Free Aloha, Candy Hearts by Anthony Bidulka Page A

further into the grounds, I saw that there were many more gravesites than visible markers, some with nothing more than a stone stump or rusted steel plate obscured by overgrown grass. There was no way to know where baby Minnie was laid to rest. I mapped out a simple grid that would take me up and down the length of the burial ground, I hoped without missing any of the graves, and began my search.
    I was on my fourth lap when I found her. Minnie Caswell. She died in 1896 at only four months old. I mulled this over and wondered if the area in town called Caswell Hill was named for her family. Was that where I was being sent to next? Right beside Minnie, as the poem suggested, was Margaret.
    At the base of an impressive monument that had obviously been constructed long after Margaret’s death, was a square of mar-ble. The engraving read: In Loving Memory – Margaret Marr –
    1853-1889. I shook my head. People certainly didn’t enjoy long lives in the early days of Saskatoon. I pulled the poem out of my pocket and read the part pertaining to Margaret: Next to baby Minnie, Margaret tells you what to do.
    Humph. I read it again. Stared at the stone. Read it once more.
    I didn’t know anything about Margaret Marr, but I did know there was a place in Saskatoon called the Marr Residence. I only knew that because my friend Brenda, a local singer-songwriter, had once been artist-in-residence at Marr Residence. I didn’t really know what an artist-in-residence was or what they did when they were in residence, but I was pretty sure I knew what Margaret was telling me to do.

    A few minutes later I pulled up next to a white, clapboard, two-storey house on a heavily treed street, just a block up from the river. A white picket fence surrounded the large yard, half of which was given over to a pleasantly landscaped garden. I knew DD6AA2AB8
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    Anthony Bidulka

    this because a sign on the lawn announced Marr Garden. Another sign on a gate beneath a graceful, arched arbour said “Welcome.”
    How friendly. I decided to take advantage of the lovely space on what was turning into a warm Sunday morning. I entered the garden and made my way down a stone path. At one end of the yard were two benches. One was occupied by an elderly woman who’d obviously had the same idea I did. But instead of solving a treasure map clue, she was knitting. Very sensible. I sat down on the other bench and smiled at her. She scowled back.
    I read the next bit of Walter Angel’s poem.

    There it is
    What it is
    Where it is,
    But where is what it is where it wasn’t?

    Of all the stanzas, I decided, I hated this one the most. What the heck was this about? I decided that “it” had to be the Marr Residence. Otherwise, why would Margaret send me here? That’s where my brilliant thinking process stalled. A sour feeling of hope-lessness crept up my spine. I thought about how vital it was that I get every one of these clues exactly right. If I made just one mistake, I would be on a wild goose chase that would never end. What if I was wrong about coming to the Marr House in the first place?
    What if Margaret was telling me to go to the downtown 7-Eleven rather than here? If that were true, no amount of deciphering
    “there it is what it is where it is” was going to help me. I could see why Walter Angel thought he might need help figuring the whole thing out.
    I studied the gardens. Day lilies. Dogwoods. Several types of bushes. Lots of grass. Ill-tempered old woman. It reminded me of home when I was a kid. Except the ill-tempered old woman part (most of the time). I’d spent so many looooooong, hot summer afternoons playing outdoors. You couldn’t go anywhere in that farmyard without catching a whiff of Mom’s flowers. Wherever she found a spare patch of fertile dirt, she planted something.
    Peonies. Sweet peas. Snapdragons. Wild rose bushes. As summer DD6AA2AB8
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    Aloha, Candy