Traces

The overnight rain has left pictures of the dawn and the amber glow from streetlights scattered in the puddles in the driveway of my father’s house. The murmur drifting out of surrounding pines and cedars is that of rising new families of yellow finches, downy woodpeckers and cardinals that have been learning the ropes of the backyard feeder these past days. By the screened door of the kitchen, the cuckoo sounds. The clock above the family table announces the call of half-three. It’s early Sunday of a June night, a restless night and any minute now, Yvonne’s silver Toyota will appear up the driveway.

Following a most recent emergency run to the hospital and Dad’s acknowledgement of requiring constant care, I assumed the responsibility of keeping him comfortable in his own bed while awaiting placement in the veteran’s wing of the nearby Perley Rideau Centre in Ottawa. Here in his home, I split the overnight watch with Yvonne. She’s soon to arrive to take over so I can hit the pillow.

She’s a gift in many ways. Yvonne, that is. Her manner and practical drive comes from her early days, raised on a dairy farm in North Gower —The Gower as they say it here in the Ottawa valley. Yvonne’s upbeat ways and her training as a personal support worker have helped us in bushels as we navigated through a string of family crises this past winter. It’s been a long season of transition for my father. But despite the parade of ambulance attendants, care workers and medical assessment people filing through the house—all requiring minute-by-minute decisions—we consider ourselves blessed.

I don’t know if you believe in angels. As in that one person who’ll arrive at a time of critical need. The ever-so-clichéd and iconic image of winged cherubs stuck in our heads ruins the real deal as far as I can figure. We’re blindsided, not cluing-in, failing to recognize the offerings of a new arrival. Once you’re done tryin’ to rationalize so-called coincidence and ready to see other instances where this has happened, I betcha a pattern emerges.

Please understand that I’m not what ya call a religious sort. If anything, art expression is more my way of understandin’ the concept of guidance comin’ at ya from the far side of the veil. That’s my take on it, anyhow. Besides, in the scheme of this whole picture, as a leveller of the playing field, Yvonne will sometimes be accompanied by Molly, her parrot. Molly’s yelp and holler will very quickly put a stop to anything resembling personal philosophising. Molly is a rainbow-feathered, bona fide rescuer of sanity.

My dad, Paul, dubbed the centenarian scientist by some, had measured back in January that when the lilacs flowered in the east corner of the yard, it would be time to list his Ottawa home of 50 years for sale. Lots of work to ready a property for market, anyone will tell you. Now the lilacs have come and gone and the perfume of peonies and linden trees fills the neighbourhood. In fact, a large vase of sunset-tinted peonies rests on the mahogany table in the dining room, dropping their petals one by one. Having been a gardener, my late mother made it a familiar thing to have fresh-cut flowers in the house. Patricia, our real estate agent, says that it’s a detail appreciated by prospective buyers. Fresh cut flowers: Let’s just say that they hold way too many memories for a sleepless mind to handle this morning.

Dad remains positive and appreciative, and with the burning of Himalayan incense, a calm seems to maintain us all. Sometimes, dozing in the night, I’ve been known to also sometimes practice the ukulele in the sunroom or tinker with a kalimba—a sprung metal and coconut shell musical instrument affair—that offers a mellow resonance of the west coast of Africa.

It’s another passage, one of many that we encounter. Gracefully accepting change, while not always easy, is one way to invite grace into the process. As I contemplate all that is happening, I look down to the ancient wooden checkerboard that sits on a small table before me. The board has been the game. It has heard the voices of the customers gathered in my grandfather’s barber shop in Shawinigan, Quebec. It has revelled in our laughter in the many years it entertained at the family cottage, north of Ottawa. Now it sits, set and awaiting.

The headlights of Yvonne’s car now light up the driveway. The cuckoo clock calls four. Somehow, just like Molly the parrot, all of it makes sense on a night like this.