Your Song (7 page)

“Where did I leave off?” I ask to see how much David understood so far.

“You were saying something about finding something really special . . . something that you wanted.”

“Oh yeah, I remember now . . .
so what would you do if right after you found that something so amazing . . . you lost it?” I ask carefully.

“I’d go look for it again,” David replies without even hesitating.

“Okay, but what if you tried looking for it but still couldn’t find it, what would you do then?” I probe the nine-year-old sage in front of me.

“I’d keep looking,” he says in between gulps of his Oreo Blizzard, not looking up at me.  So, according to my young counselor, I should keep doing what I’ve been doing. Keep looking for her.

“Oh . . . and Uncle Eric . . . I wouldn’t give up until I find it,” he adds as he sucks back the last of his treat. And then it hits me. It’s time that I step up my efforts at finding Caroline.

The rest of the evening passed relatively enjoyably. I say relatively because after I dropped off David at home and stayed for dinner at my sister’s place, I was distracted by thoughts of finding Caroline. After dinner, Ryan, David and I watched the Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils playoff game on television. Watching Saturday night NHL hockey with my nephew has a way of bringing me back to my childhood and all the times my dad and I used to watch our favorite team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Growing up Canadian was synonymous with growing up a hockey fan; the two went hand in hand.

My parents immigrated to Toronto from Spain in the mid 1970s.  So, along with classic 1970s music, hockey became another rite of passage in my parents’ journey in embracing Canadian culture. My sister and I were both born in Toronto and grew up Canadian but, like many children of immigrants, we have many examples of ways our Spanish heritage was Anglo-sized. At school, our Spanish last name
Martin
(with an accent on the ‘i’) was quickly simplified to Martin and pronounced as such.

Back at home now after the night at my sister’s place, I flick the button on my answering machine as I prepare to make myself an espresso on my Jura espresso machine.
You have two new messages
. First
beep
. A hang up.  Second
beep.
Another hang up. I pick up my handset to check the call display and for both of those calls, the screen reads
Private Caller
, no number identified. The calls were about two hours apart.  Without giving these calls another thought, I get down to work.

As soon as my Mac boots up, the image of Caroline lights up my screen. The shot that I took of her
at the airport on my iPad looking down and smiling that morning has made its way as my screen saver. The note we exchanged is still tucked inside the corner of my monitor. I stare at them both and think about David’s words. Time to step up my efforts.

The Internet. How does a nostalgic, old school kind of guy like me embrace looking for
the girl of his dreams in cyberspace? Not very easily. I mean, I obviously have no problem stalking someone’s neighborhood and taking pictures of someone without their knowledge so why does searching a name over the Internet make me feel like an obsessive pervert? 

I’ve put off the whole technology piece in looking for Caroline for a reason. Invasiveness. Th
e reason is that it just feels too invasive to go snooping around looking into other people’s business. I know you’re going to say that social media today takes the tactlessness out of the equation. Nowadays people post their business online for the purpose of having others read about and know their business and spread it around. In other words, we’re not snooping if others are advertising. But that’s why I’m one of the remaining few dinosaurs not on Facebook, or Twitter, nor am I posting my pictures on Tumblr or Instagram; my life is my own and I’ve no interest in sharing it with strangers. Besides, I’ve learned it’s best to keep my identity as secretive as possible. No one can find me who I don’t want to find me.

Ironically, that brings me to finding Caroline. The minute I type her name in the search bar, I know I’
ll be crossing a line. There might be something I could learn about her that I don’t want to know or to find out in this way. Can I do it? I weigh the pros and cons of going any further in my online search. Besides, with only her first name and a picture of her, how much could I possibly find, I wonder.

So, I begin by typing in “Caroline Toronto Canada” in the search bar, I then click Images so that pages of images pop-up. I take a deep breath and scroll down page after page of images looking for Sweet Caroline. I work slowly and methodically through the images and even click on a few that look similar to her. I don’t see her. I keep scrolling down both hoping and not hoping that I’ll find her. After studying all of the photographs, I accept the fact that Caroline’s photo is not here and inwardly breathe a sigh of relief. Out of curiosity, I search my own name and feel nothing but the same wave of relief when I see that none of my images are posted anywhere online either.

The next thing I try is the image recognition Google app on my iPad. First, I grab my iPad and snap a picture of the image of Caroline’s face on my screen saver.   Then, I press the ‘Goggles’ button and Google does an image search to see if there’s a match. Little colored boxes would start floating across the screen with matched up images found on the web. Fortunately, not one matched image comes up. Sweet Caroline’s picture is nowhere online. You’d think that for a guy in such fervent search for a girl, the web would be the fastest and easiest way to find her. The relief I feel because I’m unable to find her is indescribable, even to me. I find it pretty remarkable that she has maintained some anonymity in today’s extroverted world.  Could it be for professional reasons why she isn’t on Facebook or better yet, has chosen not be? Or, maybe like me, she too has secrets to hide and people to hide from so a Facebook account would be the last thing she’d need? Nevertheless, I know now that a search for Caroline in Toronto and an image recognition search have turned up nothing. Moving on.

The next thing I do is
go back on Google and type in “Chicago conferences May 25-27
th
2012.” Caroline mentioned that she was at an annual conference in Chicago last weekend so if I can find a list of organizations that held their conferences there, then that might give me a clue as to what field of work she might be in here in Toronto. 

A few clicks of the mouse later, I find the 2012 Global Finance Conference. I scroll through the conference programs and schedules scanning for a Caroline as a presenter or keynote speaker and nothing comes up. When I reread the conference’s home page I realize this conference was held between held
between May 23rd to the 25
th
, prior to the weekend. Dead end.

