Hot off the press, the fall issue of the BCAA magazine came out and featured Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal as urban living destinations. The cover shot was the Europa Hotel in Vancouver. The streets meet at odd angles there, and the triangle shaped hotel is directly across the street from my pals, Peter and Glenda’s apartment. I read the whole article with interest and wondered if they had seen it. When I was in the BCAA office, I had picked up an extra copy in case they hadn’t. Mind you, it got buried in the priorities of life, and didn’t get any further than my kitchen table.

Meanwhile, as a lark, I agreed to design a return address label for them using a mug shot of their aging dog, Alice. Glenda thought it would be neat seeing her Australian Cattle dog flying around the world on all her friends’ letters. 

I had done a few samples but the project ended up at the bottom of that same priority pile. Many months passed and Alice, with cancer, got sicker and sicker. Finally the day came when she went to the big cattle ranch in the sky. Glenda & Peter were heart broken. 

I was heartbroken for them. I wondered how I could best honor the loss of their beloved dog. Then I remembered those address labels and how they would be a wonderful tribute. I ran a few sheets off and rummaged around looking for some packaging to keep them flat. I came across the BCAA magazine. Terrific. I bundled them up and Canada Post took it from there.

A few days later I got an email from Glenda announcing its arrival. Yes they had seen the article – Peter gets the magazine but she was touched with the labels. “Alice can fly around the world in her next life”, Glenda said.

A day or so later, I received another email, this one more exhilarating. It said I’d never believe it. She rambled out that yeah, yeah, they had read the article before and the magazine was long gone in the recycle bin. But the copy I sent was laying on their kitchen counter flipped open to a page with the same Vancouver street shot but from a wider angle. She just happened to glance down where Peter and Alice sprang off the page in living color. Peter, mid-step, in his brilliant tie-dyed t-shirt and Alice in her sensible harness. The picture on the cover cropped off the foreground, so Peter and Alice didn’t show up until page seven, but they were – very much the feature of urban living for Vancouver! Plain as day.

Kudos to you Alice. The joke was on us. You didn’t need address labels. Not only had you been already flying around the world in your next life, you had gone out with flair! A visual epitaph thousands had already been enjoying.

You made sure we wouldn’t grieve too long. But then again, you always could make us smile.