‘I never knew the deeper meaning of words used and overused to describe what’s dawning within me now. I knew the words from those poems and songs often brought me to thoughts of you. And I knew how the poets must’ve felt when they wrote them, to represent the depths of their feelings. Still, I never knew the deeper meaning, the meaning of my life. I only know now that something remarkable is asserting its existence and your name rolls relentlessly through my mind. You’re my love, always have been, and the meaning of my life.’
Dramatic moody clouds have been passing in front of the moon tonight. It’s lighting up the sky anyway as I think about Adam and Marie.
Great sages say that while bodies die the divinity they encapsulate lives forever. I don’t know. I sure hope there’s truth in that. But I do feel a perfection of sorts within the events of their story. Certainly I perceive that these dramas of our lives are less than the significant plays we think them to be at the time. It doesn’t help, but also remaining within my memory is the incredible magnificent and yes tremendously painful beauty of it all.
That day in September was different than tonight or today in so far as there were no clouds whatsoever. The distant Rocky Mountain peaks remained stationary and unmoved in their statuesque splendor. Everything else: the ocean water, the green forest trees and roadside buildings were a blur as Marie sped along, flirting with the wind. When Bob phoned she assumed he wanted to talk about a possible tree-planting trip. Although he wouldn't say much on the phone Marie was glad to have an excuse to drive down to Gabriola Island. The only small part she was not too glad about was being asked to pick up Adam along the way.
My son Adam and Marie had become neighbors years ago after Marie came to live with her uncle Lucien. Her folks both died tragically in a car crash. That was not a happy time, for a long time, and unfortunately Adam and Marie just never got used to each other. She always thought him rather moody, which was true enough. He was a quiet kid, carried an air of unspoken cynicism around with him. Oh he was a good boy in spite of a few isolated incidents. His mother used to joke that there must’ve been a mix-up at the hospital, that we were given the wrong baby.
But he turned out to be a damn strong planter, the best. He could take the place of two, even some of the Rainbow planters, not that Marie cared. He never said much to her. The others appreciated her cooking, how nice she looked and stuff like that. Adam never said a word and it kinda pissed her off. He hardly joined in round the night-fire or ever hardly smiled, not much anyway. He planted for money. That’s the way it was. He had no desire to shroud his purpose in ideology as he said the Rainbow planters did. Even still, he was always included, especially if the site was rough which Marie assumed that one was gonna be.
The lane up to my farm is exquisitely and classically lined with poplar trees. But what used to impress Marie profoundly were the weeping willows. They stood intermittently on our grounds in dignified sadness. She said that a weeping willow represented the shattered heart slowly realizing that it’s still beating after all. Yeah, that’s how Marie was. Our lane was one of the few roads she drove slowly. At that time she was influenced by the magic moments of the weeping willows. She used to say that by the time she reached the house she felt as though she’d lived through the pages of a romance novel.
I was in the driveway as she drove up that day. My hobby was antique cars and since I was thoroughly covered in grease I told her not to hug me but she did anyway. She’d grown into a life-loving and strikingly beautiful woman with long dark hair, dark eyes and a heart I believed was every bit the same as her appearance. I told Marie I could fix them but not drive them anymore, at least not at night. I saw two headlights on approaching vehicles. She commented that hey everyone sees two, but I said sure but I saw two on each side. She laughed with her lovely head thrown back.
Adam came out and together they left for the Gabriola Ferry, probably an uncomfortable drive. I could’ve told Marie that Adam was actually very much like me in some ways. On the ferry Adam stood by the railing to watch the expansive ocean and lose himself a little in it. A fine minister I once knew said that divinity was in knowing all the waves to be one ocean water and all the different beings to be one ocean of life.
For her part Marie was glad to see friends to hang out with other than Adam during the crossing. The Gabriola Ferry is just about as old as I am. In fact, I used to be its captain, quit years before over a question of safety and I like to say I left the church for the same reason. Well, it was about an eighth of a mile away from Gabriola when the engines cut. Adam, who grew up on that boat, simply took his shoes off, jumped in and swam to the docks while everyone else waited until they got the thing going again.
The meeting was well under way by the time Marie arrived at Bob's Marina home. Adam's maddening smile was not lost on her, though she sure as hell wasn’t gonna acknowledge it. During the meeting it came out that the contract was at a god-forsaken place near Fort St. John. The McMan-Billings Company openly admitted they didn't expect many of the saplings to survive, but the forestry department insisted the planters be sent anyway. The money was good, no one declined.
Sometimes, when they’d set out on the contracts to distant and abandoned corners of the province, Marie would ask herself why she was going. She didn’t really need the money. It was mostly the way of life. It had gotten under her skin. The austerity made her feel vibrant and alive. She liked that feeling, facing the raw elements amidst the magical illusions of her seemingly permanent youth.
Romantic ideas that filled her young mind, however, waned somewhat upon arrival at the sites, specifically that one. They had driven down a few miles into a valley that had been systematically raped of its forests for years. Of course the northland cold and a drizzling rain enhanced the cadaverous appearance of the place. All around they could see acres of charred stumps and slash with a layer of new green growth tenaciously struggling to assert itself. They were making their campsite beside a glacier lake with not much of a forest around or beyond. As I understood it, the place was downright depressing.