I continue to hit the back arrow and click on other conferences that pop up for that weekend in Chicago, Illinois. The only other viable one that does appear to work would be the Association for Psychological Science. I click on the 2012 convention coverage and again, scan the pictures posted on the site from the conference. There’s a picture of the keynote speaker, another of the editor of the
Psychological Science
journal and even a shot of the smashing Saturday ballroom entertainment provided by some famous bass player and ‘musically gifted’ psychological science students. Caroline’s name isn’t anywhere to be found. I understand that she could have just been an attendee at the conference so her name wouldn’t necessarily be posted on the convention page. But before I pat myself on the back for making a very minute lead in finding her, it hits me that the conference I attended last weekend isn’t showing up either when I do the search. Simple reason for that; my conference was held just outside of Chicago in an area called St. Charles, Illinois. That said, there are dozens of places Caroline’s conference could have been held, the proverbial needle in the haystack, so I decide to close off this search.

As I walk back to the
kitchen to drop off my empty espresso cup, I get a flash of a story that I overheard Cate, my secretary, telling the receptionist about recently at work. The story goes that some guy met a girl in London while he was sitting at an outdoor piano in honor of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. The two of them hit it off but when it was time for the girl to leave, the guy didn’t get her number or email address. His friends who were with him at the time took a picture on one of their phones of the girl’s back while she was sitting at a piano beside their friend. To help their friend out, these guys posted her picture on Tumblr asking if anyone could help them locate the girl.

I jump back on my computer and search for that story. The account was called “Ferry Girl Story” and in the
Tumblr feed, there are a number of people who comment negatively and positively on the guy’s efforts at trying to find the girl. One person even posted a speculation that the girl would end up being a lesbian when or if he finally did find her.
Caroline could possibly be gay
.

Alas, the “Ferry Girl” story has a happy ending. After setting up many social media accounts and an email address completely dedicated to locating “Ferry Girl,” the guy did end up finding her. To make a long story short, the power of social media made it happen.  Knowing that, the question I have for myself
, is why am I so freaking hesitant to use it?

I shut down my computer, take my
iPad with me and go to sleep.

5 “Seasons In The Sun”

To these lyrics in my head I wake up on
this sunny Sunday morning in June. The third anniversary of Danny’s death. If ever there was a song written for someone, Terry Jack’s ‘Seasons in the Sun’ has my name written all over it. A few months after Danny died, I walked into my parents’ place one day and this song was playing in the background. It stopped me in my tracks.

Out of bed now, I make my way over to my answering machine and hit the rewind button.

Beep
.

“
Hey Eric, it’s me. I tried reaching you on your cell but it must be turned off.  The tux place called . . . our tuxes will be ready on Thursday . . . I’ll pick up yours when I go get mine. See you Thursday night at the rehearsal dinner. Talk to you later.
Beep
.”

I never did talk to Danny later. He died the next day. This recording is all I have left of him. I play it over and over again every year on the anniversary of his death. But only on June 3
rd
can I brace myself for the pain of listening to his voice on my machine. Maybe that’s why I’m so attached to my answering machine? A way to hold onto Danny and our history.

I listen to the message again. He sounds so alive and with us. I tremble inside as I hear the closeness of his voice. He should be here, with us. How could he be gone? How does someone leave you an ordinary everyday message on your answering machine one day and then hours later that person no longer exists? Where did that light-up-the-room smile of his go? And what about that mischievous laugh of his that I heard a million times, where did it disappear?

For the longest time after he died, I used to believe his death was a just a terrible joke he was playing on all of us and that any minute, he’d be walking through the door with that ‘gotcha’ look in his eye.  I remember those first few months after he died, grabbing my phone after the first ring hoping to see his name appear on my call display. Whenever I’d turn a corner, I secretly hoped Danny would be around the other side waiting for me. He was like a ghost haunting me everywhere I turned. Closing my eyes at night to fall asleep, I’d stare into his blue eyes. When I’d open them, he’d be there right beside me, like an imaginary friend.  

Grief became my new best friend. First came the shock. It was around eleven o’clock on a workday morning when my cell phone vibrated incessantly in my suit jacket. Relatively new to the company back then, I was sitting attentively at a work meeting with senior management. I tried my best to ignore the calls but after what felt like fifty or more incessant vibrations, I knew I had to answer it. I remember stepping outside into the hall to answer my phone and startling the receptionists and secretaries with the sound of my gruff hello to whomever was on the other end. It was Mary, Danny’s sister, crying hysterically into the phone. There had been an accident. Something about a tractor trailer on the highway. Right away, I interrupted her and asked if Danny was all right. Dead, she wailed. Danny’s dead. Sucker-punched. All the breath zapped right out of me. My legs could barely hold me up. I froze. I kept the phone to my ear but words wouldn’t come to me.
There had to be a mistake . . . not Danny . . . must be a mistake,
I kept thinking. Mary asked me to meet her at the morgue. And with those words, our season in the sun had come to an end.  

The last time I saw Danny was the Sunday before he died. We were on one of our weekly Sunday morning bike rides through the trails of Toronto. I think about the thousands of kilometers the two of us clocked on our bikes together over the years and how today I sit on top of my bike all alone. In honor of Danny, I’ve decided to get on my bike this morning and ride to one of our favorite rest stops, James Gardens in Toronto, located on the west bank of the Humber River.  With the warm air and bright sun shining, I begin my ride hearing Terry Jack’s voice singing in my head.