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Facts & Arguments

Dad didn't have the words to fill the silence between us, but his actions did, Sherman Snukal writes

Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

My father had a silent heart. Uncomfortable with language, suspicious of emotion, he never mixed the two. Dad was an accountant; he stuck with figures. Language lied, emotions deceived, but when Dad presented his balance sheets and did his audits, his numbers spoke the truth.

A silent heart is not an empty heart. At the back of our property, before the lawn fell off steeply toward the Red River, was Dad's garden. The garden was his hideout; tomatoes its treasure. Each summer, he shared the first of his crop with me. My mother's best china bowl, secretly taken from the china cabinet, brought the tomatoes to the house. A cutting board and knife received the bounty.

A sharp blade makes a clean cut. A clean cut keeps the flesh firm. Firm flesh is every tomato's due. A lesson shown, not told. Salt was added. As precise with his tomatoes as he was with his clients' books, the salt fell from Dad's fingers grain by grain.

While we ate, Dad talked to me about the necessity of staking and the importance of steer manure and what the fall might hold for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. His conversation was as delicious as the thick meat of his treasured tomatoes. But all too soon, language failed him. Taking our plates to the sink, he looked back at me knowing he didn't have the words to fill the silence between us.

Dad's been gone for more than 30 years. I think of him often. Until recently, I thought he never shared the words I needed.

I left Winnipeg more than 45 years ago. Dad and Mom moved away shortly after that. With them gone, I returned only once or twice. A few years ago, my son married a Winnipeg girl, and they moved to that cold, bright Prairie city. And now, in the summers, my wife and I return to where we grew up.

On one of our visits, my daughter-in-law drove us to Winnipeg Beach, a cottage community on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg. As a child, I spent summers there. I hadn't been back since I was 15, hadn't thought about it since then. As we left the highway and headed east on Maple Avenue toward the lake, I caught sight of the muddy waters and green rushes of Boundary Creek where I fished for perch and jackfish. Without warning, the memory of an event from my childhood, forgotten for close to 60 years, was so powerful I lurched forward in my seat.

It's a weekend in July and our family is on its way to the cottage. In my Dad's two-tone Pontiac with its gleaming white-wall tires, my brother and I crowd together in the half of the back seat not occupied by food or clothes or kitchen utensils. Mom naps in the front seat, exhausted from packing and wrangling two young boys. After half an hour, my brother and I stop yapping and Dad stops reaching over to the back seat blindly batting at us to shut up and stop fighting. The straight, endless Manitoba highway stretches on to the horizon. Dad is silent. A smile takes shape on his face.

Dad thinks of a week without journals and ledgers and demanding clients. The family he loves is with him. And he knows he's done well enough to rent a cottage for them on Maple Avenue with reedy Boundary Creek lapping at its backyard.

Miles pass. Mom still naps in the front seat. My brother dozes in the back. His lolling body pushes me deeper into the pile of clothes and kitchen utensils. I'm half asleep, lulled to near unconsciousness by the flat, featureless Prairie and the reassuring drone of the Pontiac's motor.

More miles pass. Dad's cherished week with his family is only 20 miles away. An emotion blooms in his silent heart. The feeling grows and grows until it seems to Dad that it's as large and as boundless as the Prairie around him. Then he's overwhelmed by an unexpected desire. The love he feels must announce itself to his family. It doesn't matter if no one is awake to hear him.

But Dad hasn't the words to speak what his heart feels. And so, he makes do with what's at hand. He stares at the road and speaks the words he needs as they rush toward him.

"Maximum speed 60 miles per hour." "Slow traffic keep right." "Reduce speed." "Merge right." "Railroad crossing." "Yield to oncoming traffic." "Stop here on red."

When we got closer to Winnipeg Beach, Dad counts down the cottage communities south of it: "Matlock." "Whytewold." "Ponemah."

I'm only vaguely aware of Dad's peculiar recitation. To me, it's just noise adults make to keep themselves alert on a monotonous drive. But I'm wide awake as our journey ends and I hear Dad conclude his soliloquy with, "Welcome to Winnipeg Beach."

My daughter-in-law turned south toward her parents' cottage in Ponemah. I looked north toward Winnipeg Beach. The welcome sign got smaller in the distance.

As a child, the words Dad spoke on that journey meant little to me. But now, a life lived, and a family raised, allowed me to understand what moved Dad's heart.

Welcome to Winnipeg Beach. Today those humdrum words mean so much. A silent heart had found the words to share its love.

Sherman Snukal lives in Toronto.