Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to Chapter Two.
Carole H.
--- William Harshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My Second Life
> Copyright 1999 The Harfolk Press
> Not to be copied without permission
>
>
> Chapter One
> OUTWARD AND VISIBLE SIGNS
>
> In the summer of 1980 I thought the world was my
> oyster. I was
> thirty-seven. I had an exciting and challenging
> senior position as the
> Treasurer of The Molson Companies Limited, one of
> Canada's oldest and most
> famous businesses. I was married to a loving and
> interesting wife, and we
> had two wonderful children. We lived in a pleasant
> house in north Toronto.
> We had a full social life and were active in the
> community and in the church
> and in politics.
> My life was busy and satisfying, but it was often
> stressful. Every day I
> drove to work from our house in North Toronto to the
> Molson offices near the
> Toronto international airport. Much of the trip was
> along the "401", the
> multi-lane highway that bisects Metropolitan
> Toronto. The 401 is heavily
> travelled, indeed over-travelled and it was
> commonplace to witness
> accidents, some minor, and others horrendous. Often
> these would cause the
> traffic to gridlock as emergency vehicles cleared
> away torn heaps of metal
> and mangled humanity and other drivers paused to
> gawk at the carnage.
> This drive added stress and anxiety to the
> beginning and end of any working
> day, and now I was finding that sometimes it would
> leave me literally
> shaking. If the traffic was light and accident-free,
> I was fine. I did not
> bother telling Esther, my wife. Not much escapes
> Esther; she noticed the
> shaking too, but put it down to stress on the job.
> She did not even raise
> the subject. She became increasingly concerned when
> I would arrive home in
> the evening so exhausted that I could not even say
> "Hi" or "How are you." I
> had to recharge my batteries before I had the energy
> to greet our children
> and hear anecdotes from their day, or to pet our
> three-year-old Airedale
> terrier, Sir, who always greeted me eagerly at the
> door.
> Esther had also begun to observe that my driving
> was becoming erratic, and
> that I was developing a tendency to oversteer to the
> right. She mentioned it
> often, telling me that I had better pay attention to
> my driving and stop
> woolgathering.
> But now it was happening more often. Esther was
> afraid that I would have an
> accident and persistently questioned my driving
> ability. And when I was
> driving home one day that summer an accident did. It
> was not serious. There
> were no injuries, just a dent in my left front
> fender. The driver of the
> other car, which was in front of me, had tried to
> brake on wet pavement,
> skidded and spun around 360-degrees. Luckily I
> barely touched his car. The
> police constable on the scene gave me what seemed
> like a long lecture on the
> hazards of driving on the 401 and charged me with
> "following too closely." I
> was able to drive on, but when I got out of the car
> at home, I shook for
> half an hour. I didn't tell Esther. I didn't feel
> like going to a friend's
> birthday party that night, but I went. I had a good
> time, but drank too
> much. I put it all down to stress.
> But, from that moment on, I began to wonder. Was
> Esther right? Was my
> driving less than perfect? I did tend to over-steer.
> Still, I did not think
> anything was wrong with me that paying more
> attention to the road and
> developing better driving habits would not cure.
> Esther's concern was born
> of love; I was foolish to have ignored it.
>
> I had first noticed Esther Clark in Winnipeg on New
> Year's Day, 1967. I had
> gone with my father to the annual New Year's day
> levée of the Archbishop of
> Rupertsland at the See House, his official
> residence. Archbishop Clark was
> also the Primate - the head - of the Anglican Church
> of Canada. The levée,
> an open-house reception, was a full dress occasion.
> The military types were
> wearing their parade dress uniforms, the civilian
> men were in their morning
> coats, if they had them, ladies wore hats and gloves
> and the Right Reverend
> Howard Clark was attired in the court dress for a
> bishop - frock coat and
> gaiters, and patent leather shoes with silver
> buckles. He looked the part,
> except for an impish twinkle in his eyes that was
> most unepiscopal. There
> was an aura about the Archbishop, and he was
> obviously enjoying himself.
> I was immediately attracted to Esther, one of his
> daughters. I told her I
> was thinking of going to a movie that afternoon. She
> responded with a chilly
> "enjoy yourself," that left me in no doubt that I
> would be going alone. I
> was certainly was not included in the group of
> friends who were invited to
> go upstairs to the library for "coffee", laced with
> rum after the
> formalities.
> I persisted. On an evening three months later, in
> March, 1967, I told
> Esther that I loved her. She said "don't," and left
> Winnipeg the next day. I
> lay siege to her at long distance, my weapon being a
> single red rose sent
> each week to her apartment in Toronto. Esther
> finally succumbed when a rose
> bloomed instead of dying on the spot. Changing
> florists proved to be a
> strategic move! On April Fool's Day 1968 we became
> engaged.
> It was July when I next saw the Clark family. I was
> invited to stay at
> their family cottage at Blue Sea Lake in the
> Gatineau hills. Mrs. Clark met
> me in Ottawa. As she drove - Coke in one hand, ice
> cream cone in the other
> and a box of Crackerjack wedged precariously between
> her knees - she pointed
> out the beauty of the Gatineau Valley and various
> landmarks en route.
> In addition to her idiosyncratic driving, Mrs.
> Clark had a hostile
> relationship with snakes. On my first morning at
> Blue Sea, she cornered a
> garter snake and was about to kill it. She shouted,
> "Bill, get me an axe!"
> "Don't you dare, Bill, or I'll never see you
> again!" yelled Esther from her
> second-floor bedroom, which was just above us. She
> then dashed down and out
> of the cottage and tussled with her mother. The
> snake escaped.
> Later that day I noticed for the first time that
> the Archbishop had a fused
> back. "It must be very inconvenient not being able
> to move your neck" I
> observed tritely.
> "Oh, not at all, Bill," he gracefully responded.
> "It makes swimming on my
> back so much easier." Howard Clark seemed an
> attractive but enigmatic man to
> me, and I was intrigued to see the Primate of the
> Anglican Church of Canada
> playing bridge, reading a Dorothy Sayers detective
> story and commenting on
> politics, sometimes all at once.
> Our wedding had to be fitted in the Archbishop's
> tight schedule. He had
> been able to offer Labour Day, September 2, 1968.
> The wedding took place at
> St. George's-by-the-Lake, the little church near the
> Clark's cottage. It was
> an idyllic setting. Sandra Gwyn, in her book,
> Tapestry of War, describes
> Blue Sea as
> one of the loveliest and most lustrous of all the
> lakes in Gatineau
> country; more than twenty miles long, fringed with
> cedars and silver
> birches, framed by gentle, unintimidating mountains,
> dotted with islets and
> patches of water lilies.
>
> Esther was brought to the Church by her brother in
> a canoe. She sat on a
> high wooden armchair, wearing her grandmother's
> wedding dress, looking
> absolutely spectacular. There was a rain-shower
> during the service. As the
>
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