Marking Occasions

There's a treasure chest
full of distinctive memories
beautifully visualized and
created to celebrate times of
joy and happiness through
our long years of shared life.

Cards fashioned with love
and with care, humour
and pride to honour family
events. Children teased by
cartoons emphasizing their
interests and accomplishments
and their graduation from
one year to the next.

He is sequestered now
and I dare not intrude on
this creative aesthetic
for my birthday is swift
on the holiday horizon
vying with Christmas and
New Year's, for remark.

The years have passed
since we were young. Our
grandchild now the very age
when we met and our future
was inexorably set. Sixty
years later, you take up
pencils and pastels and
landscape me a blessing.

Winter Solstice

This has been most auspicious
this scintillatingly bright day
beyond bone-chilling
given plunging temperatures
high humidity and incessant wind.

Our boots crunch deeply
into the ice-caked snow
as we pass trees in seasonal
white festoon, wind still busy
urging cakes of snow to !plop!

The sky blue, with drifting
white banners decorating the occasion
a silvery scimitar of a moon
lost in the greater grandeur
of that amazing cosmos.

It is not yet mid of the afternoon
sun sending long shadows
as our legs assume slender
proportions as of gliding tentacles.

As bright as the day has been
there is a darkening quality
hovering in the atmosphere
the sun all too prepared to set.

There is a supreme tranquility
on this shortest day of the year
ushering in calendar winter
though the winter season has long
preceded the calendar.

One an event of nature's making
the other a notion of humankind.

Vanishing Species

The little ones - they were there in various sizes and attitudes - tumbled and frolicked, shrieking with unbridled joy, as they tossed themselves into the billowing crystalline formations that had transformed their green-hued landscape overnight. The alteration in temperature that accompanied this transformation appeared not to trouble them at all.

In their abandonment to the pleasures of losing themselves within the undulating hills of soft, comforting crystals, they paid no mind to the cooling ambiance. They were enraptured at the light nuances, at the sudden, twinkling change from white to colour, as they dove, and swam through the tender thickness of the crystals. The bright, light filaments of their hair flung about their heads echoed the colours of the crystals.

Just as their own skin began to turn shades of pale colour, thickening as it changed, so too did the crystals, as though they were cleverly mimicking them, and they screamed aloud with ecstasy at the very thought that they and their antics were capable of altering that in which they sought out such rapture.

Unlike the changes that occurred in those lively bodies and limbs of flailing little ones, however, it was simply the colour, reflecting their own, that the crystals adopted. The light, flaky crystalline presence did not alter, become coarse, or thicken, as did the skin of the little ones.

And, as their skin thickened and coloured from pale to bright to dark in contact with the cold, the children stood in mock horror, pointing at one another, claiming to have been altered from the delicate woodland creatures that they had been, to the robust, and feared plains creatures they so assiduously avoided - by the sage advice of the wizened, bearded elders whose experience was their history, just as their environment was their living laboratory of knowledge gained year upon year.

Memory was such that they could recall previous years of just such transformations, but details escaped them, and now, directly confronting the reality, it was as though each year’s experience was fresh, unanticipated, beautiful well beyond recall, and invigorating to their very souls. For souls they certainly were possessed of. Quite lovely souls, in fact, which made themselves available on request at times of uncertainty, when comfort was sought and sturdily given.

There were many of these small creatures sporting within the landscape. Some small groups could hardly be distinguished one from the other, for each within that group precisely resembled one the other. And in other, larger groups there were even smaller groups with distinct resemblance one to the other. Readily explicated when one became aware of the wonderful attributes nature had endowed these creatures with.

Their abodes were blended into their wooded landscape, exceedingly well disguised but readily distinguished by those who had familiarity with them. The interiors, however, were quite amazing in the quality of the luxury afforded the inhabitants. Deep, glorious colours abounded, with plush appointments for the comfort of those who lived there; the small among the middling among the large and finally the elderly. Generations lived together in harmony within their dwellings, and dwellings there were many.

Nature had endowed these creatures with qualities of social grace and physical beauty, genders distinguished by the exquisite delicacy of the females, the sturdy physicality of the males, though there were many overlapping character traits where personalities often reflected similar views acculturated by the species’ proclivity toward quiet reflection and grave attention to an unspoken but revered social contract forbidding strife.

