The wind is gusting as I write this: a reminder of our holiday ice crisis here in
southern Ontario. In the aftermath, the
sun came out while my son and I were driving through the Don Valley, suddenly a
valley festooned with shimmering diamonds!
I hope you too were safe and able to enjoy moments of winter pleasure
during those challenging days.
During the holidays I decided to tackle the toys lurking
underneath my middle son’s bed, deciding, first and foremost, that bins under
beds should have lids: no one wants to
play with a dusty toy. There I found a
bin containing hundreds of small stones, each one unique, hand-picked by one of
my sons on one or another warm summer day.
My favourite featured a tiny, perfectly-formed fossilized sea
creature. Since downsizing was the goal,
not discarding outright, I went through them handful by handful, salvaging the
ones that had interesting qualities.
Inevitably, I grew wistful about the boys’ childhood times of seeking
and finding treasures like these, and even my own early days spent on the
shores of Lake Huron.
Through this sorting exercise, I came to understand in a
deeper way an elderly client of mine who passed away last year, whose abandoned
house was, quite simply, filled with newspapers. A special company had to be called in, and a
month spent emptying the house after he died, rousting out the racoons who had
been letting themselves in for years through an upper window.
During Keith’s last years in a nursing home, his room
would continually be overwhelmed by newspapers, and he was wistful about them,
asking for scissors so he could review and cut out particular articles. The energy to do so was long gone, but clearly
his treasure on this earth was knowledge, and engagement with the world of
today. He was known to have provided
financial support for the studies of several young people in the family. He told stories about the decades he had spent
in Ontario rail yards, as a liquid loads expert. His eyes would sparkle, seeing me walk in
with a handful of mail and newspapers.
A house full of newspapers is eloquent in its own way, when you know the
context.
