WATERING CAN GAS CHAMBER

WATERING CAN GAS CHAMBER:

Just another scorcher, that day in 1957! I really hated summer holidays. I was seven, adopted, an only child and of course I was bored stiff and lonely at the prospect of spending one more summer with no one to play with. Having escaped the annual Toronto heat-wave, all my friends were happily off on vacation at their family cottages.

Home air-conditioning was virtually unheard of and on a day like that it was considerably hotter inside the house, than out! Ours was one of those big, solid, red-brick, two-storey, semi-detached houses in Leaside which was a comfortable
middle/middle to upper/middle class suburban Toronto community.

I grabbed my favourite red, white and blue rubber ball and out-doors I headed to cool off. Mother was busy with her favourite past-time: watching “her stories” (soap operas)and gossipping on the phone about the latest tribulations of the stars on General Hospital--or whichever. I thought I had safely escaped but I could hear her scratchy voice trailing off behind me, “Marylee!!”; but it was kind of muffled behind the loud
BAM-BAM-BANG of the side door snapping shut from the tight new springs which daddy had affixed to it....I was pretty sure the next words were: “Don’t slam the...” Ooops! Too late, I had let it slam by accident, or at least I would profess “by
accident”! Really!

Ingenuously feigning innocence, I started tossing my ball against the only non-windowed side of our house. Shoot! I knew I was busted when she stuck her head around the door and screetched: “Marylee! I TOLD you not to slam the damn door--
and you did it anyway, on purpose! Didn’t you?” I said nothing. “Answer me!” I was mum with fear. “Well, don’t you dare leave the yard! Did you hear me? And you’d better stay outta my rose garden, or you’ll get a lickin’ you won’t soon
forget!!!!!”

(I always had a problem with that expression “lickin’” it sounds so cute and nice, something you would enjoy, like a kiss from a puppy or kitten.  But when she threatened a
“lickin” I knew it meant a “whipping”, “spanking”, “beating”, etc...)

Well I had no problems with that command, of course I’d stay away from that damn garden...far away! I knew she was already on the war-path after my “inadvertant” door slam, so I most certainly wasn’t about to do anything else that could possibly trigger more of her wrath! As a matter of fact it usually took less than nothing to set her off hunting for the rulers and yardsticks!

I always seemed to be doing something wrong in her estimation. Nothing ever pleased her. And she actually delighted in never missing an opportunity to remind me that I “came from the gutter”, (another stupid expression I hated..What gutter??
Where? Why? and How? [a little foreshadowing of my future career as a reporter?])! She never tried to hide her hatred for me and her jealousy of the special bond between my daddy and me.

After assessing the proximity of that old “prickly patch” I was certain I had plenty plenty of distance, at least a good eight feet between me and those damn stupid roses!  While singing the ball-tossing ditties I threw underhand, under the leg, behind the back, soft-pitch, high up the wall then a hard overhand which, on the rebound went well over my head,
ricochetted off the neighbour’s wall and as if in slow-motion slipped through my grasp and bounced, bounced, bounced--you
guessed it...straight into the prickly rose bushes. Yikes, it was firmly embedded between two branches and being held in place by the prickles! Oh brother...I knew I was in big trouble if my mother spied it there or worse, if she caught me
trying to retrieve the ball!

I had to think! Could I pretend to be still tossing until daddy got home?...He always buffered her anger? But before any solution was forthcoming I noticed a tiny sparrow, unable to fly, and lodged amongst the roses. To heck with my ball, this poor little bird needed my help! Hoping that neither the rose prickles nor my mother would catch me, I risked life and limb to pluck her out of the flower bed, and of course retrieved my ball in the process.

Whether the bird was sick or injured, I was determined to nurse her back to health. I found my daddy's old, green galvanized watering can which seemed about the right size container for her convalescence. To make her comfortable, I lined it with grass, leaves, twigs, clovers and rose petals. I tucked her in with a 'sheet' made from Kleenex. A foIded leaf became a trough for dribbling water droplets water into the little creature's beak.

But how I could provide her nourishment?  As usual, mother had neither encouraging words nor sage advice, only the same old overshadowing and disheartening criticisms.Undaunted, this junior Florence Nightingale decided to wait for daddy to come home and help me. Suddenly the worst thing happened. Instead of resting and getting better, my little patient expired. Just like that--”Wee Birdie” was gone from me. 

I felt so devastated and helpless, as if it were the end of my world. So inconsolable I just couldn’t stop crying.  I paced up and down the street holding Wee Birdie's limp little
body in a match-box coffin lined with Kleenex. As I paced, I
was convinced that it was I, alone, who was responsible for her death. While I waited for the Daddy Bus, I prayed for a
miracle to make Wee Birdie come back to life. Of course, that particular miracle was not forthcoming. 

Finally when all the daddies got off the evening bus, I ran to meet mine at the street corner. I was crying and breathlessly tripping over my words as I presented him with the scaled-down coffin. Between sobs I confessed that I had somehow murdered Wee Birdie. Confident that my daddy was actually a god, I begged if he would: "Please, please, make her alive again!"

In his omniscient, calming manner, he once again blanketed me with assuredness making everything OK. Though he didn't breathe life into her limp little body, he insisted that what had happened was in no way my fault, and I believed him.

It seems what I couldn't possibly have known, was that the old green watering can was, in fact, the container in which daddy mixed the DDT weed poison. Apparently some residue of DDT, combined with the heat of the day to release noxious fumes
which quickly asphyxiated my small patient. That watering can had actually become a "gas chamber" which, instead of providing a safe healing place, only served to ensure the speedy demise of my sparrow.

According to mother, everything that ever went wrong in our family was, of course, my fault. Mother always complained that "what else could be expected" of me since I “came from 'HER’!” Whenever i exhibited “undesirable” traits she’d reiterate this standard remark. Of course she was always referring to, and blaming, my 'unknown' birth mother whom she seemed convinced was living somewhere “in a Toronto gutter”. Proving no exception, this included my personal responsibility
in causing the hasty demise of Wee Birdie.

This time, however, was different. I clearly understood from daddy's explanation, that it really wasn't my fault. In order to have some closure, daddy and I held a little funeral ceremony and buried Wee Birdie in the corner of our yard. Then daddy and I shared a blue, raspberry flavoured popsicle--the kind you hit on the edge of a counter to split perfectly evenly down the centre. When we finished our treat we used some string to fasten the popsicle sticks together in the shape of a cross and carefully marked her little interment place.  In my mind I can still smell the fresh-picked white Lilies of the Valley and fresh peppermint leaves which wetaped
onto the tiny grave marker. With a thin brush and white paint, daddy printed 'Wee" across and "Birdie" down the stick 'cross',
lest we forget.

Because of my wonderful daddy, my guilt and grief from this incident eventually dissipated, even if my memory of the incident remains fresh.  Of course mother always had to have the 'last word' insisting daddy and I were being foolish to carry on like we were. Complaining, she harped: "Why are you
concerned so much with that dirty, nasty thing? You should spend more time with me for a change! Do some things for me!". Because of my mother's attitude, this and many other of my myriad of life little experiences would eventually result in the insecurity, pain and depression which would mar and consume my spirit for the many decades of my life to follow.