1. At the No Frills, where I go looking for a box to make a temporary three-sided bed for our elderly cat and for the first time in history find NO boxes in the discard bin — just as I’m giving up on that plan, a young man walks by, an employee, with a carton of just the right proportions, which he’s just about to pitch… and in the most happy-to-have-bumped-into-me way says yes, of course, I’m very welcome to have it as if he couldn’t be more delighted to have found such a good home for this stray bit of cardboard. And I think: what are the odds of that — the timing, certainly, but the gift of such good cheer from an unlikely source… especially when much needed.

2. A scruffy looking boy with dyed jet black hair, long and unkempt, smoking, jeans that begin somewhere around his thighs and a ragged shirt. Very bored, very detached demeanor, standing outside the plaza. I drive by [the carton from No Frills in my back seat] and notice an elderly woman exit the dental office with what looks like a large pizza box. Ten or so metres along, l look in my rear-view mirror, curious as to whether I’m imagining the pizza box and I see her fall on the icy pavement. I stop the car and in that instant of thinking I must go back to help, I see — still in the rear-view mirror — that, without missing a beat, the scruffy boy has leapt to her aid. They chat for a moment and then she and he go their separate ways.

3. On the way home I notice a hockey net on the frozen pond, and when I stop to take a picture, a boy appears, alone, with a hockey stick, heading in its direction.

That’s it.
That’s enough, I decide.
There’s hope still.