2022-06-01 Reader's Digest Canada

HEALTH

Stay safe
this summer
with these
expert tips on
keeping cool

BY Lisa Bendall

illustrations by drew shannon

rd.ca 49

reader’s digest

last june, sweltering hot weather made wintry conditions than to extreme heat.
life miserable for people across British These six strategies will help you safely
Columbia. The week-long “heat dome” prepare for summer weather.
was so named because high atmo-
spheric pressure trapped stifling air 1. Plan Ahead
in place. It contributed to at least 595
deaths—and possibly as many as 740. It may sound obvious, but it’s import-
Climate change makes extreme events ant to regularly check a weather fore-
like this more likely in communities cast app so you’re not caught off guard.
across Canada; in coming years, we can “It could be a full 10 degrees hotter one
expect to suffer through hotter, longer day than it was the day before,” says
and more frequent heat waves. Dr. Heejune Chang, a medical officer
of health at the Winnipeg Regional
And they’re dangerous. Older peo- Health Authority. “If there’s a forecast
ple, who may have poor circulation or for an extreme heat event, it’s usually
underlying medical conditions, are at reported at the start of the day.”
higher risk of overheating quickly. So
are babies and small children, who Knowing there’s heat ahead will help
don’t sweat as much as adults. Other you choose what to wear and plot out
at-risk populations include those expe- your day’s activities. You might pick an
riencing homelessness, addictions or earlier time to go jogging, before the
mental illness. sun is directly overhead, or exercise
indoors on the treadmill. You may even
But even healthy younger adults can decide to juggle your job duties differ-
run into problems, particularly if they ently that day. “If you work outdoors
work or exercise outdoors or don’t have all day, you’ll need more breaks to rest
air conditioning at home. A full 30 per and hydrate,” says Chang.
cent of the heat dome–related deaths
last year were in people under 70. “My If you have a loved one or neighbour
apartment in Vancouver was incredibly who lives alone and without air con-
hot,” recalls Sarah Henderson, a 46-year- ditioning, particularly someone who’s
old scientific director of environmental vulnerable, reach out before they run
health services at the B.C. Centre for into trouble. Invite them to stay with
Disease Control. “I slept on my bal- you, or make plans to take them some-
cony. People were sleeping in the where cool.
parking lot of my building!”
2. Dress for the Heat
Our country’s annual temperatures
are rising two to three times faster than The wrong clothing can trap both heat
the world average, yet we Canadians and perspiration, says Dr. Mark Leung,
still seem more accustomed to harsh director of the University of Toronto’s
enhanced skills program in sport and

50 june 2022

exercise medicine. “Avoid waterproof A HEAT EMERGENCY:
fabrics, which aren’t breathable. And WHAT TO DO
don’t wear cotton unless you can keep
changing your shirt after it soaks up Signs that the body’s self-cooling
sweat. Otherwise, it acts as a barrier system is failing can include a head-
and reduces the efficiency of losing ache, vomiting, pale skin, fainting,
heat by sweat.” irritability and weakness. Eventu-
ally, heatstroke can occur: the per-
Wear clothes that are loosely woven, son might be confused or drowsy.
lightweight and a relaxed fit for better They may have a racing pulse,
air flow. Sportswear labelled as “fast- and their skin may be hot and dry.
drying” or “quick dry” is designed to
wick away sweat; some high-tech At the earliest signs of trouble,
clothing even includes nanoparticles bring an overheated person into a
for UV protection. cool building or shade. Give them
water to drink and have them lie
“Our heads are where we gain and down. Cool them off by removing
lose a lot of heat,” Leung adds. Just as any excess clothing and immers-
you might cover your head with a tuque ing the person in cold water, if
in winter to conserve warmth, shield- it’s available.
ing it with a beaked or wide-brimmed
hat in summer can reduce the amount Dr. Mark Leung offers this quick
of radiant heat your head absorbs trick for heatstroke: “Place ice
from the sun. packs in all the folds of the body:
the armpits, the groin, around the
The parasol has never taken off in neck. These areas have direct
Canada as a must-have summer acces- access to the network of blood ves-
sory, but perhaps it’s time to reconsider. sels and will help you cool down
“That would provide a barrier, espe- the core body temperature.”
cially if it’s completely opaque,” says
Leung. A 2020 experiment at Japan’s Heatstroke is a medical emer-
Daido Institute of Technology showed gency. It can be fatal or cause
that the temperature under a parasol permanent organ damage. If the
can be cooler by several degrees. person isn’t improving or their
symptoms worsen, call 911.
3. Keep Your Home Cool
rd.ca 51
A whopping 96 per cent of the people
who died from B.C.’s 2021 heat dome
became overheated in a residential
setting. Although air conditioning is
the best way to keep our homes at a

reader’s digest

HOW OUR BODIES COPE

BRAIN: The hypothalamus acts like a ther-
mostat and controls the body’s response
to heat by sending signals to the circula-
tory system, glands and other areas.
Extreme Heat Risk: Disabilities that affect
the brain and nervous system, like Parkin-
son’s disease or spinal cord injuries, can
prevent the hypothalamus from regulat-
ing body temperature.

HEART AND BLOODSTREAM: Blood
vessels dilate, and the heart pumps
blood closer to the skin to release heat.
Extreme Heat Risk: Higher demand on
the cardiovascular system can increase
risk for people with heart conditions.

LUNGS: Exhaling is another way
the body releases excess heat.
Extreme Heat Risk: Hot weather worsens
air pollution, aggravating symptoms for
people with issues like asthma or chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease.

KIDNEYS: When sweating causes fluid
levels to drop, the kidneys try to conserve
more water by concentrating urine.
Extreme Heat Risk: When the body is very
dehydrated, the resulting low blood pres-
sure and highly concentrated urine com-
pounds can damage these sensitive organs.

SKIN: Some of your body heat is used to
evaporate sweat from the skin’s surface,
which cools the body down.
Extreme Heat Risk: In humid weather,
sweat won’t evaporate as efficiently because
there’s already so much moisture in the air.

52 june 2022

comfortable temperature, almost 40 need three. Your requirements during
per cent of Canadian homes didn’t have an extreme heat event will be higher.
even a window unit in 2019, let alone
a central-air system. “You also need to drink more fre-
quently than you normally would,”
Henderson points out that our houses Chang says. “You can’t just guzzle water
and apartment buildings are designed in the morning and decide you’re good
to hold on to heat. “We have Canadian to go.” Otherwise, your body won’t be
winters, so we insulate our homes and able to maintain the constant level of
use double-glazed windows,” she says. hydration it needs to function properly.
“Once we warm up a place, it stays
warm.” During an unrelenting hot spell, Stop and drink water even if you’re
the indoor temperature can rise with not feeling thirsty yet. “That sense of
each passing day. Turning on your oven thirst in your mouth is a late sign and
or another appliance that gives off heat means you’re already dehydrated,” says
will worsen it. Dr. Finola Hackett, a family physician
working in Alberta and Yukon.
A crucial way to keep your home
from heating up is to stop the sun from Another clue you’re not drinking
shining directly on the windows. Close enough: your urine is darker and you
the curtains during the day, or install aren’t going to the bathroom as often,
awnings or plant shrubs that block the because your kidneys are working hard
windows. You can buy shade screens for to concentrate what fluid is available
your patio that can be rolled down to in your body. Subtler signs of dehydra-
keep the sun from hitting the glass doors. tion, such as trouble concentrating
on your work or feeling tired, might go
If you use an air conditioner, set it under your radar.
to between 22 and 25 C. At night,
when it’s cooler outside, shut off the Don’t rely on beer or coffee to shore
unit and open your windows instead. up your fluid levels. “They can both be
Use exhaust fans when you shower, to dehydrating over time. Water’s best,”
get rid of humidity, and when you cook, says Chang. “Athletes training in hot
to get rid of heat. These tips will help weather might consume drinks with
save you money and use less energy. electrolytes, but the general public
doesn’t need them.”

