GrataTuesday - If that old liver could talk... oh the stories it would tell
Sorry for the lul in updates over the past two weeks. There has been a lot to get sorted and plenty of school to keep up with, work, a multitude of lists, hours of research and all the joys of an ongoing job search. Things are starting to come together, the collective governments in Atlantic Canada have announced the reopening of the Atlantic bubble, making the move back to NS much easier. The two weeks of quarantine would be emotionally challenging, being so close but so far at the same time. All of this being said, it is Tuesday again, and we all know what that means! It's been a few weeks, and it's time for another GrataTuesday!
This week has brought my world some heartbreaking news. Little Ray's Nova Scotia announced they are shutting their doors due to the impact that Covid-19 has had on them. The government has offered little to no aid for small businesses, and unlike so many other little guys, LRNS can't just hunker down and wait for this to blow over. There is still a huge amount of overhead for them with reptiles to feed, heat and vet, and none of that comes cheap. All of this has had me thinking about all the losses we have faced over the last year. After the impact and shock of losing all of the March break events for the farm and zoo wore off, my self and the Little Ray's family faced another loss. The loss of income, jobs coupled with the fear of the unknown made for many uneasy nights, but none of that compares to the loss of one of our own.
Little Ray's, was (and will always be) a second family, not just to me but to all of us that have proudly sported a tilly hat while desperately clutching a coffee (or energy drink) and talking about lizards. Many members of the zoo family have come and gone, but there will always the crazy ones that will never truly leave.
Little Ray and Sheri, were like the parents, some of us didn't know we needed. They gained a lot of experience trying to keep all of us inline, which is likely why they are such amazing parents to the triplets now, they had lots of practice. But a family is more than just Mom and Dad, there's that crazy cousin Kevin who might drink too much and lose his keys in a snowbank, that quiet, brilliant brother named Brian or that sister named Tracy that you love to the end of the earth and sometimes you want to push her off it, that also goes for brothers named Geoff, Mike, Dawson, Kyle, Homer, T-Bag and Marc. Aunts named Julie that give the best advice, lil cousins named Monique and Alex who always know how to make you smile, that wonderfully weird guy named Del that's always there. Still, no one really knows how he is related to any of us, and who could forget about the big brother named Kevin that works his butt off, will always go to bat for you, defend you, cry with you, laugh with you and always has a hug when you need it. There there is the oldest brother, the one who loves you fiercely, lifts you up, quietly and calmly defuses scuffles between the younger siblings, picks up the slack, so Mom and Dad don't have to, doesn't let you lie to your self, pushes you to do your best, teaches life lessons and would NEVER hesitate to call you on your bull shit...His name was Matt and I guess you could say he was my zoo mentor.
Last spring, we lost that brother unexpectedly days before his 40th birthday. He didn't just leave his chosen Little Ray's and Calgary Zoo family behind but his true family as well, including his wife (and former Little Ray's family member) McKenzie and two beautiful little girls who were the chlorophyll in his fauna. OH! and his liver, can't forget about his liver, he left that behind too...I am not sure which family member his liver was...maybe that young hooligan cousin that spent some time in juvie but grew up to surprise everyone with their accomplishments and the amazing impact they've had on others...But we'll talk more about that liver later.
... But what's a family without a little dysfunction and debauchery?
Imagine Joey and Chandler from FRIENDS with tilly hats, running a reptile zoo. Joey, with his huge help everyone heart, outgoing, high energy demeanor, mild impulsivity and Chandler, with his dry humor, sarcasm, straight forward, no BS approach to life, who thinks things through and doesn't hesitate to point out when things just won't work. They are indestructible, perfectly balancing each other out. That was Matt and Little Ray, Matt often the voice of reason, the Yin to Little Ray's Yang. It just worked.
There are so many Matt stories! These are some of my own...bear with me, the odd detail is a little fuzzy, and I'd hold off sharing them with the girls for a couple more years, what with them being so young and innocent and all...
