Somewhere, tucked away in a basement drawer of forgotten relics, in an old night table from a bachelor's apartment so many decades ago, there is a box that contains the very essence of my parents' great love.
The box is filled with letters to and fro, weaving a story of love, lost and found. The story begins in medias res: a woman leaves the man she loves and flies from this prairie city to Toronto. The man writes her letters every day without fail, - yearning, aching letters - begging her to return, begging for a second chance. Suddenly, the letters change; the woman has accepted his proposal and is coming home. They are so excited. They are so in love. Everything is new and beautiful.
My father is a stoic man, but the first time I found the letters, I saw myself in his choice of words, his phrasing, his expression of truth. I understand him more than he realises.
They say you shouldn't let your suffering become your identity, but there is no explanation that doesn't immediately obscure mine. There is no poetry in the way I am witnessing this story of Job. I have lost faith in a God I never even had. I have watched my father exist on a diet of pure grit. We have all cried when no one else is looking.
And yet, tucked away in a box - as if inside a peat bog, perfectly preserved - is the memory of a different truth. Together, the truths tell a bigger story: Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivois�.
And sometimes, when the truth becomes too hard to bear, I slip down to the basement and take out the old box, and I understand the meaning of forever.