Postcard from Vancouver – bad luck travels in threes

I‘m laughing at your comments about the teaser ending to yesterday’s post. Hey, you think I haven’t learned a thing or two about story-telling and the value of a hook after all these years? Heh!

On my last full day in Vancouver, I once again found myself awake well before sparrow’s first fart. Fully dressed, showered and caffeinated by 5:15, I was out the door looking for photo ops just as the sun was breaking the horizon. It was worth the 10 block wander back down to the Burrard Street Bridge, where I found the marina at Granville Island just waking up.

On the other side of the Burrard Bridge, I found English Bay and these ocean liners sitting peacefully in front of the majestic mountain backdrop.

I captured slightly different perspective of the same scene on my iPhone.

I was back at the hotel by 7:45, keen to get started on the day’s conference events, when I checked my e-mail and received some horrible news: the sister of one of my dearest friends lost her long battle with cancer in the night. She died at 46, leaving two sweet young children behind. I was heartbroken for my friends, and angry at how helpless I felt far, far away on the other side of the country.

Not knowing what else to do, I sat through most of the morning’s presentations, but my heart just wasn’t in it any longer. Between the bad news about the daycare situation and the devastating loss for my friends, I kept welling up and blinking away tears. I even looked into changing my flight home, but since the conference organizers had paid for my flight I wasn’t sure how or if I could change it.

I slipped out for a walk at lunch to clear my head, and found myself outside the very same bike rental place I’d patronized the day before. I don’t think I walked there consciously, but when I realized where I was, I was happy enough to oblige my subconscious. I rented another bike and hopped on.

The day was brisker but clearer than the day before, and as I pedaled my heart lightened by degrees.

Once again, I could not resist the urge to stop and photograph the Lion’s Gate Bridge. And this time, i filled my purse and pockets so full of sea glass that I had a hard time balancing on my bike, camera slung on one side and sea-glass-laden purse on the other. Note to self: next time, rent panniers, too!

This time, though, instead of cutting back through the park along the causeway, I continued the loop around to English Bay. I nearly fell off my bike from vertigo when I rounded one corner and found this breath-stealing combination of open sea, sky and distant mountains. For a girl with a tough of agoraphobia, Vancouver is one white-knuckled, gravity-defying view after another!

It was mere minutes after I stopped to watch this furry little fellow cross the path in front of me to hop down and forage for lunch among the tidal pools that things got really messed up. (Aren’t raccoons supposed to be nocturnal? This was practically high noon.)

I came around a curve on the path and found a man unconscious on the path. I stopped my bike in surprise, and a rider coming up directly behind me stopped, too. We were on a fairly isolated stretch, but people had come at me from this direction less than a few minutes before — either he had just fallen, or they had stepped over him and kept walking.

We tried to wake him up, and I have to admit that my first reaction was one of hesitant fear. He was somewhere north of 60 years old, grey and a little grizzled, and it was hard to tell if he was hurt or maybe sleeping something off — although the middle of the path deep in the park is a pretty strange place to pass out.

He had fallen in the recovery position, so I adjusted his head ever so slightly to make sure his airway was open and made sure he was breathing, all the time mindful of the expensive camera around my neck, the great distance I was from home, and rather anxious that he might wake up and be very angry with me for touching him, and then we called 911 from my iPhone.

It took about an hour between the time I found him and the time I hopped back on my bike, but it seemed like three days. It took quite a while for the ambulance to make its way on the bike path down to us, and luckily a few local joggers had stopped and were able to take my cell and give the ambulance dispatch a more clear idea of our location than my “Um, we’re in Stanley Park, somewhere on the bike path near English Bay.” (It’s a 10 km loop around the park.) Another lady who stopped was a nurse, and she and her partner stayed to take over the first aid until the ambulance arrived.

We still weren’t sure what had happened to him until the paramedics arrived to put him on a back board and turned him over, revealing that the side of his face that had been against the pavement was bashed and bloody. They speculated that he had either misstepped on the curb beside the path and fell down hard, or had a stroke and then fallen. Hard. He never did regain consciousness, and the nurse said his neural response was very atypical for someone who had simply passed out.

The whole experience was rather surreal, but I had to choke back tears when the first constable on the scene stopped me just as I was about to ride away and asked me for ID and contact information, “in case he doesn’t make it.” In case he doesn’t WHAT? The very worst part of the whole thing was how much he looked like my Dad — same age range, very similar physical build. I kept thinking, “He’s probably somebody’s dad. Someone might be worrying about him.” I still wonder how he’s doing, hoping he’s home with his family and recovering well. I still feel a little guilty, too, for my first thought — that he was drunk and sleeping something off. He was hurt needed help, and for what seemed like a long minute when I first arrived, I almost didn’t want to stop.

Needless to say, I was completely unnerved and my concentration for the rest of the day was officially shot. I couldn’t stand the idea of just sitting around my hotel room waiting for the day to end so I could fall asleep, wake up and go home, so I walked. And walked. And walked. And while I was walking, I took more pictures.

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom:

Sea planes are photo-worthy:

And then, in that endlessly strange day, I stumbled upon a giant street party celebrating Vancouver’s 125th birthday. I’m not sure if the giant Lego orca was part of the 125 celebration or if it’s always there, but it made me homesick for my Lego junkies back home. (The stage to the left is a part of the 125 celebration.)

And then, finally, it was time to go home. It was a great adventure, if not a little more stressful than it had to be. The flight home was just about perfect, and after all the spectacular scenery I’d been watching for days, it was the sight of the rolling flats of the Ottawa valley that once again brought me near to tears.

That’s my place, I thought as we flew over the muddy brown farmland just hinting to green. That’s my home. I belong there.

And I was practically bouncing in my seat with anticipation to see my family by the time we banked over downtown and I caught this once-in-a-lifetime (well, once in MY lifetime, anyway!) shot of downtown Ottawa.

Home.