Within that framework there were vast differences both physical and attitudinally between the inhabitants of the settlement of that forest blessed with an abundance of other wildlife kindly regarded, and plant life affording their landscaping abilities to the greater appreciation of all those sensate creatures.

Now, there was a perfectly logical reason why - although there could be a vast physical difference in the facial and bodily features of these creatures - there would appear to be groups of the little ones who so remarkably resembled one another. Within their homes, sumptuously laid out with all manner of creature comforts, there also existed in each a peculiar slate-like apparatus which, despite the greyness of its exterior was still capable of perfectly reflecting the visage of one who stood before it.

And that one, if it be little, could invite the reflection to step outside the confines of the apparatus, and join it. Whereupon the like reflection would stand beside the original. This could be repeated many times. Each of the evoked reflections, however appearing precisely similar to the original would manifest various character differences; moody, exuberant, reflective, sad, even combative.

After a period between the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun, the original would select which of its reflections it would like to remain companionably with it, throughout the course of the following day; the remainder were absorbed back into the slate apparatus. This process of creation, temporary though it was, could be evoked only by the little of the species; the middling had had their opportunity, and the large no longer had the capacity with which they had been earlier endowed.

The more frequently the little ones chose a particular character trait to accompany them and play with them and share the day’s various activities with them, the closer the original little one began to resemble its choices, imbuing its character more decidedly with the chosen traits, be it humour, optimism, wisdom, languor, assertiveness or compassion, for example.

As the little ones evolved over the years, almost imperceptibly forming their character traits, they were modestly influenced by a growing awareness of the middling ones. It was the middling ones who were identified by a gradual subduing of the little ones’ enthusiasm for everything about them, whose collective sense of adventure, creative fun and challenge of their environment enlivened the days of the large ones who contemplated their antics so fondly. And who knew, from learned experience, to maintain a distance between themselves and the middle ones, urging the little ones to do likewise.

For the middling ones, struggling with the completion of their identities as unique beings, having absorbed those elements from their slate-shadows over the course of many years, were a rather surly lot. Uncertain of their choices, yet unwilling to contemplate the possibility of shedding some, embracing others, utterly confused by their inexorable transition from little to middling, and fearing the inevitability of becoming large. A prospect that left them embittered at the potential of stifling stolidity in obeisance to custom, their little years of freedom and discovery and happy unmindfulness long left behind.

They resented their isolation within the community. For they no longer sought the company of others like them; that was left behind when they were no longer little, genial of temperament and accustomed to moving about in groups of light-headed delirium with love of life. Their short tempers and obvious resentment earned them another type of isolation, where the elders looked gravely upon them, doubting the final evolution, at the same time regarding the little ones with fond endearments, encouraging them to delightful excess.

The middling ones were confused, upset and worried that they no longer felt wonder at all that surrounded them. There were no more mysteries whose source should be sought and revealed, for they had absorbed what they felt were all the dreary aspects of their future, based on what they observed of the large among them.

They brooded and they suffered, and they formed small cliques to gather where none other could detect their presence, and they plotted to become other, not to meld into the creatures, stolid and maturely plodding that was theirs to become.

Even they, however, played music, for music elevated all their souls, the rhapsody of sound that brought to mind everything that nature, their great benefactor and sometimes-antagonist brought to their lives. Stiff, hollow grasses were plucked from the earth and these they fashioned into pipes and into flutes and the thin, reedy sound of the music they played, passed down by venerated absorption from one generation to the next, drifted wraithlike and thrilling to all ears that cupped and loved those sounds.

The music played by the middling ones was ever sorrowful, full of regret for something they were unable to identify. The little ones’ music was fresh, lilting, bordering on the chaotic, but always seeming to find the melody that expressed their zest for adventure, fun and the thrusts and parries of exploration in their world of the forest. The music of the large was stoic yet placid, hauntingly beautiful, while the elders’ music was melancholy with regret for time that passed them by.

Their sensual appreciation for all the wealth of nature that surrounded them, magnitudes of vegetation that offered berries, edible roots, tree-fruits and grasses to be pounded into grains and nuts and seeds, nectar, honey that sustained them through storage in the dark months spoke of their place in the centre of this world unseen by creatures who had no business in their realm.

In the growing seasons they habitually and ostentatiously plucked floral offerings to decorate their homes. They constructed wreaths and garlands whose fragrance followed where they went, looped fantastically over their bodies, the aura of sweet and spice permeating their surroundings, wafting on the air wherever they went. This was their life. Unique creatures of creation itself.

