For me there were a couple of times in my youth when someone, sometimes unwittingly, played a father figure to me. Those moments provided periods of much-needed respite from the emotional storms within.

Mr. Lowry was one of those people.

Big Brothers

I connected with Big Brothers when I was 12 or 13.

I don’t really recall how I first set up with them, but knowing how I was, I am sure I just went to their office or called them to get things rolling. I also don’t recall the details of the application, but I do recall the waiting period – the time taken to find a match.

I am not sure of the norms now, but then it could take 6 months or so to find a big/little brother match. This was the waiting period for the little brothers because there were more little brothers on the list than there were big brothers applying. The big brothers that applied had much shorter time. In my early 20s, I was a big brother and it took less than a couple of months to connect with a little guy.

Because of my age, it took longer for them to find me a big brother. It seemed that most big brothers wanted younger kids to connect with. Maybe people thought that kids my age weren’t as cute as the younger ones or maybe they thought we might have more baggage to deal with. I was too young to bother analyzing the sociology of it all – plus I didn’t mind the wait.

The Coach House

During my waiting time I would meet weekly with a social worker at the Big Brother office. In the early 1970’s, the Big Brother office was located on Victoria Street, just south of Main. The main building was an old house, nicely carved out inside to a warm web of rooms converted to offices. Tucked in behind this old building was a small building called “The Coach House”.

This little building was easy to miss if you drove past the Big Brother main office. It was in the shadows of the bigger building and its outer decor made in blend in like a brick chameleon, but this room became so important to me that I always looked for it whenever I passed by – even years later.

The exterior bricks of the building were painted gray. It was a simple one-story building with no basement and only three rooms. Two rooms were off to the left and they were small – one being used as a tiny meeting room, the other a storage room. The main room took over 80% of the space in the building. There were a few seats against the walls of this room, but its main features were the pool table and the ping-pong table.

The Coach House was one of my favourite places to hang out. This was where Mr. Lowry and where we spent most of our time.

Meet Mr. Lowry

I am not really sure if he was a social worker, an intake worker or what his title was, but to me he was simply Mr. Lowry. It didn’t really matter to me what his title was (for this blog, I’ll just assume he was a social worker). What did matter was his impact on me.

I cannot recall what his first name was. I likely saw it on some name plate or piece of paper, but I never called him by his first name. He was always “Mr. Lowry” to me.

Mr. Lowry and I met at the Coach House on a weekly basis. We would battle it out over a game of pool or ping-pong and then spend some time just hanging out and chatting.

He Had a Plan

Little did I realize that Mr. Lowry was using this time to get to know me better. There was no Freudian analysis with me on a couch and him scribbling notes and saying “hmm, tell me more” as I rattled on about the goldfish I lost when I was 7. No, he was effectively sneakier than that.

He spent the time letting me be a boy and showing me he genuinely cared. Through games, laughter and warm smile, he quickly gained my trust.

He must have also recognized that I needed that time because we met for a lot longer time than necessary to get to know me. We met weekly for nearly a year without fail. It didn’t stop until I was eventually connected with a big brother.

The Impact

When a father leaves a family, it can create a hole inside the children left behind. When my stepfather left, that hole expanded. Owing to the physical abuse and emotional neglect, a hole had already started, but it grew when he left. The continued pattern of his fatherhood whenever he stopped by only served to turn that hole into a flaming cavity.

I spent years trying to douse the flames and fill the cavity, but occasionally someone would come along that was able to throw a cover over that hole. Often it was temporary, but it would provide a much needed period of respite from the internal storm.

Mr. Lowry gave me that period of respite. He was filling the father void within me, even if it was only for a brief time. Although I couldn’t label the feelings then, he made me feel like I mattered and that somebody cared. I loved every minute spent in that Coach House with Mr. Lowry. Without recognizing it then, I loved Mr. Lowry too.

Thank You

Eventually they found a big brother for me: Ken W. Soon after being introduced to Ken it was no longer necessary for me to meet at the Coach House. I never saw Mr. Lowry after that. I tried to track him down many years later to give him a simple message.

I discovered he passed away, so I will say my simple message now:

Dear Mr. Lowry,

You showed me that we should never under-estimate the enduring impact we may have on people.

You made a difference by giving me a time of rest from my inner fires. You helped me see that a father’s hands are better spent holding a boy’s heart. You also gave me a brief glimpse of hope.

Thank you, Mr. Lowry.

Love, Randy

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Along my journey, support came in many forms. Family, social workers and community agencies. These will be addressed in future blog articles. In this article, I want to discuss a very important part of my support: my guardian angel. She has protected me long before I even knew it. Here is how it began.

The Old Farmhouse

My mom and her many siblings were raised in an old farmhouse. The wooden back door opened into a tiny rustic space to kick off your shoes. The door from there led into a small yet comfortable kitchen. A weathered table took up most of the kitchen, yet there was more than enough space to cook on the black cast-iron wood stove.

In the corner of the kitchen was a stand fixed to the wall. Upon the stand was a water basin that was used to clean up before meals. There was no running water, so the basin got topped up from a water pump just behind the house. That pump never seemed to fail in its duty to supply water year-round.

