooping grey skin. Her upper arms hung crepey and her neck looked like knotted rope. The hair he remembered as blue-grey was now sparse and greyish; the scalp shining baldly through.

"Well, Billy," she laughed playfully, so obviously trying to put him at his ease. "Where have your interests been taking you, lately?"

She settled on the chaise lounge parked on the porch and his mother sat beside her. He felt awkward, wanted to leave, wondered why his mother just sat there, why she'd asked him to come by on his way home from school.

"Oh, I don't know ..." he hesitated. "Insects, I guess ... and butterflies. I'm starting a collection."

"Really! Did you know, Billy, my father was an entomologist?"
"No, I didn't ... Mrs. Francks."
"Well, he was. And he always said that kind of interest has to start early in life. In fact, when he was younger than you are now he was already collecting insects. My grandmother, my father's mother, used to tell us what my father would do when he came across an interesting specimen on his way home from school. Know what he'd do?"
"No."
"Well", she chuckled, "he'd put that beetle right in his mouth and keep it there until he got home. To be safe, you know, so he wouldn't lose it. He had a long way home from school. They lived in a rural area and sometimes he'd climb trees on his way home - fool around, you know how boys do."
"Oh, yeah." In his mouth ... ?
"He once," Mrs. Francks went on, her tired eyes mischievous, "swallowed a big beetle when he fell while walking along the top of a brick wall."

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The boxer next door, an old brindle champ, came clowning around, greedy for attention, swinging his rump with abandon. Billy rested on his haunches to rub the old boy between the ears. The dog wiggled ecstatically, bowled the boy over.

The brilliant green of a tiger beetle whirred past and he put up his hand, stopped the insect in flight, knocking it insensible. He picked it up, admired the iridescent body, the dog snuffling under his elbow, curious. Legs began pumping, the wings hesitantly sneaking out of the shell. Billy blew gently, then harder, and the beetle lifted itself off his palm and took off into a breeze.

He sat on the garden swing, the old dog whining for attention. But Billy sat there, swinging, remembering it was Friday. The air smelled sweet; it was the lilac bush over at the back of the garden. Better than the stench of the pulp mill across the river. He watched the house sparrows scrubbing around in the garden, looking for nesting materials to take back up to the birdhouse in the old elm. The birdhouse he'd made in Industrial Arts two years ago, and gifted to his mother for her birthday.

Minuscule black balls fell on him from above. He looked up through the bright new leaves of the maple shading the swing. Caterpillar droppings, already. Must be tent caterpillars; they don't lose any time getting established. He shifted to the other side of the swing, then his mother called through the side door for him to get the telephone.

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At the schoolyard Kevin adjusted the wings of his airplane and got everything set up. But something was wrong and even though they got the engine going, it would buzz for a minute, then choke off. Kevin did some mechanical things to the controls and they kept trying, but no dice.

Tim Hadley came by, bouncing a basketball and they abandoned the plane, took shots at the hoop. Tim showing off his dribbling technique. They worked up a good sweat, then sat on the hill.

"Yeah, you should see her. Sick, she really looks sick."
"I heard", Tim commented, disinterested.
"She coming back?" Kevin asked, munching a blade of grass, not seeming to care about the answer; doing the social thing, though.
"My mother says not likely. Listen ... how would you guys like to drop over there some day ... you know, just kind of let her know we haven't forgotten her?"
"I dunno", Tim said, kicking off his shoes, digging sock heels in the grass, staining the white. "Geez, she used to kick me out of that library all the time! Anyway, our class sent another card just recently, eh? We all signed it. That's enough, isn't it?"

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Billy worked on his equipment. A long-handled wire net for fishing around in pools of water. Two butterfly nets he sewed out of an old black umbrella. One with a bamboo garden pole for a handle, the other the frame of an old badminton racquet. He developed a smooth reflex swoop, learned he had to be gentle as well as quick, not to damage a specimen.

Already, just around home he'd netted a Swallowtail and a few nice skippers. A Monarch had led him crazily around but it was just too quick and cunning - looped up over the cedar hedge just when he thought he'd had it.

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They took the Mountain Road to Gatineau Park; the hills in the distance with their granite outcroppings reddish in the sun. At Luskville they climbed the trail to the falls. Just a trickle now. Down the granite slop, the frogs flopping around in the small pools.

They clambered up the hillside, passing huge boulders over-hanging the trail; stunted pin oak and evergreens tenaciously hanging on where they'd no business to even try. The granite glinted quartz, was carpeted with grey lichen.

Alerted by a tremble in the grass, Billy handed the nets to his father, then dove to pick the small snake up, one hand behind the head the other holding the tail. The snake writhed, then was still, flicking its orange tongue as Billy handled it, feeling the steely muscles straining, the skin dry and smooth. His mother edged away in distaste, and he bent to replace it in the undergrowth.

