A week after the fall, your friend Peter drives you and your car onto the ferry home and you don't dwell on the accident and how you are feeling but talk about music, about plays, about the man who died earlier in the year, who wrote songs Peter played with him at various venues around town. It's a pleasant and unremarkable trip except for a bathroom stop. When it comes time to pull up your underwear you need help. Is anybody there, you call? It's an odd request, you admit. The only other occupant, masked as you are so that you wouldn't recognize each other even if you were to meet again, laughs and just does it. It has to be the funkiest duty she performs all day.
A few days at home connecting with those things that express your individuality, the radio tuned to your favourite Quebec classical and jazz station, your books, your favourite reading chair, the view of the Salish sea out the front window, your older daughter who books off her job to stay with you until your granddaughter arrives from the Netherlands the next day, calls from friends, siblings, fresh clothes, your own bathroom with the new bidet installed by your son-in-law. A neighbour is driving into the city on Monday and will take you back to Colin and Ethel's, so that's done. Arranged. You are asking many favours these days, including another stay at the garden cottage, another superb seafood meal, plans for Colin to drive you to the hospital the next day. The best thing is that no one makes you feel beholden. It’s humbling.
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