Right near the pump hung an old pot always seemed to have a slight hint of red inside, seemingly always on the verge of rusting. We used it to drink water directly from the pump. In today’s standard people would have shrieked about everyone using the same unwashed, rusting pot to drink water from an underground well. It was the sweetest tasting water I have ever known.

From the kitchen there a doorway leading into the rest of the house. It was important to keep that doorway closed at night, especially in the winter. There was little, if any, insulation and there were more than a few nights when water would freeze in the kitchen. What sparse heat we had needed to be spared for the bedrooms beyond the kitchen door.

Going through the door there was a short hallway, maybe eight feet long. The end of the hallway led into a living room. Perched in the middle of the room was a potbelly stove that provided the much-needed heat. I only had to burn myself once on it to realize that I needed to give it some space.

Around the walls of the living room were some old couch and chairs, barely enough to accommodate all who lived in the house. Off of the living room was one of the three bedrooms in the house. It was a tiny bedroom that fit a sagging double bed.

Part way down the hallway between the kitchen and living room were stairs leading to the bedrooms. There were 2 more double beds in the main room as you got to the top of the stairs. There was one more small room in the back with yet another bed.

The stove pipe from the stove in the living room came up through the main room. The radiating heat from the pipe along with an array of blankets and quilts made sleep quite easy.

My Memories

I spent many nights at that little house from the time I could hardly remember up until I was a teenager. As much as I remember many details, I recall the feeling I had when I was there. My grandfather was a grumpy old man, but I still liked hearing whatever stories I could squeeze out of him. My aunt and uncle taught me how to play the guitar. I learned how to play chess, checkers and card games. I ate eggs that were only hours old and helped pluck the chickens when they went from being egg-layers to become the main course.

I was also with my grandmother when she died in that house.

My Grandmother Protecting Me

I cannot recall what my grandmother looked like. She died just 2 months after I turned 5 years old. I have pictures of her now, but I cannot bring her vividly to mind. What I do see in memory is a silhouette of a farm-woman who loved me dearly.

One afternoon, my grandmother and I visited one of the neighbours along with some of my aunts and uncles. The neighbours had peacocks which interested and scared me at the same time. Beautiful, flowing feathers, yet these birds were much too large through the eyes of a 5-year-old.

The walk to the neighbour’s house only took a few minutes through the adjoining field. When it was time to go back to our place, the skies had started thundering with rain coming down. I was petrified and didn’t want to go. One of my uncles gave me a piggyback ride back, with my grandmother coaching him and comforting me. Even when we got back to the house I was still afraid and my grandmother lay beside me on the couch, holding me and making me feel safe.

The Night in September 1965

At night-time, there was always seemed to be a little jockeying around as to who would sleep in what bed – especially when I was there because it would throw off the normal sleeping arrangements. This night I went to sleep with my grandmother. It seems that I still wanted the lingering comfort she filled me with.

Sometime in the middle of the night, one of my aunts woke me up and told me to go downstairs. I went to the living room and sat in a chair facing the potbellied stove. It was September, so there was no heat coming from it. I was groggy and everything was blurry.

She’s Gone

My next memory was waking up in the bedroom off the living room.

I crawled out of bed and went into the living room. Everyone was in there. At first, I really didn’t notice that my grandmother wasn’t in the room.

Very simply, one of my aunts said, “Randy, your grandma died.”

This can’t be true! I looked around and didn’t see her. She must be upstairs. I ran as fast as my tiny feet would carry me upstairs. I was hoping to see her there, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for me. She wasn’t there.

Crashing upon me was the realization that she was really gone. Slowly I walked downstairs. My feet and heart were heavy. I was crying by the time I hit the third step and I am not when I stopped crying.

Years later I found out that she had an aneurysm that took her away from us. She passed away around midnight, with me sleeping beside her, completely unaware.

Yet She Was Never Gone

It took me years to recognize that through this heartache, something very magical happened. Like she had done earlier on the couch after the thunder, her spirit wrapped around me, keeping me safe. I didn’t see or feel it then.

I didn’t even feel it through my teens. I now see she was always there. She played a strong part in helping navigate my youth. She still guides me now in those quiet moments when I am not sure what to do.

The spirit silhouette of this beautiful woman pulled me back from the brink on more than one occasion, keeping on the right side of “the edge”.

My Tribute

Before my daughter was born, my wife and I discussed names for her. I wanted to name her after my grandmother, but my wife had reservations.

One weekend I was in Ottawa to write a tech exam. My aunt visited with Sue on a Friday night and they chatted about my grandmother. The next morning only an hour before writing my exam, I talked to Sue and she was now in love with naming our daughter after my grandmother.

I thought about this off and on throughout the 6-hour exam. I had to conceal my intermittent tears of joy so that the examiners wouldn’t confuse my potential crying for exam stress.

My daughter’s name is Treva – named after my grandmother and guardian angel. It was our small way of paying tribute to this wonderful spirit and to say thank-you to her for wrapping me in the warmth her wings always when I needed it most.

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