4. Stay Hydrated 5. Take Breaks
from the Heat
Water is vital to keeping your body cool,
and in hot weather you’ll need more of Cooling off isn’t an instant process,
it because you’re sweating. On a regu- even in an air-conditioned environ-
lar day, most healthy adult women ment. Researchers at the University of
need about two litres of water, and men Ottawa recently developed the world’s

rd.ca 53

HOT TEMPERATURE only chamber that measures body
NO-NOS temperature all the way to the core,
and they have reported that it can take
Things to avoid doing during hours for the heat stored in our bodies
sweltering weather to dissipate completely. If you spend
your day outdoors, a 10-minute break
DON’T knock back too much water in the shade may not be enough.
too quickly. Drinking more than Once you step back into the sun, you’ll
1.4 litres an hour—about three quickly warm up again.
regular bottles of spring water—
can dilute your sodium levels and Try to stay out of the heat for several
lead to confusion and seizures. hours a day. During hot weather, many
municipalities open up cooling cen-
DON’T underdress in order to cool tres—indoor, air-conditioned public
off. Although it may seem coun- spaces. You can also seek out a library,
terintuitive, cover up. “Loose-fit- community centre or mall.
ting pants and long-sleeved shirts
can have a cooling effect, versus “Even outdoors, if you’re in the shade,
your skin being directly under the at least you’ll get that air movement,”
sun,” says Dr. Finola Hackett. says Chang. You will also feel cooler
because the sun’s radiation that your
DON’T use fans if the air in the skin would normally absorb is blocked.
room is hot and the windows are Patio umbrellas containing UV-blocking
closed. A fan will blow the suffo- properties may be especially effective at
cating air around, but it won’t producing comfortable-feeling shade.
lower the temperature. In fact,
the fan’s running motor might A park or wooded area also offers
make a room even hotter. abundant shade, as well as a reprieve
from pavement and asphalt. These sur-
DON’T respond to a 30-degree faces tend to absorb the sun’s heat and
forecast in May the exact same create what’s known as an urban “heat
way you would in August. “If it’s island,” raising the air temperature by
an unusually hot day early in the as much as 4 C.
season, the risk of heat exhaus-
tion is up, because your body 6. Beat the Heat at Night
hasn’t acclimatized after winter,”
says Dr. Heejune Chang. Cooling yourself for a good night’s sleep
is critical, says Hackett. “It’s our body’s
54 june 2022 chance to recuperate and do repairs.”
Although it’s not fully understood why,
quality sleep at night helps us cope
better with hot days.

reader’s digest

PROTECT YOUR PETS! their absorption of heat from the air.
■ Keep pets with medical conditions,
Humans aren’t the only ones who suf- or those who are older or over-
fer in hot temperatures. Cats, dogs weight, out of the heat as much as
and other pets can get heatstroke, you can.
too. Many safety guidelines for peo- ■ No air conditioning? You can buy
ple—limit outdoor time, drink water, cooling products, like vests and mats,
seek shade—are applicable to pets, that, after being pre-soaked, slowly
as well. Here are some more tips: release evaporated water to help
■ Never leave a pet unattended in a your pet chill indoors.
car, where temperatures can climb ■ Use a spray bottle to give your pet
quickly. Be mindful of the heat in
your home, too, if they’re bird a gentle misting.
going to be on their own. ■ Clean the cages of smaller
■ Brush your cat or dog’s creatures often, and
coat to promote better throw away untouched
air circulation, but food, so bacteria
don’t shave them. doesn’t have a chance
Their fur slows down to grow in the heat.

Unfortunately, homes that heat up a cross-breeze in your home. Open a
during the day don’t necessarily normal- window at each end of the house to
ize at night, even if the temperature falls keep air moving through. A fan placed
outside. After B.C.’s extreme weather at each opening will help pull the out-
last year, Henderson and her research door air in and push the indoor air out.
team analyzed temperature readings
collected by Ecobee, a Canadian maker A cool shower or bath, or a damp
of smart thermostats. Many fatalities towel around your neck, may offer some
had occurred overnight, and Hender- relief at night. You can also buy special
son discovered that the temperature in “cooling pillows,” which are designed to
these homes peaked four hours after improve air flow and wick away sweat.
the peak outdoors. “At 9:00 or 10:00
p.m., that’s when it was hottest in the Seek out the coolest part of your
home,” she says. “So trying to reduce home for sleeping, like a basement if
that heat exposure at night is probably you have one. Or you can do what
more useful than during the day.” Henderson did and snooze on the bal-
cony or in a backyard tent. “It may still
In the early evening, as soon as it be 23 degrees outside, but that may be
gets cooler outside than inside, create a heck of a lot cooler than inside your
house,” she says.

rd.ca 55

reader’s digest

AS KIDS SEE IT

“The paper boy is here to collect.”

You can spend five We were having a small are you going to get MIKE SHIELL
minutes trying to fish supper of soup and the bees?”
the eggshell out of the buns. Halfway through
pancake batter, or, and the meal, I thought out — SANDRA KNOPF,
hear me out, you can loud, “I should have
leave it and tell your baked a bumbleberry Armstrong, B.C.
kids it’s good luck to pie for dessert.” Our
get the pancake with three-year-old looked Let your kid take pic-
the eggshell. astonished and said tures with your phone
with disbelief, “Where so you can have 187
— @REALLIFEMOMMY3 photos of his forehead.

— @LIFETHREWLEMONS

56 june 2022

The only thing I know My young son, asking to use my tweezers:
about toddlers is that if “Mom, can I borrow your makeup pliers?”
you give them a banana
to eat, you’d better be — KAREN RICHARDSON, Burlington, Ont.
ready to also eat
a banana. Have kids so you can him so quickly, he has
get weird compliments a promising career as a
— @MOMMAJESSIEC like, “You look nice in narcotics dog.
that dress Mom, like a
I should have known I Saturday raisin.” — @LIFEPITTS
was in for a rough after-
noon when my child — @WORDESSE My three-year-old grand-
described her drink as son was admiring his
“too soggy.” “Mommy, come here, cousins’ new bunk beds.
you’re not going to like He was about to climb
— @EVANGELINE_DAWN it!” is just one of the into the lower bunk to
many fun ways my four- try it out when his mom
Our six-year-old had year-old likes to start cautioned him about
just completed several a conversation. being extra careful not to
months of French les- hit his head. He said, “I
sons. We asked him to — @BEKINDOFWITTY know! That’s why they’re
say something in the called bonk beds.”
language. As the whole “I can’t fall asleep. I
family eagerly awaited think it’s because I’m — VAL BAYER,
his answer, he sat up talking,” said my five-
straight in his chair, year-old at 3 a.m. North Vancouver, B.C.
cleared his throat and
said, “French toast.” — @SNARKYMOMMY78 Our five-year-old hid
pieces from the puzzle
— BARTHELEMY PETRO, My daughter yelled, “I she was doing with her
AM THE BOSS OF MY sister so she could be the
Portland, Ont. BODY” when I told her one to put the final piece
to eat her apple, so our in. Never have I been so
My seven-year-old: talks about consent are sure that we are related.
Mom, do you want to going well.
hear the longest dream — @UNDERWATERDAD
I had? — @OYVEYLADY
Me: Why don’t you Send us your original
write it down so I can My four-year-old sniffs jokes! You could earn $50
really absorb it. But out medicine in the and be featured in the
first, tell your dad. popsicles, milkshakes magazine. See page 7 or
and pudding we give rd.ca/joke for details.
— @LMEMEIT

rd.ca 57

DRAMA IN REAL LIFE

WHEN THE
U.S. ABANDONED
AFGHANISTAN TO
THE TALIBAN, I HAD
A CHOICE: LEAVE MY
LIFE BEHIND OR DIE

BY Fatema Hosseini
WITH Kim Hjelmgaard AND

Kelley Benham French

FROM USA TODAY

August 15, 2021

fatema hosseini: It seems impossible that civ-
ilization can be knocked back a few decades
in an afternoon, that life as you know it can
collapse before lunch, but it did.

That Sunday morning began like most any
other day. I picked up warm naan from the
bakery and headed to the office in my usual
jeans, dress, scarf and sneakers. The streets

58 june 2022

reader’s digest

The U.S. pullout
led to chaos at the

Kabul airport.

reader’s digest

were crowded. Hundreds of vendors She started shouting. “You’re not lis- (PREVIOUS SPREAD) CENTCOM-BALKIS PRESS/ABACAPRESS.COM/CANADIAN PRESS; (THIS PAGE) COURTESY FATEMA HOSSEINI
spilled into the road hawking vegeta- tening to me!”
bles and fruits over loudspeakers:
“Apple! Melon! Mango!” I wove through What I didn’t know then was that the
their carts among women in colour- Taliban had already breached the pres-
ful dresses. Kabul must be one of the idential palace.
loudest cities on earth.
Early in the afternoon, I decided to
I passed my favourite restaurant, Taj go home, but my colleague said I
Begum, always brimming with hookah couldn’t walk home without a male
mist and laughter. It is named for an escort. That’s when I knew it was real.
Afghan warrior princess and owned by
the fiercest woman in Kabul. She drives I took a cab most of the way. The
through the streets shouting at the other shops, bustling just that morning,
drivers, nearly all of them men. were closed and the streets nearly
empty. At Taj Begum, the owner had
In the office of the Etilaat-e-Roz locked the door and smashed all the
news agency where I work, phones hookahs, because the Taliban didn’t
were ringing as the Taliban advanced approve of them. A truck loaded with
toward Kabul, on the cusp of taking Taliban flew by.
over the government.
As I entered my apartment, I real-
My mother called me, crying. “Put ized that all the evidence the Taliban
on your long dress. The Taliban are would need of my infidel status was
everywhere.” She, along with my father, just inside the front door. I’d covered
brother, and baby sister, were staying in the wall with photos of my friends and
my small apartment after the Taliban me doing normal things: eating ice
had ransacked their home in Herat. She
was now scared for me. I should have Fatema Hosseini
been, too. I was 27, a bad Muslim, as far and her mother
as the Taliban might be concerned: an
educated single woman who asked too
many questions and rarely wore a hijab.
I was a working journalist, a member of
the oppressed Shi’a Hazara ethnic group,
daughter of an Afghan national soldier.
To a Taliban fighter heady with new
power, silencing my voice would be a
golden step on the stairway to paradise.

