Driving again, but in darkness deep

I drove a co-worker home from work tonight, through blacked-out parts of Ottawa. Originally, the plan was to drop her at Bilings Bridge Plaze, but during our evening shift, she discovered the bus that she would normally take from Bilings was no longer running because the thunderstorm-windstorm-tornado combination rolling into the city, so she asked me to drive her home. 

So, I drove her, after getting the boy, across a dark swath of Walkley Road, where all the streetlights were out, and every intersection a dark border. West down Walkley, peering for pedestrians at every sidestreet, then to McCarthy, blackness, and other drivers yielding, or frozen where they were, past the flashing cherries of police sedans, or blinded by fellow drivers who refused to turn off their brights, white-knuckling as they were, down a stretch of McCarthy under the full moon's gaze, guiding us where the night bore no promise. 

Then back, along night river of road under moonlight, down perilous Walkley where, at Bank, a four-way convergence of double lanes, and a car ripped past, passengers howling in delight. Then, along that river of fast night, that inky road unfamiliar, guided by oncoming headlights, that broken line the tact keeping me going, and bravery, rather foolish bravery, found in the comfort of the knowledge that moonlight allows better seeing than city light, and finally, streetlights, dotting in the distance. 

Home and alright, home after all, a perilous trip that you only feel afraid about afterwards, because you can't feel afraid during, but drive onward, knowing the road you've driven 1,000 times (I likely did drive that stretch more than that, as I used to drive that way to work for four years). The Walkley stretch was intimate, at least - the rest was complete, moonlight-drenched or chasms of the unknown that will likely be unrecognizable to me in daylight, and changed. I felt foolish for doing the journey, bringing my son along, but I wanted to help my co-worker get home safe, and to get him home from a friend's. Luckily, sometimes you don't have to see the road to know where you  are on the path.

Driving hometown streets, remembering those who passed early

With respect to my dear (but not old and boring friend, as she said) whom I just saw, I drive hometown streets. The air is sticky-humid August air. I consider those who lived here, in this paper-mill-and-hockey bordertown, populace of about 46,000, who were about my age and have passed on early in the past five years.

There’s Helen, of course, best friend of the dear friend I just saw. Helen passed away this February from a form of vulvar cancer.

There's  Leah W. (sister of my childhood best friend, and, like him, a devout Jehovah's Witness); J.P. Craig (brain cancer); Robert D. (suicide, unexpected,  in Ottawa); Chris R. (freakish motorcycle accident in San Francisco); Guy T. (freak bicycle accident in Kuwait; Guy worked for the oil refineries); Scott  M. (hypothermia and, ultimately, drowning, in a fishing accident, off the B.C. coast); Ian D. (heart attack, in the living room of the house he grew up in); Keith M. (car accident, in B.C.); and Bobby K. (brain cancer, in Toronto; he was not so much a friend as an antagonist, but who wishes brain cancer on an enemy?). 

And, of course, in all this, I remember Hugh DeCourcy, mentor and friend, who had a heart murmur. He died of a heart attack in Vancouver, on Sept. 3, 1996.

What to do with these heavy remembrances? Drive on, down Water Street, that old St. Lawrence River to my left, shimmering, as always, in the summer dark. A three-quarter moon shines through the billowy clouds. I take the curve past where the international bridge stood overhead from 1958 until last year, and head up the hill, past the empty acreage where the Domtar paper mill stood for about 137 years, uphill along Second Street, flanked by the one-storey wartime homes, deeper west, into my old neighbourhood. Things are utterly familiar. I could nearly walk this way with my eyes closed.

Things change. People leave. All I know is that I drive onward, fortunate enough to be alive and heavy with the burden of sadness and remembrance.