They spent the afternoon setting up the camp and after dinner they told some tales around a fire. The moonlight threw its pale light upon the scene while clouds periodically passed in front promising more rain.
Following the first day of planting the planters returned to camp discouraged. The lousy weather was making their work impossible. They were sure the saplings couldn't survive. They made a steam-bath in the inipi before dinner, swam in the lake, impervious to the cold for the first time that day. By the end of dinner, however, the first snow began to fall and continued through the night. Adam kept watching the camp outside his tent change color by the minute. In the very deepest part of the night he went to Bob. He wanted to pack up and leave but Bob didn't agree. What was happening in the region hadn’t happened in over fifty years and unfortunately by the morning it was too late. The snow was deep, the trucks not prepared for it. They tried, of course, unsuccessfully, but were effectively trapped.
If the snow had stopped anytime up until then all would’ve been well and good. But it didn’t stop and extreme weather warnings were being broadcast all over the region. One of the field managers at McMan-Billings phoned Lucien in Vancouver and Lucien in turn phoned me. We were on our way out of Vancouver that same afternoon driving Lucien's four by four through the teeming rain towards the north. Lucien was very much true to his nature, taking charge of the situation as soon as we arrived in Fort St. John. We went straight to the Forestry Department building where they supplied us with all the available information and data. The hardest part was doing nothing then. We would have to sit tight until the morning brought new possibilities.
By the first tentative light of day it became painfully apparent that there were no new possibilities, so we decided we’d better make a few on our own. A party of eight of us started out on chained skidoos in the lap of the blizzard. Lucien wasn't able to talk me out of going along. And at just about that same time Adam and Bob were trying their best to convince everyone that help would arrive.
The Rainbow planters were huddled inside their two trucks as the blizzard flew wildly around them. It was remarkable, unbelievable, a perfect storm. By noon a few of them including Marie wanted to take off on foot, take their chances. Most thought it would or could be a pretty bad move, a fatal mistake, but little by little four of them insisted. As Marie passed in front of Adam he grabbed her arm saying she shouldn’t go. His intensity took her a bit by surprised but she wouldn’t listen. Outside the truck Adam descended upon the four planters with a tirade or perhaps an impassioned plea. He convinced two: an Indian boy named Rolly and Marie, for a while. Brothers Phillip and Tim set out together and within a few moments were invisible, swallowed by the drifting snow.
Marie sat with Adam in the truck for the rest of the day. As the evening approached and the second truck was soon to die spirits fell as relentlessly as the temperature and the snow. They couldn’t have known the problems we came up against. They couldn’t have known for sure that we were coming at all. As the light dimmed Marie awoke to find her head resting on Adam. She looked up to see the concern written within the darkness of his features. When she realized that what had awoken her was the cessation of the engine noise she became furious with herself for not having left earlier.
The others still agreed it was best to remain in the truck huddled together. Marie wouldn’t hear of it. At first light she was adamant. Adam's words fell upon deaf ears and in the end he watched helplessly as she walked off into the early light white dawn. He repeated a few times that she wouldn’t last two hours out there. Then he was quiet. The silence consumed them all, entombed them, and the minutes passed in a depressing march of finality. But after about ten Adam simply said “Fuck” and passed through the truck and out the door. He turned and in a deep sincere almost commanding pleading voice told everyone one last time that the only chance lay in staying in the truck, and then he was gone. No one tried to stop him. They all knew each others’ thoughts.
Adam kept to the line of the road as best he could. He trudged along, his satchel slung over a shoulder. Ten minutes ahead Marie was already beginning to weaken. Her feet were going numb; her tears were freezing upon her cheeks. The day became more and more a vague play of unreality while the invisible sun continued to rise somewhere in an unknown part of a different world. No one heard her when she came upon Tim's frozen corpse. Like an iceberg, the main part of her scream lay largely under the surface. Tim was leaning half up against a tree buried up to his chest by the snow. Marie couldn't stop looking at his face but when she turned away she began running blindly, unable to think of where to head, unable to see anything at all, unable to imagine that this could be the end.
Soon she stopped trying to run, then stopped trying to walk. The flowing blanket of whiteness wouldn't let her breathe and all that she could think of was stopping, sleeping. It never occurred to her that she shouldn't. All around there were stars but the stars were falling into her eyes and dissolving on her cheeks and after awhile she couldn't see them shining at all.
Those eyes didn't open again until Adam was pulling her up off that bed. Strangely she registered no great surprise at seeing him. He carried and dragged her out on to the line of the road before letting her fall to the ground. From out of his satchel Adam pulled two bags. Packing down an area of the snow he placed one and then began with great effort to put Marie into the other. He maneuvered her onto the first bag before crawling in on top.
“You came,” she whispered. As he started to feel waves of fatigue overwhelm him Marie's voice only barely though sweetly penetrated his consciousness. “Why?” she asked. And of course he didn’t say a word, didn't see her smile but felt her arms tighten around him as they drifted off together.
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