“Mom, it’s OK. My dress is not
that short!”

60 june 2022

cream, laughing, wearing silly glasses. anyone I could think of with connections
My hair spills out around my face. My to Afghanistan. Contacts in the U.S. mil-
lipstick is a happy shade of cherry. itary. Diplomats, aid workers and jour-
nalists, including USA Today editors,
The Taliban don’t want to see my face. who started calling contacts as well.
They don’t want to see me with friends
from the Asian University for Women Then Lt. Alex Cornell du Houx, a
in Bangladesh. My education and my 38-year-old U.S. Navy Reserve public
work are threatening to their ideology. affairs officer responded to me.
A wisp of hair showing around my face
is an affront to God. “Hi Alex, asking for a real favour here,”
I had texted.
I snatched the photos and dropped
them into a bucket. I lit a match. The “Absolutely,” he replied, adding, “It’s
room filled with smoke. going to be tough.” The airport was
already crowded and spinning out of
kim hjelmgaard: I’m a London-based control. He promised nothing, but it
international correspondent for USA felt like progress.
Today. Fatema, in addition to her work
at Etilaat-e-Roz, was a freelance reporter I’d met Alex two years earlier aboard
for USA Today. Her hashtags on Twit- a U.S. Navy destroyer patrolling the Per-
ter alone were enough to get her killed: sian Gulf. He had served twice in the
#TalibanGotoHell, #TalibanTerrorists, Maine House of Representatives and
#TalibanNeverChange. had a civilian job addressing climate
change. Within a few hours, he had an
I contacted Fatema around noon update. “An interesting option from a
London time that Sunday. “I hope you friend in the Ukraine gov. They have
are OK,” I wrote in a WhatsApp mes- a flight with extra seats,” he messaged.
sage. “Tell me how I can help.” I wrote back thanking him, thinking,
“We’re almost there.” Fatema would go
She emailed me her passport informa- to the airport, the Ukrainians would get
tion, national ID card and a visa applica- her through the gate, she’d get on the
tion she’d texted to the U.S. State Depart- plane, and we’d work out later how to
ment. The only secure way out of Kabul get her to the U.S.
was the Hamid Karzai International
Airport. Land routes out of Afghani- August 17th
stan were clogged and dangerous.
fatema: On Tuesday, I got a message
I had one more question. “Would you from Ukraine’s special forces to head
be prepared to go without your family?” to the airport, but once near, I was
called off. Go home and wait for word,
She wrote back. “I think so.” they told me.
The next day, Monday, August 16, I
rose early and started messaging

rd.ca 61

reader’s digest

That night, I ran into a married police- I’d kept a memory notebook since
woman who lived in my building. 2009. Inside were my drawings and
poems in Farsi and English. My friends
“What is your plan?” she asked me. signed it each year. “I have a feeling you
I shrugged, unsure how much to will be someone powerful someday,”
reveal. “Well, you’d better make one,” one friend wrote in 2014.
she said, “because the Taliban have
already started forcing young girls and I gave it to my mom. “I don’t have the
widows to marry them. They will find heart to burn it,” I said. “Maybe you can.”
you and marry you off.”
“I will never become a Taliban wife,” kim: Alex Cornell du Houx was work-
I replied. “I would rather die.” ing with a friend, Iryna Andrukh, 33, a
colonel in Ukraine’s military, to get
August 18th Fatema on a Ukrainian air force jet to
Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Alex sent
fatema: The next morning, I found my instructions to Fatema by WhatsApp.
mom sitting on the floor of my apart-
ment cutting up documents that told the Ivan [not his real name], a Ukrainian
story of our family’s achievements. My special forces soldier, was assigned to
dad’s ID cards, photos in his army uni- find Fatema at the airport and get her
form. My sister’s certificates for courses through the gate.
in computers. My brother’s certificates
from English classes. If they were written August 20th
in English, they identified us as people
who might have worked with foreigners. fatema: On Thursday, my mother woke
me at 4 a.m. She sewed a pouch into my
Taliban soldiers patrolling Kabul’s
streets after the takeover scarf and placed my university
diploma into it. It was the one
certificate she couldn’t bear to AP PHOTO/RAHMAT GUL/CANADIAN PRESS
cut up. When I was younger,
she’d taken out loans to send me
to the top high school in Afghan-
istan. My relatives and neigh-
bours would say, “She’s just a
girl. Investing at this level will be
useless to her.” Instead I became
a journalist investigating corrup-
tion and giving voice to women.

I tied the scarf across my back.
She sewed another scarf into a

62 june 2022

belt that held my passport and a hard me pass!” I shouted in Farsi.
drive with some of my work. Two militants controlled the line.

I had no idea if I would see my fam- One of them angrily shoved me back,
ily again. I tried not to cry. cursing me. For some reason, I couldn’t
stop staring at his crazy, tired eyes
My brother and brother-in-law came lined with dark kohl, which made
with me, because I needed a male escort him furious.
now any time I left the house. Traffic
grew intense as we neared the air- “You’re shameless!” he shouted.
port. The area was swarming with “Look down if you talk to me!” He
Taliban fighters searching cars and shoved me with the butt of his rifle.
turning people away. He raised his arm to whip me, but his
colleague stopped him. The colleague
kim: Fatema’s messages were distress- looked at me and said, “This is your
ing. At each of the half-dozen airport only chance.”
entrances, the Taliban had erected
checkpoints that travellers had to pass A TEAR-GAS CANISTER
before they could reach barricades con- LANDED IN FRONT
trolled by U.S. and NATO forces. The OF ME AND PEOPLE
Taliban appeared to have lists of peo- STARTED RUNNING
ple they did not want to let leave Afghan- AND PUSHING.
istan. Once at the airport, Fatema
would have to walk past two gates until I ran through the checkpoint, leaving
she’d reach the East Gate, where we them arguing. I made it to the second
hoped the Ukrainians would be look- checkpoint, where NATO troops were
ing for her. standing on the wall. A Taliban militant
was speaking, but I didn’t understand
fatema: I got out of the taxi and right his language. I pushed forward and
away lost my brother, who had my suit- saw him raise his whip. I dodged it. I
case, in the crowd. A militant chased couldn’t move, so I just sat, right in
him, and he was gone. My brother-in- front of the soldier.
law had gone back home.
“Can you let me pass?” I asked in Farsi.
When I reached the first checkpoint, “Where do you want to go?”
I faced a huge crowd—men lined up on “The other side. My brother is there,”
one side, women on the other—and I lied. “I want to take him back home.” I
fought my way through. At the front, must have looked so pale and thirsty.
two militants were lashing people with
whips and firing bullets into the air.

“My brother! My brother is there, let

rd.ca 63

reader’s digest

stopped, and the driver pointed

out the airport’s North Gate, 10

minutes away by foot. It was

past 1 p.m., and I was still on

the wrong side of a Tali-

ban checkpoint.

At the checkpoint, people were

sitting because the Taliban had

warned that if anyone stood

they would be shot. Men and

Afghans waiting women were crowded together.
to cross a checkpoint I was duckwalking to stay low. I
into the Kabul airport had to keep moving forward.

Then a tear-gas canister

My voice was stuck in my dry throat. landed in front of me. People started

“Just let me go.” running and pushing. With tears

streaming from my eyes, I stood and

alex cornell du houx had told me to shouted, “I want to get out!”

stay by the East Gate so Ivan could find A Talib inches away emptied his gun

me. I saw people who had been wait- next to my ear. I went deaf. A woman

ing night after night with no food or beside me was hit by bullets. The Talib

water. They wore days of dust on their pushed me hard, and I stumbled out

faces. Mothers were crying. of the crowd. Everything went black.

My phone rang and Ivan said, “Go I woke up by the roadside soon after.

to North Gate.” He hung up before I Someone was giving me water. “It’s

could answer. salty,” he said. I drank it all.

I felt hopeless. I had been told the I’d had it. I texted Kim Hjelmgaard to AP PHOTO/WALI SABAWOON/CANADIAN PRESS

plane would leave at 1 p.m., and it was tell him that it was over, and I was going

past 12:30. home: “I can’t. I will die. They open fire.

