The other day, while walking Heidi down Bloor, the wind took my hat.
It was a Fedora that I’ve had since high school. I do believe that I bought it at a second hand store on Elgin Street in Ottawa called Johnny Upstairs. I probably wanted to look like a member of The Specials, tried the look out once, got teased mercilessly, and then forgot about the hat for a decade.
At any rate, the hat returned to my life when I was bald and undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s Disease. At the time, I thought it gave me a little bit of “edge” and that maybe by wearing it, I looked cool rather than sick. As most cancer patients will tell you, you acquire a sort of uniform when undergoing treatment. What you wear becomes a kind of armor, and it takes on a totemic value. And so, month after month, I wore my old Fedora, my companion through despair and hope.
That was a decade ago now, but I still wear my hat all the time and the other day the wind took it. I’d been waiting for this to happen for quite some time, and I always wondered how I’d feel when it happened.
The wind took it quickly and violently, and it immediately started doing cartwheels down the street. I started to run after it, but it was already nearly a block away and I knew I really didn’t have a chance. No matter, I sighed and plugged along, Heidi quickly surging ahead of me. Surprisingly, what I felt as I watched it move further and further away from me was relief, that maybe I could finally stop worrying about how I’d feel when I lost the hat, that maybe even, I could stop worrying about cancer. I thought to myself, “Yes, it’s time. Good-bye hat, you served me well,” and I stopped running.
However, a man had seen the whole scene unfold, and he stomped on the hat as it tumbled toward him. Our eyes caught just as he did this, and from 20 yards away he shouted “MINE!!” I thought for a moment about letting him keep it, but he hurried up to me with the hat, and smiling, returned to me a complex part of my history, one that he never could have imagined.