High in an ash tree, busily thumping, ignoring them, a red-capped hairy woodpecker. At the crossing of the stream bed his parents rested, playing hands in the cool water. Billy lay on his stomach over a stagnant pool and poked around with the wire net, trying for the newts. They dashed shadow-like, hysterically, around the bottom, stirring up silt, trying to avoid the net, while water striders skittered crazily on the surface of the water.

At the top of the hill, more oaks and the raucous accusation of a Bluejay. Below, the farms looked tiny, tidy; fields a neat colourful patchwork. Cars like bugs crawled the highway. The Ottawa River snaked in the distance, glistening in the sun. On the rocks, light brown oval droppings; near the blueberry bushes, black strings of offal. He'd check when he got home, in his book. Scatology. Not the kind he laughed about with Kevin and Tim - the kind they scribbled in the school's washrooms, but the science.

Pulling some bark away from a decayed stump he watched an ant-like insect scurry around the track in a panic, a white oval egg in its mandibles, other eggs nestled in the wood.

"Termites", his father said. "You've exposed a nursery."
"Not very appetizing", his mother said, backing away.
"I've got to put the bark back just exactly the way I found it", Billy told his father, who was moving off beside his mother. "Mr. Ferne taught us if we disturb something, we've got to put it back exactly as it was, so's not to upset the ecology."
"Right", his father laughed back at him. "We'll leave the housekeeping to you, Billy."

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Shaking the White Admiral out of the box, into the killing jar. The jar was a large one, with a big wad of absorbent cotton on the bottom, wet with acetone; a platform of net halfway down the jar. The butterfly landed on the platform, began shuddering as it struggled with the deadly fumes. He watched for a moment, then stuck the jar hastily into his closet.

Last week, when he'd begun to pin up a hawk moth the antennae began to shift, then the legs. The moth moving without purpose, going nowhere, the pins securing it to the drying board....

He shook a fine Longhorn Beetle out of a matchbox into a jar fitted with dirt and grasses, to give the beetle a miniature environment, until its turn at the jar.

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"I'm glad to see you, Billy", Mrs. Francks was saying, her hollow eyes saying much more, and gladness wasn't part of it.
He mumbled something, didn't know what, felt oddly embarrassed, just couldn't think of anything intelligent; wondered why he'd agreed to call. It was different when his mother talked about how lonely she was, how she wanted company, and he said sure Mom, but being there was a drag and he didn't know how to be any kind of company to a sick old lady.

"Come across any interesting insects lately?, she prodded.
"Found a tomato horn-worm the other day", he finally said, feeling stupid. She didn't really want to hear about it. He wouldn't tell her how it looked, big and green, and how it curled defensively when he touched it, how his mother shrieked at the size of it, wanted him to mash it.
"Ah yes, they'd like to get into someone's vegetable garden, no doubt", Mrs. Francks said. "They're destructive little beasties."
"I told him to get rid of it", his mother said, eyeing him as though she knew he'd only taken it over to the park near their home.

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Wednesday, Tim came over with a Giant Waterbug. Billy ran downstairs for a plastic pail, half filled it with water, shook the bug into it. It began swimming around the rim of the pail. "See that tube?" Billy told his friend. "That's a breathing apparatus for when it swims underwater. Those bugs're really fierce when they're just in the pupa stage. They even eat things as big as frogs. What they do is inject a kind of venom in their victims, that turns the insides to mush, then they suck everything out, leaving an empty shell."
"Wouldn't want it around our place", Tim quipped. "Case it decided to turn me to mush". They watched the bug dive and swim around the pail. Then Billy took it downstairs to the basement; left it there for the time being.

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"I feel I want to say something but I can't, I just can't." His mother, speaking to his father.
"If she's so weak ... why does she take the car out?"
"She won't admit it, she thinks she's in control. But she isn't. She goes around on little errands, she's tired of stagnating. She sits there, imagining the ongoing corruption of her cells ... going crazy thinking of it. Going out, she says, takes her mind off ... "
"I can understand that, but if she has such poor control that she backs into posts ... What happens if she ever hits someone?"
"I know, that's what has me so frightened! But Will, she's feeling so low ... how can I tell her she can't have even that pleasure?"
"What about her daughter?" Why isn't she here, looking after her mother?"
"She won't hear of it! Says she'd be depriving Brenda of a school year, says she can look after herself."
"Christ! if she says that, then why the hell are you so worried? Why the hell do I have to waste my time discussing the woman with you? Let her look after herself!"

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First thing they saw as they neared a line of trees was a young groundhog standing his ground; a wire-haired terrier from one of the nearby houses, a few feet away, barking furiously. They shooed the dog on home and the gopher waddled unhurriedly off into the woods. They followed, ducking into the ravine, turning over stones, frightening a covey of chickadees.

Once out on the flats they saw butterflies everywhere, mostly skippers and sulphurs, but there were a few mourning cloaks, fritillaries. Kevin caught a few experimental grasshoppers, trying out the net, then they ran over the humpy grass after the butterflies, bumping into each other, tripping over twigs and stones. Pandemonium; they yelled and laughed and caught nothing.