“Where is the North Gate?” I kept And throw tear gas.”

asking people. Then Alex reached out. “Pls pause

A man told me to follow the canal and think of something you love.”

around the far edge of the airport, So I did. Dancing in my bedroom to

then get a taxi to the North Gate, which Bollywood songs and singing so loud I

was a half hour away. I blindly did forget myself. My baby sister Mobina’s

what he said. laugh. My favourite passage from

I reached a crowded area and climbed Azadi, a book about India (the title

into a taxi. After 20 minutes, the car means “freedom”): “What we need are

64 june 2022

people who … are prepared to put August 22nd
themselves in danger. Who are pre-
pared to tell the truth. Brave journal- fatema: Ukraine’s air force plane stayed
ists can do that, and they have … We in Kabul two more days as the special
have work to do. And a world to win.” forces tried to rescue more people.
Finally, at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, August
I could try to go home but had nothing 22, I landed in Kyiv.
to go back to. The Taliban would beat
me or kill me or own me. I stayed. After me, Alex Cornell du Houx evac-
uated 500 more people from Kabul,
my phone rang. It was Ivan, directing among them my parents, my brother,
me to meet up with a man nearby who and my sister.
he said would help me. After a few
minutes of searching, I found him. He After my family was safe in Ukraine,
took me to a place where many Ukrain- my mom and I talked about the things
ian families were waiting to get through we had left behind. “My memory note-
the gate. I saw the Ukrainian flag rise book,” I said sadly, remembering that
from the other side. I’d asked her to burn it.

As we approached a wire fence, a “I brought that,” she said. She for-
Taliban soldier tried to push me back. got my brother’s underwear, but she
I looked at him directly, a man about saved my purest memories, the ones
my age. The words poured out before I where I found my voice.
could stop them. “God, you are so vio-
lent. You don’t need to beat people up. On September 11, I flew to Dulles
You don’t need to kill them. These are International Airport outside Washing-
our people.” ton, D.C., the very airport where,
exactly 20 years earlier, a jet took off
He shoved me. But all my fear was loaded with passengers, which terror-
gone. “Look at those troops on the other ists hijacked to fly into buildings.
side,” I told him. “They are waiting for
me and watching us now. If you beat me Today, I continue to write about
up, they will come after you.” Afghanistan and the Taliban for a USA
Today affiliate, Newsquest. Meanwhile,
He let me closer to the fence, where I followers of Osama bin Laden and oth-
stood as tall as I could, lifted my hands ers are still in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
to the sky, and screamed, “Ivan! Ivan! organizing and recruiting. Women are
It’s Fatema! It’s Fatema!” cowering under black cloth. We still
have a world to win, and some part of
He was standing right in front of me that fight belongs to me.
on the other side of the fence, and sent
one of his troops to get me. I stepped FATEMA HOSSEINI AND KIM HJELMGAARD WITH KELLEY
over people waiting at the gate. BENHAM FRENCH (SEPTEMBER 30, 2021) COPYRIGHT
© 2021 BY USA TODAY NETWORK

rd.ca 65

reader’s digest

HEART

Fly-fishing
with my
daughters
became a
lesson in the
wonders of
nature

Throw It
Forward

BY Mark Hume

FROM READING THE
WATER : FLY FISHING,
FATHERHOOD AND
FINDING STRENGTH
IN NATURE

rd.ca 67

reader’s digest

WHEN MY DAUGHTERS were growing Tentatively she laid her hand down and PREVIOUS PAGES: (LAKE) SHUTTERSTOCK/FEEL4NATURE; (FLY) SHUTTERSTOCK/PHOTOGRAPHYFIRM
up, my partner, Maggie, and I took waited while it clambered onto her fin-
them camping every summer. It was gers. With its wings gingerly unfolding,
the late 1990s, and we’d pitch our tent its ferocious mandible gasping harm-
on British Columbia’s lakeshores and lessly, it gently clasped her skin with
beside rivers, where I introduced them tiny, clinging feet. She held it in front of
to one of the great passions in my life, her face, turning it in the light. Emma
fly-fishing. found one, too, and it sparkled blue.

Before I taught Emma and Claire All of this was as important as the
how to cast, I showed them how to lie fishing, which at first the girls did just
on a dock and peer through the cracks by holding the rod while letting the fly
to see trout swimming below. I helped troll slowly behind the boat. And in
them turn over rocks on the lakeshore fact, later, they chose dragonfly nymph
to find larvae of caddisflies, wandering fly patterns from my fly box and we
aquatic insects that carry on their slowly fished over weedbeds, the girls
backs intricate homes made of tiny alert for a strike because they knew the
sticks or stones. I taught the girls that fish and the insects were interwoven
adult caddisflies look like small moths in the water.
and that when they skitter over the sur-
face to lay their eggs, trout chase them, One day, the three of us stopped
striking with abandon. This changed fishing on a lake when the girls spotted
the way they looked at lakes. a gosling—a fuzzy, recently hatched
Canada goose—flopping on a grassy
One time, when Emma was about point nearby.
eight and Claire just four, I showed
them dragonfly nymphs clambering “It’s in trouble,” said Claire.
up the stems of bulrushes to shed their We went ashore and saw that it was
shells. “When you see dragonflies tangled in fishing line that a careless
zooming about over the lake, you know angler had discarded. I threw my
there will be nymphs underwater jacket over the struggling bird
nearby,” I said, referring to the aquatic, and held it while the girls, tender and
larval stage of the insects. “Trout love determined, unwound the monofila-
to feed on them.” I took a newly ment from its wings and legs. When
emerged adult dragonfly off a bulrush they released the gosling it ran across
and brought it into the canoe. the water, splashing its small, downy
wings to gain traction, racing to rejoin
“They look fierce, but they won’t bite the flock waiting just offshore in a ner-
if you don’t hold them roughly,” I said vous gaggle.
as Claire watched the insect resting on The adult geese craned their long
the gunwale, testing its new wings. necks and called urgently as the gosling

68 june 2022

dashed toward them. Emma and At first, Emma watched me demon-
Claire cheered. Then the girls went strate the movement on the grass. In
along the shore, picking up all the bits place of a fly, I tied a small piece of
of lost fishing line they could find so it white cloth on the end of the line so
couldn’t trap any more birds. she couldn’t hook herself.

LATER THAT SAME year, I decided “Imagine you are standing with your
Emma was big enough to wield a nine- back to a barn door,” I told her, repeat-
foot fly rod, and so it was time for her ing a lesson I’d read in a book when I
to take the next step and learn how to was learning the technique. “Drive
cast. Of all the ways to cast a line, the your rod up on the back cast, but don’t
fly-fishing cast is the most compli- let it hit the barn door. Turn your head
cated, obfuscating and elegant. The to watch the line unfold, and the
mechanics of a functional cast are sim- moment it straightens out behind you,
ple enough, but a good one takes exact throw it forward.”
timing, and getting it right takes prac-
tice. Done well, a cast is effortless, She watched me cast, thought about
meditative; the line is propelled across it for a moment, then began lifting the
the sky and the weightless fly, alive rod and throwing the line. She looked
with movement and light, falls like a back, to keep the rod tip from hitting
single drop of rain. Done poorly, a cast the barn door.
ends in a jumble of line and a frustrat-
ing tangle. I tossed Emma’s orange baseball hat
out on the grass and told her to try to hit
it. The casting motion became auto-
matic as she concentrated on the target,

Mark Hume
with Claire

(left) and
Emma in

2020

PHOTO BY M. MUNRO

rd.ca 69

reader’s digest

and soon the little white tag was dart- encounter. Sometimes just holding a
ing back and forth and drifting down rod can bring those memories alive
like a mayfly to land near the cap. and make you want to go fishing.

“If you can cast like that with this A FEW YEARS later, I taught Claire to fly
heavy, old fibreglass rod of mine, you fish in the same way. Then one summer
will be deadly when you get a new, day I took them both to the Skagit River,
light rod,” I said. a few hours out of Vancouver. There, for
the first time, I let them cast with a trea-
After she had mastered the cast with sured bamboo rod that had been made
the antiquated Hardy rod I’d had since by an old friend, Peter, and given to me
I was a teenager, I trusted her with my as a birthday present by Maggie.
much lighter, and expensive, Sage,
made of graphite. That rod was so light in their hands
and it cast so beautifully. Walking back
Several weeks after that first lesson, to the truck at the end of the day,
Emma broke into a smile when she Emma carried the graphite rod she’d
cast with the new rod, which uncoiled learned to use on Tunkwa Lake, and
with a snap, accelerating the line in a Claire carried the tiny bamboo rod,
way she hadn’t imagined. which balanced so perfectly in her
small hands. I had them walk in front,
“Oh, that casts nice!” she said, stand- in case a cougar came from behind,
ing in the boat and shooting the line and as we walked the girls sang songs,
over the water. We were on Tunkwa whistled and shouted to anything that
Lake, near Kamloops, B.C, with trout might be on the trail ahead.
swirling on the surface as they chased
caddisflies. Emma aimed her casts “Hey, bear!” they called every now
toward the ripples on the surface, and and then.
after an hour of trying, finally con-
nected with a rainbow trout that They only caught a few fish that day,
jumped in the air with her fly in its but that was enough, and they were
mouth. She let out a whoop, and I knew passing through the forest filled with
then that I would give her that rod one joy as the voice of the river nearby
day, when the time was right. I think sang with them. I realized then that
she knew that, too. one of the greatest things fly-fishing
had given me was a deep, quiet con-
A gifted rod is a wonderful thing to nection with my daughters through a
have, because a fly rod is as much a shared love of nature.
talisman as it is a tool. When you fish
with it, you fish with the love of who- EXCERPTED FROM READING THE WATER: FLY FISHING,
ever gave it to you. It becomes infused FATHERHOOD, AND FINDING STRENGTH IN NATURE, BY MARK
with memories of the waters you fish HUME. COPYRIGHT © 2022, MARK HUME. PUBLISHED BY
and the big trout and salmon you GREYSTONE BOOKS. REPRODUCED BY ARRANGEMENT
WITH THE PUBLISHER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

70 june 2022

BLAST FROM THE PAST ) In 1853, the Venus de
Milo, an ancient Greek
statue, was put on trial
for nudity in Mannheim,
Germany.
) A butt was a medieval
unit of measure for
wine. (A buttload of
wine is about 475 litres.)
) One of history’s earli-
est precisely dated
events is October 22,
2137 BCE. On this day,
two royal astronomers
in China got drunk
instead of observing a
total solar eclipse.