They were so utterly involved with and among themselves, took such great delight in their presence in this cradle of their existence, they were ill-prepared for the sudden, unexpected swarming by the prairie creatures so like, yet so unlike themselves.

The comforts in which nature indulged them, their harmonious and egalitarian society, their presence in that wooded area that afforded them such grace of being had long been envied by those others. Others whose presence they were acutely aware of, but which were so seldom observed, heard or considered as an imminent, and dire threat that when that dark day of oncoming spring when the creeks thawed and the ground gave up its winter covering bringing thoughts of a fresh new growing season, also brought hordes of evil-smelling, yowling and leaping, armed and violent creatures intent on annihilating them, they were in no position to defend themselves.

Alas, all the structures that were built decayed, the tiny meadows within the forest that had been tilled became overgrown, and memory of the creatures that had been, faded. When next the bright white crystals of snow fell upon the forest the birds and the small furred creatures that lived there huddled for warmth and waited for spring. But the sounds and sights of excited, happy little ones no longer rang on the air with their boundless enthusiasm for life.

The Winter Forest

The winter forest is an enchanted
glistening landscape of
chilled silence, muffled and
deeply peaceful. Contoured in
its serene season of rest.

A gust creates an ectoplasmic
drift slowly unburdening
a laden spruce bough.
A lone crow leisurely crests
over steep forest spires.

Tiny chickadees flit
among the trees,
a companion nuthatch
minding their order.

The sky's blue canopy
ribboned by evanescently
diffused clouds as lightly
transparent as the snow
below is opaque, fully
blanketing the frozen earth.

Today's languid wind chill
far less urgent, small wildlife
come suddenly awake to a
day of sun and glorious prospects.

Mice and voles burrow deep
under the warm weight of
their enveloping comforter.
Late-season wildflowers
nod their winter-dried heads.

The forest stream lies hushed
and frozen, glinting back
the sun's crystalline shine,
banked with snow drifts.

School Days

It’s really quite amazing, when you think about it, how physically mature young girls are in this new generation. Obviously they’ve a long way to go to emotional maturity. It’s the development of their bodies, that mature delineation that is amazing. And their social maturity. Their knowledge about all the current pop-culture figures, the celebrities, the issues revolving around current technologies, films, popular teen novels, that kind of thing.

They’re also, obviously in the habit of groping around, metaphorically, trying to get a fix on things that puzzle them, mostly personal relationships. And thinking, thinking and wondering about all those confusing, sometimes troubling emotions that don’t quite know how to handle. And that three-letter word that is so confusing. Does it equate with love? Can't, not possibly, the way it comes out sounding so ... squalid. And awkward, unbelievably miserable, actually.

Just have to think back (squeamishly for some) of the sex education classes thrust on them from ... let's see ... grade five or thereabouts. When some of them really resented having to focus on things like that because it was boooring, and after all they were kind of young for that kind of thing, weren't they?

The girls at this school represent rural children, raised in a countrified atmosphere not far from a large, cosmopolitan urban centre. They are, themselves, cosmopolitan to a good degree. How could it be otherwise in a world of instant, constant communication, where everyone has a cellphone, access to computers and the Internet, and the rumour mill is constantly grinding out fascinating stories of adventure and social misadventure.

It’s a two-story school, originally built to accommodate roughly 350 students. The student population has been gradually declining, due to the fact that the families themselves are aging. Currently only 161 children attend the JK-to-8 elementary school. Which meant that classes were most often combined to make more functional use of classrooms and teachers.

It’s the Grade 7-8 class that’s out for recess this wintry day of minus-6-degree windchill. Not all that cold, to be sure, but plenty of snow accumulated. The class is a small one, divided between boys and girls, the girls having a slight edge on the boys. Ages twelve to thirteen, taught by a young woman with ten years teaching behind her, all at the same school. Her reputation has always preceded her; the students in grades 6 and 7 having been informed through the living grape-vine of school talk that she has a tendency to hysteria.

All the students had ample time over the summer months to prepare themselves for a new school year replete with plenty of homework, a new curriculum, and an instructor whose propensity to screeching never endeared her with any of her former students.

