The Beauty of Chance Encounters
Jean Moule
50plus Magazine
I am off at 6 am from my son Matt’s home in Portland to catch the one o’clock ferry out of Vancouver. The forecast says to expect conditions affirming British Columbia’s namesake, the Sunshine Coast.
Yes, a short trip to Canada will work. I have friends in Garden Bay and the ferry to Victoria disembarks from nearby Ladysmith Harbor. This is where the Coastal Messenger, a vessel I’ve wanted to visit for 40 years, is docked.
With I-5 cities and Seattle behind my cat Frida and me, we take a scenic route through Vancouver to cross the stunning Lion’s Gate Bridge.
Arriving at port, I pull in line to wait. My nerves hum as one o’clock comes and goes, and I can’t quite make out the accented announcements. A man passes by, heading to a nearby trash can. I call out, asking if he knows what’s going on.
“Yes,” he says. “They are short staffed and the ferry schedule is off. One should leave around three.”
So, 90 more minutes to wait. Not able to get into a project and not feeling like walking Frida, I sit in rumination.
I look over at a man in a truck two lanes over, the one who had walked to the garbage. I wonder if he is bored too. What the heck, I think. I grab a copy of 50 Plus Magazine and walk it over to him. “Here’s something to read,” I say. “The cover story is about me and kittens. Just toss it when you’re done.”
I’m a bit embarrassed at my boldness, but really, what harm? I head back to my car.
Moments later, the man is standing outside my window, in tears.
He read the first paragraph, he says.
I flash on the words:
“The image [of my cabin in a snow painting] has filled Dr. Jean Moule’s mind many times. A long path meanders through a cold, barren landscape to the cabin, a light shining in the window. As an artist, she painted that snowy scene in five different settings before her husband Robbie died three years ago.”
I am the subject, Jean Moule.
“My wife died eight days ago,” the man says, swiping at his tears.
My heart almost fails me. From the bottom of it I try to console him, and we talk for a bit. He tells me his name is Trevor and that he lives in Garden Bay. We discover that the woman I am visiting is the only Lucy he knows there. That she and her husband operated the marina where Trevor and his wife, also named Jean, sometimes docked during the 15 years they lived on their boat.
Trevor says that during their last few years on the boat, he and Jean designed a home. By the time it was complete she was only able to live there briefly. Instead, they spent her last months with family on the east coast. Trevor was just now returning home from the cross-country drive when we met in the ferry line.
Trevor doesn’t generally interact with strangers, he said. But he heeded these words from his wife: “Make an effort to meet new people and engage in conversation when approached.” He doubts he would have approached my car without her nudge.
I was the first person Trevor told about his wife’s passing. As I had recently had a similar experience, our conversation was a comfort to him.
Later during my stay in Garden Bay, friends and I visited Trevor. I gave him my book which had been featured in the magazine I’d given him that first day.
We’ve kept in touch by email. Trevor shared that my book and other things I sent him supported him in his journey. He’d told others I’d become his “online grief counselor.” It was my pleasure, and I did my best to help him grieve.
It must have worked, as he is now dating.
Jean Moule is author of Seeking Warmth and Light and Canyon Survival: Escape from the Flames. Both are available through Amazon. See her art at fineartamerica.com/profiles/jean-moule.