Writing

Andrew Eden survived a hurricane and a train wreck. Then he was born and life became more difficult.

Andrew’s parents lived just outside the sleepy village of Agincourt, Ontario, before the multi-lanes and suburban flotsam washed over the town’s Norman Rockwell barber shop, Victorian steeple and century-old general store. The largely Protestant hamlet changed little until the evening of October 15, 1954, when, almost to the day 539 years after its French namesake had been invaded by the English, Hurricane Hazel rained and conquered. Before the night was over, the town’s creeks and rivers had risen over their banks, roads were washed out, trees toppled and homes swept away.

Andrew’s mother, Margaret Eden, had gone into labour with Andrew at six p.m., a mere hour ahead of the mighty Hazel’s arrival. Andrew’s father, John, hadn’t been listening to weather reports. As he bundled his wife into the backseat of the family’s faded green ‘47 Austin A40, his sole concern was getting his wife and their unborn child to the hospital.