In fact, some of the students from the previous year’s graduating class, now attending high school in another nearby town, still regularly text-messaged some of the younger kids with whom they’d established friendships, occasionally asking about the most recent melt-downs of their former, detested grade 8 teacher. It was easy to whoop with laughter when you were no longer in her class.

For those remaining at the elementary school, anxious to complete the year and go off to first year high school, their teacher was an oppressive presence rather than the guiding hand most of them wished for. The school year hadn't, actually started out that way. Despite her reputation for bullying and solving problems of insubordination by hysterics, she hadn't yelled at them all, at first. Those were the honeymoon months.

Since then, she has repeatedly informed her class that they're collective nincompoops, learning-impaired, lunatics and malcontents. And they reciprocate by stony silence, then a whispered "retard!" between them, expressing their contempt for their teacher.

That, however, is beside the point of the events that occurred yesterday, when the class was out at recess on a blowy, snowy day. The girls perambulated separately from the boys, of course. They were as two separate species, acknowledging mutely the presence of each gender, but strict avoidance really worked best.

It was a trifle too cold for the more casual gear most of the boys and some of the girls had latterly effected. This day everyone wore hooded jackets, even if the hoods weren’t being worn. And many also wore ski pants - or more likely snow-boarding pants, to enable them to fool about in the snow and not end up with wet, cardboard-hard jeans afterward that would make them miserably uncomfortable for the remainder of the school day.

Two girls walked together in close conversation. They were long-time friends, had gone through the school system together, and lived not far from one another; one in an converted log cabin that had once been the local schoolhouse since modernized, the other in an old farmhouse on property owned by several generations of her family. They were very tall girls, very well developed, standing equal in height to their teacher. Who was out, doing yard duty that day.

The girl with the curly hair in a black-and-white checked jacket with a faux fur edging around the jacket’s limp-hanging hood (no self-aware - and they are all magnificently, vulnerably self-aware - teen would be seen sporting anything that could be taken as an actual pelt, or part of one, of nature’s environmentally embattled creatures. Faux does very nicely, thank you, and the more outrageously-elaborated-and-tinted-obviously-faux, why the better) first saw a younger classmate approaching and warned her partner.

Her friend, in a hot-pink jacket that emphasized her long burnished-blonde hair, grimaced as they both turned to await the approach of a grade 7 girl whom they both detested. The girl had her own group of friends, and why she insisted on bothering them continually was a bafflement and an irritation to them both. The younger girl, dressed in a full suit of purple jacket and matching snow pants, stopped just short of them, and performing an elaborate twist, kicked up a thick dust of snow against the legs of the older two girls. Who stepped back from the approaching snowdrift, turned their backs on the younger girl, and proceeded to walk away. When they stopped again, to continue their conversation, they became aware that the other student had followed them, when another drift of snow hit their jeans-clad legs.

“Stop that!” said the girl with the black-and-white jacket, turning angrily on the younger girl. “What do you think you’re doing? We’re not wearing ski pants, and we aren’t thrilled about getting snow all over us, thanks to you. What’s the matter with you?”

The younger girl smirked in response, and again repeated the twist and thrust, sending another spray of wet snow and ice bits onto the two girls’ jeans. Then stood there, hands on hips, waiting. A sudden silence seemed to envelop that portion of the school yard, as the younger girl’s companions, standing not far off, watched intently. An unfolding drama, just the kind of interesting event that gripped everyone’s attention on an otherwise-boring day.

“I told you to stop it”, said the girl evenly, her voice steady, but a threat of response lingering in the statement.

“Too bad, so sad”, trilled the other, and let loose with another spray.

“Warned you, didn’t I?” the older girl said, as she aimed a kick at the younger girl’s legs. Accurate contact.

The younger girl ran off, stopping in front of their teacher who had observed everything.

“Well, who told you to keep bothering them?” she asked.

Later, in the gym, the class was assembled for a co-ed dance, none of them wanted to engage with, and everyone quietly grumbled about. This class was very good at quiet grumbling, and even better at class rebellion. It didn’t take much for them to form a chorus of dissent, unwilling to give attention to a teacher given to melt-downs instead of firm control. This, she informed them firmly, was important. A choreographed dance routine for the school Christmas concert.

But then, they were soon diverted by another little drama. The same grade 7 girl, of almost equal height and weight as the two grade 8 girls whom she seemed to constantly shadow, once again approached the curly-haired and the blonde straight-haired companions. Stopping directly in front of the curly-haired girl, to shout directly in her face that she was a “horrible bitch” for having kicked her.

