Gareth grew up in a typical Canadian household; hockey on weekends, CBC radio at supper, exploring the surrounding countryside with friends and occasionally, his family would drive down to the lakeshore for a Dairy Queen treat. For entertainment his father had fostered his strong love of theatre over the alternative, leaving little time for movies. Now you could argue the Welsh are slightly stubborn so when they did go to see a film it was only when Duncan felt something was worth watching. Not surprisingly those events were even less frequent than the ice cream. Maybe it's the nostalgia in connecting a thing or event with someone you loved, or because it is new and exciting, maybe a chance for independence, whatever the reason, Gareth never really looked for anything more. He never rebelled, instead he savoured the classic films; Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Singing in the Rain, or Gone with the wind to name a few. It was a place to could go and feel a bit closer to his Dad again.
One of the best places to see those classic movies today, is a place affectionately called Joe's House of Movies. It still has the old marquee out front with the big black stencilled letters sitting against an illuminated white background. It's just down the street from his own home and somehow, against all odds, it has lived on through the changing decades; from single screens to the cineplex, Dolby to THX surround sound, jumbo plastic tubs of popcorn and refillable 2 gallon cups of coke.
Joe's plays all the movies the mainstream audiences barely notice, the ones that the kids would say were too cheesy.
Occasionally Joe's celebrated by having a theme night, audience members were encouraged to dress up. Gareth loved going and him meeting Emily there at a Retro "50's sock hop night" only cemented that feeling.
It was at one of these events where he first spotted Emily standing in the foyer wearing a sunflower dress in white heals. Him in his best white shirt, complete with pocket protector and jeans rolled up at the cuffs. They met during intermission standing in line at the concession and ended up sitting next to each other for the rest of the night not paying any attention to the film.
At the time, she was just finishing school for nursing, somehow finding time to volunteer between one of the big hospitals and the costumes department at a local theatre with her Mom.
A lot of things changed in the first few years of marriage, none more so than now. Emily of course spent most of her time at the hospital and if she wasn't there she had secluded herself in their mother-in-law suite above the garage leaving him to his imagination.
Now, ordinarily having free rein of the house and time to match would mean getting out the tools. But he didn't feel much like doing anything when the reason for doing anything was surrounded by so much uncertainty. There was this odd feeling, like any kind of change would imply he was preparing to move on, when in fact it was the opposite. He didn't even want to finish one of the millions of bucket list items in fear that he might inadvertently jinx things.
He decided that the best thing to do was to just stay busy, so he headed upstairs to the closet where they kept the vacuum. Or at least where he thought they kept the vacuum. After searching in every nook and cranny on the upper floor he switched to the main floor, which in all honesty didn't have a lot of space for a large appliance to hide. "Maybe it's in the basement he thought?"
This is where he found what he wasnt looking for all along. His father's old super 8 movie projector and a box of films. He pulled it out into the light of the hall and gave it a quick check blowing the dust off. "Seems alright." he thought and before he knew it, the shades were drawn and he was making popcorn.
It was just past midnight as reel # 4 fluttered and clicked, the projector now making its own version of old man groans so he figured he should pace things a bit. He headed to the kitchen to throw out the empty popcorn bag and placed his glass down into the sink. The light was on in the garage, Emily was home! She would always turn the light on and off again, a sort of morse code and he would do the same. If she wasn't too tired she would call to talk but tonight he'd been sitting in the dark. She must have thought he was asleep. Frustrated, he fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket and had just opened the phone app when her light went out. He felt terrible, how could this be happening? So much fear and emptiness and death to deal with. How could they even cope he wondered?
Then inspiration hit, he opened his laptop and began to email all of their friends and family asking them to send him a favourite video clip of people they've loved. People that meant something to them or people they admired, it didn't matter. The more the merrier he thought. He asked all of Emily's second family, the family she spent most of her time with, the ones putting their lives on the line in order to save others. He hadn't even finished sending requests out when he heard the first ping of response, it was from Emily. It was a short clip of them at their wedding. He didn't even remember it; they had just cut the cake and were headed out on to the dance floor when he heard a voice in the shadow of the background. Quickly rewinding he turned up the volume, then pressed play, his eyes filling with tears the second he heard it. The moment he recognized his father's familiar Welsh accent, "Cariad" [Welsh for love] It was his Dad's favourite word and he ended up playing the clip over and over.
By the time Gareth woke up the next day there was fifty-six videos, by the time he went to bed sixty-five more. Tributes to people separated from their loved ones. Doctors and Nurses, a bus driver that carried staff to the hospital. Over a dozen had shared quiet moments in the early morning hours, and some in video chats simply sharing a moment. Thirty-second videos of their lives in a day and some that shared their last day.
The next two weeks were spent splicing the clips together to create a kind of documentary collage. A long time friend put some music to it and it was uploaded to YouTube.
When it was done he sat back and just stared out into the empty room. "There is no way this can be for nothing," he said.
He flicked the back porch light and waited. They watched together and cried and laughed and when it came to hang up they both spoke at the same time.
"Cariad!"
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