“The bad news is we have to fight the lions, Uncool Britannia
the good news is I’m a lion whisperer.” A long time ago, every-
one in Britain got in a
SUSAN CAMILLERI KONAR Canadians must be Since 2011, the Twitter big old boat, set sail and
angry at their founders. I account “Weird His- robbed everyone in the
mean, they came to the tory,” managed by world. Then we took
Americas when the land Canadian aerospace our swag back to Old
was wide open, looked engineer Andrew Rader, Blighty, and we hid it—
around and said, “We’ll has been sharing some this is the clever part—
take the frozen part.” of history’s funniest in a museum, the last
facts. Here are some of place anyone looks.
— JON STEWART our favourites:
) The oldest pair of — JAMES ANCASTER,
Royal Remorse socks from ancient
Q: How did Louis XIV Egypt—dating from comedian
feel after completing 300 to 500 CE—were
the Palace of Versailles? designed to be worn Send us your original
A: Baroque. with sandals. jokes! You could earn $50
and be featured in the
— WEARETEACHERS.COM magazine. See page 7 or
rd.ca/joke for details.

rd.ca 71

HEALTH

CCNRSPGPYYHNCOHDINEKSIMOODNKRIPPMOHCEHNGKEIRIIESIPPRMGRNYPSNAIOADEERGYKCPPIIDDKPNDHYNDGADAIMRIPIOHNSIIIPNSSGDDENNPDIHcMYIRPNEKKKoGANPAMGEmIIDIMAS’HGIYIvIINNDpPAPAARNeYIPKMDIupNEYSfHGPPNEIDoleIMGsRRPHNuAoKYPiIICvAHEpMnNNEEIeMPIAIEDYldINeHAOMPNEdCCNRGGIwAYAwiYHNRPDsEAROOaEMYhoDGyMHIAErIIoAGDHRDCsNdNERRNHsYCetEDEaYoAROErDDGIyA.iAOEllMNAHCBWliEAIAvuMYHRRssAeLDSDStICROFhRErhDiYADNRMsEawEaRaYOotKDKDiOEAtMoWuRiCnAHtRbIITYlhShEMCbHdDAHPPoDyiRAOAtSDEEamtEtKgniAOWhCPPHntEDeKhCyRAgeRAYISRotRLtIIronPARoREIAoRONENysnOUKDDEbASPEvg-SPmDHeDAHsEeCrIGCGKCPRieRarlReIPclSRsCDeONEiIIsEOtaDSOAPK.NPiEIISrIDOvAAeCNKGNRNeIRIRPCKGStRN-PDRIDhOARDIDIPSOKMIMeMEPNGPDNEIARKPSIRSCNIRPSSGPYYYCNADIIKKISEMRODKINKPPNONMHHGHKICIRIEIPIPSIPRGNYPPSNIGRMEEOEECYIKPPPIDPNKPHNDCGAAIAMOII

72 june 2022

reader’s digest

reader’s digest

WITH MY BRACES and Sun In bleached Most people with clinical OCD have
bangs, I may have looked like every both obsessions and compulsions, but
other teenager at my 1980s Edmon- the compulsions—the counting, the
ton junior high, but I knew something checking and so on—are typically
about me was different. I was 13 when the focus when the condition appears
I first noticed myself acting in ways in entertainment or popular media.
that resembled obsessive-compulsive The obsessions—the unbidden
disorder (OCD), though I wouldn’t have thoughts driving the compulsions—
known to call it that at the time. are comparatively less discussed.
When I try to explain my OCD to peo-
It was the summer before ninth ple, they don’t understand the fears
grade, the era of coming-of-age movies and anxieties that drive these compul-
like St. Elmo’s Fire and The Breakfast sions or what the repeated actions are
Club. I would bet a Judd Nelson glossy meant to accomplish. I don’t check
eight-by-10 that I was the only girl in taps because I am really into ornate
my friend group who was both con- faucet design. I do it because it is the
fused and troubled by the need to only way to quiet my brain.
wake up several times a night to check
on the Teen Beat magazines on her I once heard OCD described, very
bedside table. I would lift each copy accurately, as a record skipping in your
up, inspect it to make sure it was in head. The checking routine I have before
perfect shape and replace it on the I leave my apartment can take any-
pile—which had to be in a certain cor- where from 30 minutes, on a very good
ner of my nightstand, right between day, to two hours, on a very bad one.
my Cabbage Patch Kids doll and Dr Repeatedly checking that the fridge
Pepper Lip Smacker. door is closed helps to calm all the
fears I have about what disasters could
Thirty-seven years later, my check- happen if the door were left open.
ing behaviour continues. Checking is a
common OCD ritual, right up there with My OCD makes me feel like a bad
counting, tapping, cleaning and hand- friend, a bad co-worker and a
washing. It’s also what people often, bad daughter. I feel like I am always
mistakenly, think all forms of OCD look apologizing for being late. I often
like. In Canada, OCD affects one to two cancel plans so I can avoid having to
per cent of the population. I am one of leave my house at all—the thought of
these Canadians. I lose hours of every going through my checking is too
day to various checking rituals—mak- exhausting to contemplate.
ing sure my bathtub tap isn’t dripping,
or my hair straightener is off, or my As a result, I isolate myself. I live in
apartment door is locked. fear of people seeing me repeat my
checking behaviours and laughing at

74 june 2022

COURTESY OF LISA WHITTINGTON-HILL me, which they have. I avoid relation- stamina. Retail giant Target even had an
ships because I can’t imagine some- “Obsessive Christmas Disorder” sweater,
one staying at my house for a night. for which it was later criticized. (If
“Just go to bed. I’ll be there in a couple Christmas isn’t your thing, I also recently
of hours, after I check the windows discovered “Obsessive Cookie Disorder”
repeatedly to make sure they are closed versions.) There is also something called
because I am worried that, if they aren’t, “Obsessive Castle Disorder,” which is
someone will somehow scale the side used to describe fans of the Nathan
of my building, climb three floors, cut Fillion crime drama Castle but, sadly,
the window screen and enter the bed- not people who enjoy actual castles.
room to kill us.”
Hannah Horvath’s OCD in season
Who’s in the mood for romance now? two of the HBO show Girls is the clos-
est thing I’ve seen to a realistic onscreen
PEOPLE WITH OCD are typically por- depiction. Show creator Lena Dunham
trayed in pop culture as Type A clean has talked openly about her own OCD
freaks, Sheldon Cooper-like nerds, pro- and anxiety, on which Hannah’s expe-
ductivity machines or eccentric weir- riences are based, and her desire to
dos. “I’m so OCD” has become a joke, end the stigma around it. Mercifully,
a shorthand for being clean or orga- Dunham didn’t make OCD Hannah’s
nized. The first time I noticed this, I defining personality trait—a relief for
was sitting in a work meeting
watching the woman across from The author
me remove pencils from a case at age 13
and arrange them neatly in a
row in front of her. “I’m so OCD,”
she joked when she caught me
watching her. No one else seemed
to notice what she was doing. I
asked her if she had OCD; she
confessed she didn’t. She told
me she just liked her pencils in
colour-coded order.