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Billy worked the White Admiral into a natural position on the drying board, placing insect pins where necessary so it would dry properly. He painstakingly made out the identifying card. when it was set and fixed in position he would mount it, add it to the collection.

Downstairs then, to look at the Waterbug. The pail stood empty, innocent looking. In the evening, he heard his mother's nervous scream. He ran downstairs and there she stood, hands over her chest, on tiptoe, stretching away from the bug on the carpet. It looked menacing, so large it seemed like a mouse.

"Billy! What is it?!"
"It's okay Mom, relax. It's only a Waterbug. A giant Waterbug."
"Giant. I'll say! How'd it get in here? Or need I ask?"
"Sorry, Mom. Sorry about that. Did it scare you?"
"You can be sure! What are you planning to do, keep it as a pet?

He drew on a pair of garden gloves, picked the bug up, dropped it back in the pail. He stood there, looking down at it. Finally, he brought the killing jar downstairs. It was so big, it would take forever.

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There it was, on its back, still feebly struggling. He resisted an impulse to release it into the garden. It would die there anyway, now, so what was the point.
In the evening, nothing. Even when Billy shook the jar, nothing. He took his large tweezers and picked the bug out, placed it on the Styrofoam drying board, nudged it. He drew the box of insect pins toward him and plunged the first one in, the second; arranging the legs the way they should be, in a natural attitude.

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"Just a minute, Billy, don't go just yet", she said, pushing herself off the sofa with an effort. He shivered involuntarily, watching her slow crablike progression across the room, stopping to stand over him, face creased in what she must imagine was a kindly smile, but to him, a grimace, dreadful.

Her teeth looked huge now in her shrunken skin. Her nostrils flared, giving her face the aspect of a corpse. He steeled himself, smiled back, wanted to look to his mother; couldn't, not with her standing there, looking at him so expectantly. What? Was he supposed to do something? Was she waiting for him to do something, say something? He felt nauseated.

"I want to give you a gift", she went on then, turning away from him, sidling toward the four steps leading up from the den to the living room.
Billy looked over at his mother, raised his eyebrows. She shook her head, raised her index finger to her mouth.
"If I can find ..." Mrs. Francks's voice floated eerily through the partition of the rooms; they could hear her rummaging about. "A rudimentary book on insect classification" she was saying, voice muffled now with the effort of whatever it was she was doing. "An old book of my father's. It's here somewhere, I know it is."

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In the morning he casually checked the drying board. the legs, the legs were moving ... weren't they? Wincing, he withdrew the pins, dumped the bug back into the killing jar.

"Well, Billy! You can't just go off to school without a proper breakfast!" Standing at the table, forehead creased, pushing his cereal bowl at him.

"I can't!" Stomach coming up to fill his chest, his throat. He struggled to recall what the Waterbug pupa was like, what a voracious heartless killer it was.

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After school he went up to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed, looked at the killing jar, the bug perfectly still. Again, the drying and pinning.

Before bedtime, a peculiar sound. The legs, faintly scratching. Throw it out! No. One more time.

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The next day, a lovely day, perfect for doing something, something out-of-doors, with his friends. Walking home with Tim, he said he was sorry, he didn't feel like bike riding, maybe Friday. When Kevin called, Billy said maybe Tim would like to help fly the airplane. Really, he said, he was tied up, himself.

This time, of course, it was dead. Dead and stiff, and it was hard to move the legs into a lifelike position. It was still a good specimen but it would dry awkwardly. Of course, no one but another collector would know, might care. Mr. Ferne would notice right off, if he saw it, but Mr. Ferne wasn't there anymore. Billy wondered vaguely, absently, how Mr. Ferne was getting on at the farm.

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Mrs. Francks was not feeling too well this day. Couldn't walk around much, too weak. Her smile was still there, lopsided. And sitting there, he could hear something wrong inside her. Something was rumbling, wetly, and the sound made him look everywhere but at her.

"I'm so glad to see you, Billy", she'd said warmly, holding out her dry hand to him. He took it, paper-thin, between his. Again, he didn't know what to say, just looked at her.

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"She's gone in again", his mother was saying.
"What for this time!" his father snapped, annoyed. "For tranquilizers? She depressed again?" God knows, she depresses me!"

"No", his mother said sharply, looking angrily at his father. "She may need a colostomy."

"Jesus! Why bother, she'd never live through it."

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Mrs. Franck's daughter, his mother told him a week later, had finally flown home.

"She told me they have a special understanding, she and her mother. They don't say anything ... actually, Mrs. Francks is beyond that now. She said she sits there, beside her mother's bed.

"They draw strength from each other." Her voice biting. "Silly bitch!"

He had never heard his mother swear before. He was always careful with his language, around her.

He wondered if he should tell her he was giving up insect collecting. Wondered if she'd care, if she'd ask why. It was too late now to start a different project for the science fair.

He hoped she wouldn't expect him to go to the funeral.


c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld

Published in The Antigonish Review, Number 38, Summer 1979