Friday, June 04, 2021

Regrets

I never met her, but I felt I knew her. When news came this week that Shelley Fralic, writer and editor for the Vancouver Sun, had died, a physical sense of loss washed through me. 

Her longtime pal and fellow columnist Pete McMartin was the one who broke the news to me -- on the front page of Tuesday morning's paper. His tribute to her is worth reading to the end, as he uses her own words in summary, and wise words they are. 

She wrote about things that many would consider ordinary, but in such a fresh and honest way they rose above the plane of the mundane. A great example is a column from earlier this year, when she wondered why a worker at Canadian Tire didn't understand what she was looking for when she asked for a crescent wrench. In that same piece she muses further on encountering a worker at another store who didn't know what she meant when she asked about pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Worst was probably the supermarket worker who had no idea about Brussels sprouts

Her point in that column was that it seemed to her that people are getting dumber. And maybe we are.

I sure feel that I am. In part because I never wrote to her (though thought of it a number of times). Why? To thank her. For what? Wasn't she just doing a job, one she was getting paid for?

The thanks would have been for writing in a way that always filled my head and made me want to read her column right down to the last word. 

It would have been for making me think, and for occasionally making me explore; I doubt I would have become as accustomed to visiting Point Roberts if it hadn't been for a nudge from her.

It would have been for occasionally pulling my heartstrings and making me nostalgic for some memory nearly lost in time. And it would have been for making me laugh.

In a recent piece she mentioned the small pleasure of eating cookies, but in such a way that I not only laughed out loud (alone, no less) but nearly choked. I was prompted to write to thank her for the laugh, and to say it seemed lucky I hadn't been eating cookies at the time. 

But I didn't. Too many other emails to write, or maybe just the distraction of the day's Sudoku. Whatever, I didn't thank her, and now I can only regret that I didn't. I can just hope that mistake will help me express thanks the next time I need to, especially when it's for something as life-affirming and important as a laugh. 


No comments: