A Hallmark Memory

I’ve been watching another Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, a repeat about a boy who lost his father and is staying with his grandparents. His grandfather ends up teaching him to drive a tractor to plow the snow just like his father did.

During the commercial break my mind began to wander, nothing new, and it dredged up first one memory and then another memory. The first memory was of when I visited my grandparents in Maryfield, Saskatchewan. I’d traveled there by Greyhound bus all by myself. I believe I was in grade 9. For some reason, my mother, in Calgary, received a phone call from the police to say that I was missing. I laughed because I was in grandma’s kitchen at the time. Yes, I did get scolded by my mother when I talked with her.

During my two weeks there, we went to another farm. The water came from a pump at the edge of their sink. Their bathtub was a huge trough outside and, that night, I saw a sow give birth; my grandfather was helping. I recall crossing the grass yard to get to the barn. It was pouring rain, and with every step, frogs jumped out of the wet grass. I even remember going back to the house with a small piglet that the mother sow had rolled on. I don’t remember if it survived.

I will admit that earlier that day, I’d been in the barn and somewhat panicked when all the sows decided to check me out. I remember climbing the first two rungs of a wooden ladder that led to the loft.