It’s Santa Claus parade day here in Toronto. We will watch from our warm family room where we can eat snacks and listen to the bad commentary. “Gee Gus those bagpipers sure are snappy!” I have absolutely no patience to wrangle two little kids who would have perpetual runny noses and want to run around and not stay on our little square foot of sidewalk on University Avenue. Maybe when they are older I can take it, not yet.
I also have a bad association with the Santa Claus parade. When I was 27 years old I was standing in a room in Princess Margaret hospital. Not to be maudlin but okay this might be a bit. Okay it totally will be, so there. My Dad passed away on the afternoon of the Santa Claus parade. I was leaning my forehead against the cool window and looked out on University Avenue. There were the bands, the floats with the kids in costume waving away, those creepy upside down clowns that look like they are walking on their hands but are really walking right side up. It was such a shock. After the experience I had just been through, to turn one’s head from the frolicking paraders and see your father in that state, it was too much. Too much of a shift. Too much of a contrast.
I remember driving home to my apartment at Yonge and St. Clair that day. My brother and sister went home with their respective spouses yet at that time I was single. I wanted nothing more than to get to my apartment so I could officially let myself fall apart. Not forever, just for a day. Let it all go. BUT guess what? I couldn’t get home. I couldn’t get across University Avenue because of the damn parade. I couldn’t cross Bloor to go North because of the damn parade. I couldn’t think straight and be clever to figure out how to simply get home. I drove and drove and drove. I had the ugly cry going at this point. I couldn’t stop it. When I reached stoplights I would look neither left nor right. Home, home I just wanted to get home. My body was being pulled to my parent’s home but no one would be there. My little bachelor-ette apartment was home and I so needed to get there.
I fretted and fretted and scorned and swore at the world. I drove and drove. I finally reached the underground parking of my building. I took the long elevator ride up to the twenty-first floor. I wanted to get there and dreaded to get there. I unlocked the door and walked into my small place. I slowly took off my coat and gloves and put them away. I filled the kettle and plugged it in. I sat down on the couch and then the phone rang. I answered the phone and my sister was on the other end. I was home.
Sorry for the self indulgence. Happier times tomorrow. Promise.
2 comments:
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It's strange how we have such strong associations to something so tragic.
My grandmother passed away right in front of me. I used a brand new, very expensive shampoo that morning. Treating myself having purchased it in the first place.
Now, the mere scent of it brings me right back to that very time that she passed.
God rest all their souls.
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