HÉLÈNE CAMPBELL
Centretown, Feb. 5, 2017.
“When I was a kid, I was outside all the time in the winter. All the time. I loved wintertime. It was the only time when my mom was like, ‘Go outside until dinner,’ and I was happy.
“We had these neighbours that we used to always play with outside. We’d play cops and robbers with snowballs, and stuff like that.
“And this one winter we had like eight metres of snow. I’m exaggerating, but it was a ton, and my dad thought it would be a good idea to jump off the roof of the house. And of course it was all controlled and he was monitoring it, and I jumped off and it was fine. But that night
I went to some friend’s place, and I was like, ‘Let’s jump off the roof into the snow!’ So I guess I was an idiot; I jumped into halfsnowbank/half-driveway, and I broke my foot. But I was so stubborn, I walked on it for five days, saying it can’t be broken. And I was staying at my friend’s place to avoid going home, because I didn’t want my parents to know about my leg. Because in fact I’d jumped off the roof of a house of friends who were out of town, with someone who was housesitting for them. It was not good.
“So I was hobbling at home five days later, and my dad was like, ‘Hélène, what’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘Nothing. My foot hurts a bit.’ And then I showed him my leg and it was massive and swollen, and my dad was so upset. I was maybe 15, and my dad said, ‘I’m dropping you off at the hospital and you can take care of yourself.’
“Anyway, I broke my fibula and tibia, and because I’d walked on it for so long, it was bad. My heel was kind of cracked. So I got a cast, and I was sitting there, and there was this woman in the waiting room, knitting something the whole time I was there. I started talking with her, and as I was leaving she came up to me and said, ‘I knitted you this toe-warmer, this toe cosy to keep your toes warm.’ And it looked like a little hat that fit on top of my cast. And she’d sat there all day to volunteer her time knitting these things for people. Apparently she went in every day in the winter to knit these little bonnets for people’s toes.
“I would never think to do something like that. It was the nicest thing, and I wish I knew who she was. I’ll never forget her.”