The actual suffering of people
with OCD has been replaced by
puns and punchlines. There are
“Obsessive CrossFit Disorder”
shirts—if only my suffering was
healthy and came with increased

reader’s digest

people like me who are sick of por- I began to think about checking the
trayals that do just that. (As viewers of microwave and kettle, at which point I
the show know, it’s being a total nar- switched to sandwiches and cereal.
cissist, not having OCD, that is Han-
nah’s defining trait.) I dread my morning checking rou-
tine so much that I stay in bed well past
In the show’s second season, we see my alarm, thinking of all the rituals
Hannah take eight potato chips out of that must be done. I avoid early morn-
a bag and line them up neatly in a row ing work meetings because I can’t even
on her kitchen table. She chews them imagine what time I would need to wake
eight times before swallowing. More up to make it somewhere for 9 a.m.
things are done in eights: she blinks Instead, I have a list of excuses ready,
eight times and opens and closes her from the specific “dentist” to the vague
front door eight times before entering “prior meeting,” but rarely are any of
her apartment. She repeats “You are them true. I am very blessed to have
fine and good” eight times to herself in incredibly understanding co-workers
front of a mirror. When the counting and a job, as a publisher for a small pro-
takes over, she is unable to do much gressive magazine, that does not require
else apart from give herself a bad hair- me to be at my desk from 9 to 5.
cut and eat a tub of Cool Whip. The
stress of a looming deadline and a I FEAR PEOPLE
recent breakup only make it worse. SEEING MY CHECKING

Hannah eventually visits a therapist BEHAVIOURS AND
and describes the exhausting nature of LAUGHING AT ME—
her rituals: how they keep her up until WHICH THEY HAVE.
the wee hours and how they make her
feel like a zombie in the morning. I was When my OCD is at its worst, I think
so relieved to finally recognize myself of all the things I do in a day as just
in an OCD portrayal that I burst into noise and static sandwiched between
tears and sat on my couch sobbing until checks—no matter how important or
well after the episode had ended. fulfilling they might be at other times.
Back in the office, which has a whole
I RECENTLY realized I went three months different checklist from my apart-
without using my stove, reasoning that, ment, I often work late, well past when
if I never turned it on, then I didn’t I should, just to avoid starting the rou-
have to worry about checking it. If food tine at the end of the day.
needed to be heated, I microwaved it
or used boiling water from a kettle, or
else I didn’t eat it at all. That lasted until

76 june 2022

When the voice in my head is not had no idea what I was supposed to do
telling me that I must check the stove with these. A musical interlude?
repeatedly to make sure it’s shut off or
my apartment will catch fire, the voice Long wait-lists for help need to end,
tells me I am imperfect—I am a failure but so do unrealistic pop culture por-
because I cannot silence it. So I push trayals. Accurate representations—ones
myself to work harder, to do better and that include both the obsessions and
to achieve more. I am so disappointed in the compulsions—increase our under-
myself that I channel that frustration into standing of the condition and, in turn,
a near impossible level of perfectionism. make people like me feel more com-
fortable talking about it without wor-
One thing I know I can’t control are rying about being mocked or reduced
the long, daunting wait-lists to get men- to a stereotype.
tal health treatment. Once a person
does access help and support, it can be Girls not only helped me develop
prohibitively expensive to maintain it. an appreciation for Adam Driver, it
I did save a lot of money eating sand- also gave me hope that depictions of
wiches and cereal for months, but even OCD in pop culture can become more
that wasn’t enough to afford help. A nuanced—that OCD will stop being
typical therapy session in Toronto, played for laughs in shows and in mov-
where I live, can cost up to $175 an ies, and that my inbox will no longer be
hour. Online resources can help only filled with listicles like “35 Meticulous
so much. And it can be difficult to nav- Cleaning Tricks for the OCD Person
igate and maintain a potential support Inside You.” More honest depictions of
network of friends and family. While I OCD not only make it easier for people
try to be open about my OCD, I have like me to talk about it openly, but also
shared my experiences in the past only help me feel less alone. There’s comfort
to be told that I should “get over it” or in knowing you’re not the only one with
“just stop,” as if it were that easy. I also an album of photos on your phone of
had a friend who used to regularly give your stove, in case you need to reas-
me CDs by artists with OCD, like Fiona sure yourself when you’re not at home
Apple and Joey Ramone. I assume this that you did, in fact, turn it off.
was meant to be a form of help, but I
© 2021, LISA WHITTINGTON-HILL. FROM “OCD IS NOT A
JOKE,” THE WALRUS (MARCH 1, 2021), THEWALRUS.CA

Shine On

Life is like that. Some days are diamonds and
some days are stones.

JANN ARDEN

rd.ca 77

reader’s digest

LIFE LESSON

Spill Everyone
has secrets.
Here’s why

Beansthe youshould
share yours.
THIRTY YEARS AGO, Allison McColeman hid a big
BY Leah Rumack secret from her family: a husband. McColeman, now
a 55-year-old Toronto mom, feared the marriage
illustration by would cause too much friction with her parents. She
tallulah fontaine knew her stepfather didn’t like her partner, and the
lovebirds had also only been dating for less than a
year, which she knew would worry her mother. Plus,
deep down she knew the marriage was a bad idea.

“I was embarrassed to tell them what I’d done,” she
says. So McColeman pretended the man who swept
her off her feet was simply her boyfriend. Only her

rd.ca 79

reader’s digest

closest friends knew the truth: McCo- with less-satisfying relationships,
leman had married the charming higher rates of anxiety and depression
Irishman in a small wedding at City and a generally diminished sense of
Hall, in part to sponsor his bid for well-being. Slepian’s research revealed
Canadian citizenship. She expected 38 categories of common secrets
they’d have a “real” wedding if the rela- spanning everything from big ones
tionship worked out. (infidelity, addiction) to relatively
minor ones (embarrassing habits,
Instead, the couple split after a year. hidden possessions).
It took another five years for McCole-
man to come clean to her mom (her All types of secrets have the poten-
stepfather had since died). Though tial to harm your mental health, but
her ex rarely came up in their conver- that harm doesn’t actually come
sation, McColeman couldn’t stop from the stress of concealment. Sle-
thinking about her secret. It was like pian says the biggest clue to how dam-
there was an elephant in the room that aging a secret is to you is how often
only she saw. “I felt like I’d been lying you involuntarily think about it—like
to her all that time,” she says. “After- you’re picking at a scab. It’s more
ward, I just felt lighter.” likely, says Slepian, that your mind will
get stuck thinking about a secret that
We all have personal secrets—even speaks to your intrinsic sense of self (a
if they’re not always as juicy as a hid- hidden marriage) than a more worka-
den marriage. While not everybody day secret (like the fact that I have a
needs to know everything about you, stash of chocolate that I hide from my
the benefits of sharing secrets can family). “The hard part about having
often be greater than whatever dam- a secret is not that we have to hide it,”
age you’re imagining you will incur he says, “but that we have to live with
from doing so. Here’s how to start spill- it alone in our thoughts.”
ing the beans.

Ask: Is It Harmful? Distinguish Shame From Guilt

The idea that secrets can be a psychic Chances are good that the secrets that
weight is what first intrigued psychol- will weigh on you the most are the
ogist Michael Slepian, an associate ones that make you feel bad about
professor at Columbia University and yourself. Part of the reason McCole-
author of The Secret Life of Secrets. His man didn’t tell her family about her ill-
research shows that 97 per cent of fated nuptials is that some part of her
people have a secret, and the average felt that her boyfriend was using her,
person is keeping 13 at any given and she was ashamed she got sucked
time. Keeping secrets has been linked in. Many of us can relate to shame

80 june 2022

keeping us mum. (My husband still trust works because people can bring a
likes to remind me about when I “for- unique perspective, emotional support
got” to tell him that I was visiting a or advice.” Even being heard by one
psychic because I knew he would think person can help you think about your
it was silly and a waste of money.) secret differently and move forward.

Slepian says that what’s more harm- But Confide in the Right Person
ful about shame—and what distin-
guishes it from guilt—is that when you Slepian says that people share 26 per
feel ashamed you think I’m a bad per- cent of the secrets they’re told, which
son, but when you feel guilt you think seems like a pretty big gamble to take
I’ve done a bad thing. The latter is actu- if you have a secret you really want
ally much healthier, he says, and tell- kept (mostly) under wraps. The key, he
ing your secret can help get you past says, is to choose someone who has a
the shame and to a place where you similar set of morals and values as you.
might reflect on your behaviour. And “People are more likely to pass on a
if you decide you acted wrongly, he secret if they’re morally outraged by
adds, you can then figure out how to the behaviour,” he says. “So don’t con-
act differently next time. “You can fide in someone who’s going to be scan-
learn from your mistakes.” dalized by your admission.”

