Bob had disappeared again.

It was Christmastime, when our family’s tiny clothing store filled with people looking for practical gifts and shoplifters after the very best free merchandise. Bob’s job was to see the shoplifters in the crowds. He succeeded because, at nearly seven feet, he was the tallest person most of us had ever seen. He towered over everyone, his head, neck, and shoulders like some Himalayan peak thrusting upwards from a shroud of clouds.

In the store, it was easy to spot Bob. My parents, however, had a different relationship with him. They were the ones to search for Bob whenever he failed to show up for work. At day’s end, they’d ride the bus to his neighborhood, and walk from bar to bar looking for him behind hedges, atop trash heaps, underneath a porch. Sometimes they found him in a tangle on stairs leading to basement doors, or under bundles of collapsed cardboard boxes, or sandwiched like a slice of cheese between a discarded mattress and box spring.

Dad had learned a lot from fallen comrades during the war years. He assessed Bob’s condition carefully. Had he been beaten, or just fallen asleep after getting drunk? Did he need a hospital? Sometimes Dad carried Bob for blocks to his boarding house to sober up. Bob knew better than to argue with Dad; he’d seen Dad win a bet by shouldering bundles of rebar and carrying them unaided for a full city block.

No one really knows when it starts and the end of it varies from person to person. I suspect it begins like a breeze that picks up currents until it becomes a gale, a storm or a hurricane ravaging a landscape that’s taken a lifetime to develop. Destructive by nature, it is known by many different names: messy housekeeper, collector, pack rat, or hoarder. At what point does one attain the distinction of hoarder? Is the condition caused by personality, poverty, or a major life change like a world depression or the premature loss of a parent? Steadily a storm brews, gathers strength, dumps its load and a lifestyle is altered.

Despite her idiosyncrasies, Aunt Sarah has always been my favourite aunt. She bought me my first record when I was in grade three, The Teddy Bear’s Picnic. The wonderful lines — If you go out in the woods today, You’re in for a big surprise — sparked my imagination. The image of teddy bears having a picnic was absolutely delightful! Another year, she gave me the book Little Women, which I read again and again as I immersed myself in another world.

Aunt Sarah was there for me during the most momentous moments of my lifetime. She and I walked to the grain field when I was 8 years old to tell my dad that I had a baby brother. At age 22 when I got married, Aunt Sarah was tying the bow on my dress when Mum walked by and reprimanded me for being so slow. Much to my surprise, Aunt Sarah replied: “Leave her alone. It’s her special day. Don’t spoil it for her!” Only a sister could have calmed down my mom as effectively as my aunt did that day.

Aunt Sarah, widowed and childless, decided at age 85 to move out of her cozy cottage into a seniors’ complex. I knew the task would be daunting: for the past fifteen years, no one had been exposed to the enormity of the problem. If we picked her up for a family gathering she would say: You don’t need to come in. I’ll come out to the car. If it were Christmas she would return home laden with presents; occasionally she would allow us to accompany her up the front steps and hold the parcels while she rummaged through her purse for her keys. One particular Christmas, the night time temperature was -35 with a bone chilling wind. In her haste to grab her parcels from us, Aunt Sarah fell backwards into a four-foot snow bank. A few choice expletives were uttered, followed by the now familiar refrain: “No! I don’t need any help to carry it inside!” as she slammed the door. I had no real concept of how deep the piles were inside, but I would soon find out the hard way.

Make no mistake. I’m white. My mother’s parents came to Canada from Denmark and my father’s came from England. I grew up with a mom, a dad, two sisters, several pets, middle-class home. Danish flags hung on our Christmas tree each year. A.A. Milne poetry was read to me every night.

An awareness of my privilege was non-existent.

Never questioned why I shouldn’t walk north of Manitoba Avenue in my hometown of Selkirk. Just knew it was rough up that way. Small houses. Big families. No running water. Same for Winnipeg’s North End. Always made sure to lock our car doors as we drove through.

Didn’t everybody?

Sixty-three seconds.

I needed 63 seconds.

I had to have them.

“Ano.”