Some days it seems you just can’t catch a break. How do people manage to get anywhere on time? I seem to be missing a gene or perhaps a meme. When I lived in Indonesia, where the concept of 'jam karet' or 'rubber time' is the rule, I was fine, well within social norms. I strive to get to work by 10 am on the 3 days of the week that I work. That should not be difficult, really, but I am constantly having to work at night or on non-dedicated work days to catch up. The youngest child, who still relies on a parental escort to get to school, complains bitterly that I make her late. She's not wrong.
Middle of last week, we had to say farewell to good friends who are westward bound, heading to Vancouver (where they'll get three extra hours!). I will both miss them and envy them. The Pacific Ocean! Spring! Landscape with contour lines! Their younger daughter, Sarah*, has been one of my daughter's first and best friends since we moved from England, and we were honoured that she chose to spend her last night in Toronto with us. The two girls chattered and giggled half the night and who could blame them? They will be apart for a long time, though we have every intention of trespassing on the family's hospitality, encouraging further juvenile sleep deprivation, and getting to know Vancouver. It is nonetheless very sad to see them go. A taste of our own medicine, but still sad.
Sarah's father arrived promptly in the morning to collect his child, so I can't blame him. I can't blame my older children either, as their respective school terms had ended already, oddly out of sync with the school board's official calendar. The eldest, in high school, explained that once his exams were over, he no longer needed to attend school. We believed him. The middle one graduated from middle school the previous week (or, as he poignantly expressed it in his valedictorian's speech, his ‘ride in the glass elevator is over’.)
So there is Sarah's father, on the day of his move across country, ready, not late, and waiting. We have not even served breakfast (ie the toaster had not dinged) and truth be told the girls might not yet have been dressed. Mournful and meaningful farewells had to be uttered very quickly, in a blur of action. Too quickly, it turned out. As I raced upstairs to get myself ready for work, my daughter shouted up, "Mommy! Sarah left her backback here!" Freud laughed.
I promised Sarah's parents to drop the bag at their house on my way to the office. ‘Half an hour! Maybe 45 minutes!’ I said confidently. An hour later, having scattered various messages for my still-sleeping teenagers, I wedged the wayward backpack into my bike basket. The backpack was so heavy I checked to be sure that Sarah herself was not in it, less perhaps a Freudian slip than a Freudian cannonball. I cycled up the road to Sarah's family's almost-former, nearly empty house, thinking sad thoughts about how next year the girls would have been old enough to walk back and forth unaccompanied. Dropped the backpack, avoiding toes, hugged more goodbyes, and pedalled off toward the office. Gray gathering clouds spurred me to speed as much as the data waiting for analysis.
Clear coast. Sprained knee healing nicely so I made good time. There was hope. Screaming on my left. Really horrific female screaming, as from someone who has been severely wounded, or given the worst news ever. I looked over to see a young woman writhing on the sidewalk at the foot of some wide concrete steps leading to the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. (This club is located at least 4 kilometers from the lakeshore, which does not seem to bother its members for some reason.) I swerved across the street on my bike and knelt down to speak to the woman, or rather girl, who was not fully conscious and not responding to me at all. I managed to rest a hand on her Tom's shoe-clad foot and speak to her in what I hoped were calm and encouraging tones while scrabbling for my phone. By this time 2 or 3 other passers-by joined me; a young man in a suit who crouched by the girl's head, and a woman, Jasmine, who like me dialled 911 (though I very nearly rang 999). 'Which service do you want?' asked a crisp voice. 'Paramedics' I yelled to be heard over the sound of the victim's shrieking, and got put through immediately. I could hear Jasmine having the same conversation, so when my operator answered I told him someone else was also speaking to emergency services and could I ring off, but he insisted I stay on the line. 'Does she have a history of epilepsy? How old is she? Is she on any medication?' I guessed she was about twenty, and explained again that she was a stranger to me, but apparently the operator had to run through his list. And it turned out that the girl was wearing a medic-alert bracelet saying that she is prone to panic attacks, though this was certainly not a panic attack: she was having seizures, was semi-conscious, saliva and then bile leaking from her mouth (the besuited man rolled her onto her side). I wrestled with her purse and then handed it to someone who located her health card, so I could then report her name, M, and age (19 years old). Eventually I spotted her phone lying by her duffel bag and saw that she had been in the middle of texting someone, someone whose name ended with the label 'Staff'.
M began to recover, her eyelids fluttering and her gaze focusing, and the 3 or 4 of us nearby all began to speak to her. I asked her for the passcode to her phone and said I would call the name there, if she agreed. She struggled to articulate but had no problem remembering the code (sign of the times?). I called the staff member who, relieved, told me that M lived in a nearby group home. A group home! Who knew, there amidst the fancy, expensive houses of the Annex neighbourhood, a sanctuary for troubled youth nestled? How nice. (I looked it up later; it is charitable, and indeed very discreetly nestled.)
The ambulance arrived and I offered M's phone to the paramedic, who spoke to the staff member. The rest of us stepped back, breathed, and looked each other over. The man in the suit, Jasmine, a young man with a straggly beard who had hared off but now returned with a cup of juice intended for M, a man from the Yacht Club who stood by, and another man in a tee-shirt with some sort of insignia. We all said nice things about one another; I thought briefly of exchanging details and then did not (would we have a reunion?), and instead helped gather up M's belongings, put them on the stretcher with her, and said goodbye. She murmured something I didn't hear. 'She said thank you,' the paramedic told me. 'You're welcome,' we all said to M. 'No problem.' She was tearful. I touched her shoulder and told her what I hoped would be true: 'Someday, you'll look after someone else.'
I did get to work ahead of the rain, but not until 11 o'clock. Again. Some days, you really can't catch a break.
Some lifetimes, too.
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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