Confide… You may not want to share, for exam-
ple, that you’ve developed a crush on a
The most obvious thing you can do to colleague (even though you’re already
lessen the weight of keeping a secret, in a relationship) with the friend who
says Slepian, is to share it with some- thinks that even looking at another per-
one. Telling it to another person—be it son is tantamount to cheating. It’s prob-
a friend, a therapist or even an online ably better to save that particular tidbit
acquaintance—can reduce the num- for the pal who knows a bit of innocent
ber of times your mind will obsessively daydreaming when she sees it and can
go back to it, sort of like opening an reassure you that you’re not a monster
emotional pressure valve. But Slepian who’s destined to break up your family.
points out it’s not simply the act of
confessing that helps get your mind Deep down, past all the worry and
out of the record groove—it’s the con- shame, McColeman knew that her mom
versation that follows. could handle the secret. “She was sur-
prised, but she wasn’t angry,” she says.
“Confessing something on the Inter- Mostly, she was happy McColeman
net anonymously can feel really great was okay, divorced and had a clean
for about 10 seconds,” he says. “But hav- slate. “And I felt much better because
ing a conversation with someone you I got it off my chest.”

rd.ca 81

HUMOUR

Hockey so, apparently it’s time for “the play-
Talk offs” to start up again. If this informa-
tion fills your soul with purpose and joy,
Seven phrases that great! But if it makes you feel a creeping
will help you sound sense of dread as you brace yourself
once again to be brutally excluded from
like an expert every known social interaction, please
voyage back in time several years with
BY Sophie Kohn me to one particular office I worked at.
Because I think I can help.
illustration by clayton hanmer
Every day around this time of year,
there’d be a pause in our team meet-
ing. The air in the room would shift.
And I’d instantly know, on a cellular
level, that the moment had arrived. I’d
glance anxiously at the clock. Our
lunch break was 6,000 hours away. Or
just one hour. Same thing. My senses
grew heightened. I was the arctic hare
of this office, listening, twitching,
awaiting the inevitable.

They’d all lean back in their chairs.
Laptop screens pushed down, various
body stretches executed. That was
enough work, apparently. And then,
sure enough:

“Okay what the hell was that game
last night?”

It’s impossible to overstate how pas-
sionate, and how constant, the hockey
discussion was in this job. Unfortu-
nately, I had nothing to contribute to
any hockey conversation at any time,
other than repeatedly shrieking “they
play it during the Olympics!!”

82 june 2022

reader’s digest

One day I was venting my frustra- 1. “They’re just not moving the
tions to a co-worker, Mike—a person puck.” You don’t need to know which
who knows a ton about hockey while two teams played; one of those teams
also possessing an acute awareness failed to move the puck adequately.
of how alienating the sports universe
is to an outsider. I’d expected him to 2. “He’s really changed the culture.”
sympathize and ask which esophagus- At the first mention of a last-namey-
destroying coffee kiosk in the base- sounding word—Tavares! Matthews!—
ment food court we should give our fire this into the discourse. Was the
hard-earned money to today. name mentioned disparagingly? With
awestruck reverence? There’s no time
Instead, he leapt into action like for irrelevant details; buddy’s changed
he’d been waiting his entire life to res- the culture either way.
cue someone trapped in an endless
Groundhog Day-esque hockey conver- 3. “There’s always next season.”
sation she was constitutionally unable Who can argue with this?
to participate in.
4. “I’m worried about their depth.”
“You need stock phrases,” he replied Apparently the defensive line (that’s
with alarming immediacy. “Completely right: I did actually pick up some real
empty, meaningless sentences you can terms, too) has to be a certain number
throw into any hockey conversation to of players deep to work optimally.
sound like you’re an authority.” Expressing fear about this not happen-
ing? Startling power move. Congratu-
He emailed me a list that day. And I lations, you’re now the undisputed
deployed them constantly, with a barely Lord of the Conversation.
contained and delirious joy. I’d shout
one with my feet up on the table, loudly 5. “That guy has a real feel for the
smacking my gum. Then I’d cut people game.” It means literally anything. It
off mid-sentence to shout another. I also somehow means literally nothing.
simply would not be stopped. I would
be stared at and laughed at by my whole 6. “Say what you want, but the
office, but I was too enamoured of my schedule hasn’t done them any
new identity—a fun, opinionated per- favours.” If in doubt, you can always
son I named “Hockey Janet!”—to care. feel confident asserting that the players’
punishing schedule is the reason for
In case you, gentle reader, ever find their failure to perform good hockey.
yourself in a similar predicament, I
share these sacred phrases with you 7. “They’ve gotta start letting the
now. Wield them with gleeful abandon game come to them.” What? I have no
and enjoy the sweet new feeling of— idea, but this instantly makes you sound
what’s this?—belonging. like a revered hockey commentator
with nine municipal parks named after
you and that’s all that matters here.

rd.ca 83

PROFILE

On the occasion of her Platinum Jubilee,
a reflection on Queen Elizabeth’s relationship to Canada

BY Gary Stephen Ross

84 june 2022

reader’s digest

In June 1959, the Queen
and Prince Philip stopped in
Toronto during a royal tour.

reader’s digest (PREVIOUS SPREAD) CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES, FONDS 1257, SERIES 1057, ITEM 4986; (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES, FONDS
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Gazing serenely from the wall
of the principal’s office as I
awaited my fate. The Unitarian
Church, where the minister strummed
his guitar. The drill hall where, in ill-
fitting cadet uniforms, we shouldered
wooden rifles and sang the national
anthem—a plea for God to save her.
Queen Elizabeth II was in every Cana-
dian community centre and govern-
ment office, the liquor stores and union
quarters of my father, the hockey are-
nas and pool halls of my youth.

And there she remains, neatly framed,
on the walls of my memory, wearing
the priceless tiara, necklace, bracelets,
earrings, and the striking blue sash
signalling her place atop the Most Ven-
erable Order of the Garter. In the pho-
tograph she is young and beautiful, so
it must have been taken soon after
she ascended the throne in 1952, at
age 25, following the sudden death of
her father, King George VI.

Royalty was still the stuff of fairy
tales back then, of princes and prin-
cesses, dukes and duchesses, curtsies
and posies, shy children performing
charming dances in exotic places, LIFE
magazine photo specials, breathless
live coverage of royal visits. For the sec-
ond half of the 20th century, with her
husband and third cousin, the Duke of
Edinburgh, by her side, Elizabeth per-
formed her ancestral role expertly and
indefatigably, a life of public service
that would exhaust most mortals. Her

86 june 2022

(Clockwise from
top left) October
1951, Elizabeth,
then a princess,
visits Toronto City
Hall, followed by
a CN train ride in
Peers, Alberta; July
1959, receiving a
bouquet of flowers
in Nanaimo, B.C.;
October 1957, Her
Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II being
greeted by Prime
Minister John G.
Diefenbaker at
Chateau Laurier,
and opening the
23rd Parliament

rd.ca 87

reader’s digest

(Clockwise) July, 1959, walking through the
grounds of Chateau Lake Louise, Alberta; July
1967, visiting Expo 67 in Montreal; July 1970,
meeting with then MP Jean Chrétien during
a royal tour of Canada; a souvenir portrait of
the royal family, taken in celebration of their
1959 Canadian tour

88 june 2022

(CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT) CALGARY HERALD. COURTESY OF LIBRARIES AND CULTURAL RESOURCES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY; respites were her stables, her corgis, her
CANADIAN CORPORATION FOR THE 1967 WORLD EXHIBITION, LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, E011180014; THE CANADIAN PRESS/STAFF; CITY OF growing family, and Balmoral Castle in
TORONTO ARCHIVES, SERIES 8, FILE 121, ITEM 1 Scotland. Surveys still put her among
the most admired figures in the world.

More recent times have not been so
kind. Royal affairs, ugly marriages,
party animals, tell-all books—princes
and princesses, they’re just like us!
Through the seemingly non-stop tur-
bulence, the Queen has always pro-
vided royal ballast, keeping the ship
steady, the very personification of
keep calm and carry on.

When Princess Diana died in a Paris
tunnel, victim of her own celebrity, her
last words allegedly were, “Oh God, what
has happened?” The world had grown
ever more vulgar is what had happened.
Who could imagine Elizabeth’s second
child getting caught in the sordid web
of a sexual predator and his accom-
plice? And then going on the BBC to
attempt, laughably, to distance himself
from the mess. And then buying his way
out of it. What a mother of such tasteful
impeccability must think of a princely
son of such staggeringly poor judge-
ment can only be imagined.

And what queen could have foreseen
her grandson, Prince Harry, renounc-
ing his royal duties, alluding to racism
at Buckingham Palace, and moving his
wife and their children to California,
where Oprah is queen? Then, last year,
Elizabeth suffered the most crushing
blow of all—the passing of her consort
of 73 years, Prince Philip, two months
short of his 100th birthday.

rd.ca 89

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reader’s digest
90 june 2022

(Clockwise, from
top left) June 1973,
touring a pioneer
village display at
Toronto’s High Park;
April 1982, signing the
Proclamation of the
Constitution Act, while
seated beside Prime
Minister Pierre Elliott
Trudeau; August 1994,
meeting athletes at the
Commonwealth Games
in Victoria; July 1976,
watching the Olympic
Games in Montreal

rd.ca 91

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF CANADIAN HERITAGEreader’s digest

At 95, the elderly queen now bears the
full weight of the monarchy on her frail
shoulders. Through an accident of birth,
she embodies wealth and privilege in
an age when such wealth and privilege
are associated with injustice. “God Save
the Queen” was supplanted by “O Can-
ada” long ago. In this post-colonial era,
she is a reminder of a British Empire
that blithely claimed scores of distant
lands as its own, bribing, enlisting or
subjugating the locals.

