Love In A Pan

All writers are thieves. We steal ideas. We steal titles for our books and essays. We steal phrases and innuendos, anecdotes and narratives, puns and retorts, quips and cliches, wisecracks and witticisms; always on the hunt for material to claim as our own. We watch, read and listen to our unsuspecting prey as they drop rhetorical crumbs to be gathered (by us), and kneaded into full loaves of, potentially, literary genius.

This essay’s title came to me via text message from one of my sisters after telling her of my neighbour’s kind gesture of sending me a small tin container of yummy homemade sweets. This love offering came to me on the third of three difficult, stressful and disturbing days. Once the pan of goodies was placed into my hands, the emotional dam broke within me, and I spent the next few hours sobbing, shedding tears of grief, gratitude, love and joy.

Three Days

Thursday: My day job is dangerous. It involves transporting railroad crews long distances to and from their many destinations to ensure the trains keep moving on (and off) schedule. Much of my time is spent in the driver’s seat of my company’s van on two-lane highways doing 100 KPH, or 60 MPH…same thing. A plethora of potential dangers are present during these trips. Deer, antelope, moose, elk, fox, cayote, skunk, porcupine, construction zones, and oversized, slow-moving farm equipment are commonly encountered during these excursions. And then there’s my time in the rail yards where I am trained and certified to assist rail crews while they move multiple locomotives and cars (some of them by remote control) along intertwined tracks connected by multiple networks of rail switches. Safety is paramount for everyone in these yards. Untrained personnel cannot legally enter them.

On Thursday morning, a newly hired driver with my company approached my van and said he had been dispatched to assist a crew in the rail yard. I asked him several questions, including; Have you been taken on a tour of the yard? Have you been trained to work and assist crews in this yard? Have you been trained to work in any rail yard? Have you been trained how to communicate with railroad personnel using your two-way radio? Have you ever used a two-way radio? He answered “no” to all my questions. I told him not to enter the yard, no matter who instructs him to do so. Without going into details, an unsatisfactory and equally dangerous solution was worked out and executed by our company’s management, one that stands in opposition to items clearly laid out in both company policy and the existing labor contract.

I’ve never found it necessary to file an official union grievance against an employer, but this involved a possibly life-and-death situation – a safety violation so serious that my ethical/moral compass could not allow it to go unchallenged. After a few stressful hours of worrying about the possible consequences that may endanger my continued employment if I took action, I filed the grievance. Damn the torpedoes. My Thursday ended up being emotionally disturbing, exasperating, maddening, taxing and tense, but tomorrow would be better…right?

Friday: I decided to take the day off to recuperate from the prior day’s tumult. As I sipped my morning coffee, two phone calls arrived which ultimately led me into a different day than I was expecting, putting on my “professional grief counsellor” hat, and attending to a client at a local residential addictions treatment centre. A short time later, I arrived at the centre and sat in the presence of a father while he received a phone call from one of his sons telling him that his other son had passed away the night before, and that those responsible for his death were in police custody. The father crumpled beside me on the small wooden bench we shared. I have no words to explain the depth of his agony.

I was then tasked with escorting him to a nearby town where he met his brothers who took him the rest of the way home. It was a tough day for all involved.

Saturday: I was drained of energy and work was out of the question…another day off had begun. The morning coffee tasted very good. The phone rang. My son was in crisis. A situation beyond his control required immediate attention. I phoned one of my dear sisters and asked her to take the reigns. She did, as I was unable in any way to do so.

She called me back a little later with news that the situation had been resolved, and that my son was okay. I began to cry tears of joy and gratitude with my sister at the other end of the phone. Then, a knock at the door. The man from next door held a small tin pan of pastries in his hands. My neighbours had known I’d had a few trying days, and this was their way of showing they cared.

After our call, I sent my sister a picture of my gift, and she replied with the following text message: “Just what the Doctor ordered. Love in a pan!” And voila, my next essay had a title.

I had thought of naming it “Little Deaths – Part Two” but seeing as it involved an actual death, I knew that would not do. A man had lost a child…not a little thing at all.

Please take care of yourselves, your friends and loved ones. Know your limitations. We are all fragile beings, no matter how rough and tough we may pretend to be. God bless us everyone.

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Daniel (Murphy) Kennedy