The girl receiving the message hardly blinked. But she did, emphatically, order the other to “back off, stupid. Don’t screech in my face. Get lost, Psycho”.

Which enraged the younger girl even further and she stood her ground, belting out a series of profanities at the older girl who reiterated her previous demand that the younger girl cease and desist: “I don’t appreciate stupid kids screaming in my face. Kindly back off.”

When nothing resulted but further denunciations of equally shrill dimension, along with a number of choice expletives, the older girl raised her hand and slapped the other in the face.

This was the first and only time the older girl had ever allowed herself to succumb to physical reaction in the face of any kind of provocation. She could recall her grandmother having told her, years ago when she was little and had been a victim of a bullying child, to hit back. She had recoiled, said to her grandmother she couldn’t do that, it wasn’t right. Now, after her hand had made contact with the cheek of the other girl, she felt a flood of released energy melting away her fury. She felt good about what she had done. And, as the enraged younger girl continued her rant-and-advance, she raised her hand to whack her again.

Which was when she became aware of many hands pulling her, pulling at her shoulders, her waist, pulling her away from the other girl. And that obnoxious pest, she saw, was also being pulled away from her near presence.

This was not a good day, nor a way to end a less-than-sterling school day.

Later, when the young girl with the curly hair got back home after school, she texted her grandmother:

Hello, im so frustrated with Mrs.Mccauley i swear im going to kill her she got all mad at me today for a million little things where i dont know what i did wrong like during math, lunch, crafts and dance. (gym) Then theres this girl darby who i almost murdered today she kept kicking snow at me because i wasnt wearing snowpants so she thought that was ok. then during dance/gym she kept screaming in my face so i told her to stop and she got louder so i pushed her away and of course she did it again so i slaped her and once again for the millith time she came back and then people started to kind of pull us apart thank god because i was about to kill her

Her grandmother sat there, staring at the message, aghast. All those spelling errors. What were they teaching young people in school, these days?

Snow Imprint

The forest floor, well on its way
to freezing - encouraged, bullied
by impending winter's
dominion over land
and inland waterways...

Those ferocious icy blasts
have brought new, permanent
snow, covering that rigid floor.
Snow flurries pause lazily in
downward spiral toward
winter's certain depths.

Wind whips bare branches.
The scarlet head of a woodpecker
brutalizing the trunk
of an ancient pine, shards flying
reveals a wide, white gap;
the bird rewarded for its
destructive industry.

Clouds catapult their spare
contents with diminishing returns
as an insistent gust sweeps them
imperiously aside to reveal
an azure promise.

Beams of modest brilliance
modified by the season
yet still sufficiently solared
illuminate a child's
luminous snow-angel.

The Good Husband

Four more previously-cherished and lavishly cared-for dogs for the local humane society to shelter. Animals confused by the sudden absence of the woman who had cared for them, loved them, took them out for daily walks in the quiet neighbourhood of single-family homes with its adjacent parks. She is no longer there to feed them, speak to them, assure them that each day will be the same as those it succeeds. Her future is now a chasm of silent grief, and theirs is separation, confusion and a woebegone sense of something gone dreadfully wrong, that no human could quite discern or attribute to a species other than their own. They are two large-dog breeds, two middling-sized. Each with its own personality, and needs. As a group they made a very well-disposed team, with her to guide them past little lapses in their social compact.

Now they languish, ears flat to their heads, tails tucked firmly into their haunches, eyes solemnly following the activity of the staff at the human society animal shelter. Each to a cage, none knowing nor quite caring about the whereabouts of the others, waiting, in their patient, canine way for order to be restored to their lives and their caregiver to walk through the door with her huge welcoming smile.

They had lived with her for all the years of their lives worth remembering. When she was absent during those periods when she was at her job, they awaited her return. Mostly sleeping, occasionally engaged in solitary play. But all four, when the time arrived in the late afternoon when some arcane animal sense informed them she would soon re-enter their lives, circled around the front door, then sat stoically, until she finally entered to be regaled with a chorus of welcome. She would rub the tops of their heads in greeting, bustle about a few minutes, then haul out their leashes, and take them out for a quick run through the neighbourhood.