Yet to see her as a relic, a hopeless
anachronism, is to miss her value and
her meaning. She oversaw the trans-
formation of the empire into the free
association of equal states known as
the Commonwealth, where she is the
elected (not hereditary) leader. She has
been a sounding board for countless
world leaders. Her 22 visits to Canada
have brought vividly, repeatedly, to life
her portrait on our $20 banknote, her
effigy on the toonie. I remember as a kid
in 1959 lining up with tens of thousands
of others to wave as her motorcade
passed by Eaton’s in downtown Toronto.
The slow-moving black limousines, the
white-gloved hand, the royal wave.

The Queen is a symbol of steadfast-
ness in a world that’s changing at an
accelerating, even frightening, pace.
She’s a reminder that we are always
creating both the future and the past,
and—as the much-loved monarch
embarks on her eighth decade on the
throne—a memento mori that nothing
lasts forever.

92 june 2022

(Clockwise from top left)
August 1994, visiting
Rankin Inlet, Nunavut;
July 2010, unveiling
a cornerstone for the
Canadian Museum
of Human Rights in
Winnipeg; June 2010,
receiving flowers in
Halifax, Nova Scotia;
October 2002, dropping
the puck for a game
between the Vancouver
Canucks and San Jose
Sharks, while on her
Golden Jubilee tour
of Canada

rd.ca 93

EDITORS’ CHOICE

When we couldn’t heal my father,
we looked for something else to fix

MoTheths
BY Morgan Charles FROM THE FIDDLEHEAD
illustrations by celeste colborne
My parents’ house had an infestation. It started as soon
as the sun set: a slight fluttering around the edges that
intensified until the air in the living room vibrated.
94 june 2022

reader’s digest

reader’s digest

“These goddamn things!” my father introduce some fatal illness. If a show
yelled as he swatted at the moths from contained any reference to cancer,
his recliner. They created a pixelated blur we’d squirm until another reason gave
on the television screen and strobed us cover to change the channel.
the reading lamp behind his head. I
clapped them between my hands and But watching is not the right descrip-
they disappeared into powdery dust, tion for what my father did—just as
like a magic trick. But it didn’t matter. often, he stared into space or out the
They kept coming. window at the backyard, twirling the hair
at the back of his head, which had grown
It was November 2015, and my preg- back fuzzy after chemo, the television
nancy was just starting to show by then, rambling like a clueless neighbour.
so I was making the trip from Toronto Whenever some well-meaning person
to Ottawa, where my parents lived, less would mention how meditation might
often than I had been. When my dad be helpful, he always said, “I do medi-
was diagnosed with lung cancer two tate,” and I knew this is what he meant.
years before, the doctors gave him any-
where from six to nine months. Since When I visited, it seemed I couldn’t
then, he’d undergone radiation for his do much right: I was always trying to
lungs and brain, as well as chemother- have conversations my dad didn’t want
apy, all in an attempt to extend his to have, like maybe he should be more
prognosis. I tried to visit him at least patient with my mother, who lived on
once a month, but it was trickier now the edge of tears, or suggesting outings
that I had so many of my own appoint- he was too tired for. I admonished him
ments to keep track of. The doctors had for eating too much sugar and made
told him he couldn’t drive anymore him green smoothies that he found
because of the brain metastases, so aggressively disgusting.
when I was home, I chauffeured him to
his appointments. Mostly, though, we The moths, though—that felt like
spent all of our time in the house. something I could do. Something I
could fix.
Like the rest of us, the moths were
drawn to the living room, with the mas- INITIALLY, IT SEEMED SIMPLE. All I had
sive TV acting like a beacon. My father to do was find the moths’ food supply
used it for company the way some peo- and destroy it. My younger brother,
ple use the radio. Since his diagnosis, Max, was visiting from Japan, where
he’d become indiscriminate in his tastes: he’d been living for the last year, and
reality shows about storage lockers or together we took the kitchen apart.
truckers had replaced dramas, even
comedies, which could unpredictably “Jesus, Mom, how old are these?”
Max asked, piling half-empty bags of
rice on the counter. Before they took

96 june 2022

his driver’s licence away, my dad was I’D SOMETIMES TRY to turn the TV off
in the habit of stopping at the grocery and initiate the type of meaningful con-
store nearly every day on his way home versation with my dad that I felt we
from work to buy ingredients for what- should be having. But he didn’t want
ever elaborate recipe he had in mind, to talk. He preferred the undemanding
never throwing anything left over away. chatter of the television.
Making a sandwich at my parents’
house necessitated long excavations But just as often, the TV itself became
through half-finished chutneys and a source of frustration. A couple of years
expired pesto containers. before he got sick, my dad had hired a
guy to install a large wall-mounted flat
I TRIED TO INITIATE screen, which was connected through
MEANINGFUL a series of hidden wires to a receiver
and sound system in the nearby “toy
CONVERSATIONS, BUT closet,” so-called for its former voca-
MY DAD PREFERRED tion. The machinery in there reminded
me of photos I’d seen of the first com-
THE TELEVISION. puters, an imposing stack of black boxes
with lights and knobs and wires that
I looked at the bag at the top of the no one knew how to use and so mostly
pile: “Best before 2012,” I said, holding avoided. Whenever there was a prob-
it up to the light. Inside I could see lem with the TV, which was often (four
grains of rice dangling from long stringy remotes were required just to turn
webs. Promising. I turned back to the everything on), my parents had to call
pantry and eyed the half-finished bags Russell, the installer, to come and fix it.
of almond and chickpea flours, relics But now Russell had newborn twins
from my parents’ gluten-free phase a and kept putting my parents off. “Ten-
few years earlier. thousand dollars and the bloody thing
won’t even turn on,” my dad would
“Just get rid of it,” my mother said, say, pressing buttons with one hand
waving dismissively at the pantry as she and swatting moths with the other.
threw dented cans directly in the trash.
We vacuumed the cupboards and “They got ripped off,” my brother said,
wiped them until they gleamed. All that shaking his head.
was left were my dad’s rice-pudding
cups and the Ensures he drank during The kitchen purge had no discern-
chemo. I was confident that no moth ible effect on the moths’ numbers, so we
could survive this wasteland. decided they must not be pantry moths
at all but more pernicious clothes
moths. I knew what their eggs looked
like. When I was 13 years old, away at

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reader’s digest

summer camp, I used one of my dad’s me. “Very worried, fussed over his roses,
old button-down work shirts as a smock his stamp collection, his coins.”
for arts and crafts. One day, I went to
put it on and found a patch of tiny “Sounds familiar,” I joked, but he
white eggs like beads embroidered with kept going. “Your uncle and him never
an almost mathematical precision. I got along, and my mother blamed him
gagged and hid the shirt behind a box of for Derek leaving home so young. But
art supplies for the rest of the summer. he was a good father. He always stood
up for me.”
My parents didn’t have the telltale
holes in their clothes, but I decided to A few hours later, the TV was work-
investigate their bedroom anyway. We ing again after we tried every conceiv-
all knew by then that something could able button combination, and we were
grow silently in one place for months, watching Antiques Roadshow. Out of
or years, before announcing itself in the blue, my father, still looking at the
another location. TV, said, “One thing I always remem-
ber about my dad is how he would
I checked my mother’s closet and clean my ears.”
drawers first, but didn’t find anything.
I tentatively opened my father’s closet, “Really?” I laughed, surprised. “Like
but the only movement was the swish with a Q-tip? Every day?” I had to stop
and clang of ties and belts hanging on myself from rushing in with too many
the back of the door. His closet was my questions, like he was a skittish horse
favourite hiding place as a kid, alone that I didn’t want to spook.
in the dark with the lingering smell of
his aftershave, the thrill of waiting to “No—every few months. Or weeks.
be found. I rifled through the pressed Yeah, Q-tips. It was our time together;
work shirts he didn’t wear anymore, as my time with my dad.”
well as the folded sweatshirts. No moths
and no eggs. I closed the door. I laughed again, but I found the image
heartbreaking. I pictured them in my
ONE OF THE DAYS WHEN the TV wasn’t grandma’s yellow kitchen in the 1950s,
working, I sat with my dad in the living a skinny kid with a cowlick sitting on a
room. I asked him about his father. My stool in front of my mysterious grand-
grandfather had always been a mystery father, for some reason wearing his air
to me; he died when I was two years force uniform from old photographs.
old. All I knew was that he’d quit drink- A Norman Rockwell painting: Father
ing after a stroke in his 40s. and Son with Q-tips. My dad, swinging
his legs, trying to say the right thing
“He was what you’d call a cardiac to his distracted, worried father.
personality,” my dad said, indulging
I waited for him to say more about
it, but he was finished. We turned back
to the television.

98 june 2022