The neighbours were always aware of her presence. She was not shy, not averse to greeting them, talking about neighbourhood things. She had good relations with them and they liked her living close to where they did; a good person, and a good neighbour. When she eventually brought home a young man, to introduce him to her dogs, everything seemed fine. He was a nice young man, with sandy hair that streamed over his forehead, deep brown eyes, and a good manner. She had met him when she’d taken the dogs to a far-off quarry turned into a recreational park for companion animals where their owners could let them run free off the leash. He wasn’t a dog-owner, but he had been there, walking about, and they had stopped to talk.

Over the course of the next several months he called often, and they went out on casual dates. It wasn’t that she was lonely and felt she needed a man to complement the quality of her life. She was happy enough with the family she had; herself and her dogs, and her extended family with whom she kept in constant contact. He liked her practical, matter-of-fact nature, accepting him for what he appeared to be, not closely questioning him, asking, prodding, why he didn’t have a regular job. He had enough of that from his family. He was happy to work when he felt like it, at casual, part-time jobs that paid just enough. And when he got tired of working he managed to manoeuvre himself into a job loss, and still qualify for unemployment insurance. Giving him the time he wanted to just mosey about life, at his own speed, fulfilling his very own need.

She had a regular, full-time job, a responsible one, as a professional, with a department of the federal government. You could see that she earned a respectable income, since she owned her own home, and he admired that. He had great admiration for her love of life, her sparkling good humour. It gave a nice balance to his moods, when she went out of her way to sympathize, to lift his spirits. He loved running his fingers through her long, straight-silky hair, worn shoulder-length. It suited her, with her green eyes, her fine complexion, her neat facial features; a pretty woman with an athletic build, nicely contoured.

He appreciated her casual disregard for social custom. He felt that same way himself. So it was a little surprising, he felt, when she said after six months of comfortable companionship that she’d like him to move in with her, but it wouldn’t work for her outside of marriage. He hadn’t anticipated that kind of conventionality from her. But he didn’t mind, after all. Because truth was, he did love her, and he told her that, and he could see how much it pleased her to have him say that, and to hug her whenever the mood took him. Oddly she didn’t like holding hands in public. But that made good sense, since the dogs’ leashes were often at the ends of her hands when they were out in public, other than at night during their decreasing number of nights-out dates.

Their marriage was a muted affair. A few of her close friends from her high school days, from her office, and her sisters, father and mother although they were separated. His father attended, and a few of his cousins; friends, none. Everyone seemed to get along. It was kind of festive, he liked that, and so did she, the casualness of it all.

He always went with her, when she visited with her family. They made him feel welcome, and he felt comfortable enough with them. The dogs, they were always brought along, too. Everyone had long ago accustomed themselves to the reality that wherever she went so too went her dogs. Bad enough, she said, she had to leave them at home while she was out working. In her leisure hours they deserved her company.

He actually didn’t mind. He enjoyed watching her with the dogs. They more or less ignored him, but came alive when she was around, and he thought that was interesting, the dynamic between them. He watched her set out their bowls at feeding time. Her assiduous attention to their regular appointments with the veterinarian he knew were expensive. Her life, her earnings, she could do what she wanted with all of that. It had no impact on him, other than as an observer, and an equal-opportunity recipient of her warm attentions.

Well, sometimes he felt irritated when he was in the house alone with the dogs, and they might be curious about something he would be doing in the kitchen, and he’d snap at them. That would effectively clear the room. They’d slink out, find somewhere else to install themselves. He was, in fact, alone often in the house with them. So, she said brightly to him and to anyone else who might remark on it, how terrific it was that the dogs were no longer lonely, with his presence.

Occasionally the neighbour whose house was closest to theirs heard shouting during the day, and understood that the dogs were doing something inconvenient, irritating or plain bad, and he was disciplining them. He never laid a hand on them for physical punishment, though. He respected how she felt about her dogs. Why shouldn’t she?

She had told him once how those dogs had come into her life. They were all what she called ‘rescues’, dogs that had been abused, abandoned, and she had taken them in. She had coped with their aggressive suspicion, determined to turn their temperaments around, to invoke trust in them, to treat them well, to gain their trust. It took a long time, but eventually, each of the dogs came around and became loyal and trusting of her. When she had taken in the last dog, one that had been rescued from as far away as Iqaluit, it had taken her the longest time, she said, sighing, looking at the dog as she spoke, lying comfortably before her feet, its thick husky-fur on its large, muscular shepherd body resembling a placid bear. He respected her enormously, he told her, for her conscientious kindness to those animals. Not that he particularly cared for dogs, any dogs, but he could, he told her, relate personally. As one who had been abused, neglected. That won her heart, he was convinced of that.

She didn’t seem to mind that she was the bread-winner. In that sense, she simply continued what had always been her reality. She had simply added another member to her family. She never chided him for his lack of enterprise, his unwillingness to apply himself to working, to look around to find something he would like to do, rather than limp along from one impermanent service job to another. And that was really good of her, he thought, and he appreciated that too about her.

So at the funeral mass, when the good Father, speaking of how loving a person she had been, remarked “Unfortunately Gwendolyn’s love was not reciprocated” he was wrong, dead wrong. Gwen loved him and he loved her, he most certainly did. No one could take that away from him, from them. He always would love her, recalling the soft smoothness of her skin, her arching back when they made love, her cuddling into him afterward, her soft words of love. They loved one another very much. No one could take that away from him, not her family who blamed him and now hated him, nor the pastor who in his ignorance thought he could take away the love he had for her.

His father sat well back in the last pew at the church during her funeral mass. He described to him later how there were so many people, extended family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, all there to mourn his wife’s too-early death. And his father sat there, later, comforting him, telling him not to worry too much. Things would unfold as they would. He would be there, at the trial, to testify on his behalf.

He knew his son, and he knew the kind of relationship he’d had with his wife. He saw them, after all, each and every week, since they visited him every week-end, and he could see the mutual love and respect they had for one another. He knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for what had happened. It wasn’t his son’s fault, he was a good husband, and he loved his wife. Something had happened, quite obviously, but it would all come out, and his son would be exonerated. Hadn’t he said to the police who came to arrest him at his father’s house where he had stayed the last few days, crying his broken heart out that his wife had refused medical treatment? And then they took his boy away.

It would be revealed that she had a medical condition that threatened her life, but she refused to seek out medical help. What could his son do in the face of such an indomitable will, other than submit to her wishes? He knew how much his daughter-in-law meant to his son, how she turned his life around, how he stopped drinking incessantly after he met her. How happy he was with his new life. He knew from observation, and from knowing his son. Why, when they were separated while she was off at work and his son at his own workplace - sometimes even helping him with a roofing job - they were always using their cellphones, staying in touch.

It seemed odd to him that an autopsy had been performed on his daughter-in-law, but that was likely standard procedure in such mysterious sudden-death cases. He had been concerned for his son’s state of mind. Completely inconsolable, weeping, tearing at his hair, mourning his wife. “Buck up, fella” he said, patting his heaving back. “The truth will out, and everyone will realize that you’re beyond suspicion. Her medical condition killed her, and that’s the truth.”

But police detectives thought otherwise. And after the results of the autopsy were revealed to them they knew their first instincts were correct. Trauma to the lower body, legs and feet. The upper body badly burned. Her body discovered in the basement of the house.

Well, if they asked, and it will likely be a matter of enquiry during the trial, her bereaved husband could explain that, too. How, sometimes, he’d had to correct his wife, instruct her. He had no intention of causing harm to her, and she knew that. That was a huge component of his love for her. She never, ever judged him. She would ask him quietly to stop doing something that bothered her. And then when he calmed down, she would talk, talk, talk to him for what seemed like an interminable period of time. Sometimes all that talk gave him a raving headache and he would tell her so. She was so concerned for his well being. She would immediately stop talking, cuddle him to her, run her slender, loving fingers along the top of his head, and rock him until he fell asleep. She was his very own treasure. He will never, ever get over her untimely death. No one would ever know how much he loved her, how he would miss her.

And the dogs? Well, their separate photographs appear on the website of the Humane Society. One by one they have also appeared in newspaper advertisements, in the hope that people at this time of year, preparing for Christmas, might feel it in their hearts to have some compassion for truly lost dogs looking for a home. For all the dogs, the description includes nothing of the misfortune which befell them, but the legend “much loved, high-energy dog needs a new home” follows them all.

If they were to be adopted by some kindly souls looking for the company of faithful companions at the Christmas season, it would please the ghost of their mistress so very much. A matchless gift to her on her 34th birthday, this coming Christmas.