About ten (ok...maybe closer to 12) years ago, Matt(Toogood), his (now) Hubby Dave, and my self went on a grand adventure to CRBE, the Canadian Reptile Breeders Expo. It was in Toronto and was by far the biggest reptile-related event I had been to at that point. Unlike the boys, I wasn't there to buy animals for breeding projects, I was just along for the ride. There was so much to take in that I had done a few laps around the convention hall and was, trying not to miss anything. I had walked by a booth 2-3 times and kept noticing that the guy behind the table was A) was super easy to look at B) looked kinda, sorta, almost, maybe a little familiar and C) was starting to stare at me when I walked by. So on my third or fourth trip around, I nudged one of the boys and said..."Ok. the cutie at the Hognose Canada booth keeps staring at me, he kinda looks familiar, but I can't place him." The boys, being the boys, jokingly suggested I go ask for his number. When I approached the table, said cutie addressed me by name. It was Matt, but he was clean-shaven, wearing normal, non-zoo keeper clothes and didn't appear to be hungover. He was hiding in plain sight. I was so used to mutton chops/Wolverine-looking zookeeper Matt that I didn't recognize clean-cut/professional please buy my snakes Matt. That was one of my first memories of him.
Along with sober, clean-cut zookeepers, one thing that has caused some confusion ranging from mild to extreme at the zoo, is my name. You'd think, what with most of the country knowing our boss by his nic name, it wouldn't be that surprising to learn that others too go by names that don't show up on any formal ID. But for some reason, my last name, not being Bean, shocks far more people than you would think.
It was early one Friday afternoon in January, many (possibly many, many) years ago. We were setting up an exhibit in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Now T-bay is approximately an eight-teen hour drive from Ottawa, and when you are one of the boss mans and have a wife and young daughter, you don't often have eight-teen extra hours to dedicate to driving through Northern Ont. with a bunch of your staff, in a van full of alligators. So Matt was to fly up that afternoon and was kind enough to stop by the zoo to grab our paycheques for us. Upon arriving at the zoo, he listed off the staff whose cheques he was looking for, and when he came to mine, he asked for the cheque belonging to Lacey Bean. No one could find it, because of course, it didn't exist. He was so shook by learning that I was not, in fact, Lacey Bean. He picked up his phone and called me. In the middle of setup, I saw Matt was calling and answered the phone. There was no Hi, Hello, WTF, nothing... Just Matt shouting, "YOU LIED TO ME, I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU!!!!!" over and over. Now, at this point, I really didn't know Matt that well, so I was immediately scared to death, thinking, "Oh, great...WTF did I do ??". I was silent for a moment and finally said, "ahh...what?" I was so confused and maybe even a little scared. Matt rambled on about the importance of names, and knowing who people really are, and then both of us laughed our butts off.
Now, fast forward a couple years. It's February, we are in Halifax at the Lower Deck, not a sober zookeeper to be found. Paul Lamb and Wreckhouse are playing, it's Saturday night, Little Ray is spending too much money on drinks for everyone in sight, and my little sister, the nursing student, is drinking cranberry Smirnoff ice. Now Kerri had been working on and off for LRNS for about a year at this point, it was a good gig for her while she was in school, it was the big Little Rays event at Exhibition Park, and the entire crew is loving their Lower Deck downtime. It is nearing the end of the evening. Kerri is very close to the stage of inebriation that one can only classify as "Female university student at Pizza corner on a Saturday night DRUNK!." Matt reaches out steady her, so she doesn't topple over and wagers, "$100 says there is NO WAY you can come to work tomorrow and be as awesome as you usually are... all day!" Kerri slurred something that sounded like " You're on!" and shortly after that, we all retired for the evening. The next morning rolled around, and we all started our workday in classic Little Ray's fashion, viciously hungover. Kerri rocked a full day of hands-on with hundreds of screaming children, and as we were closing and getting ready to start teardown, Matt is getting ready to head to the airport... Kerri walks up to him, looks him dead in the face and says, "guess who was awesome all day?" with her hand outstretched. Matt, looking a little confused, looks at her for a second and then it dawns on him.- "oh, shit...I guess you were" and he reaches into the pocket of his cargo pants, pulls out a wad of $5 bills, and slowly counts out $100 placing each of the twenty blue bills in the palm of her hand.
That weekend had a couple of great Matt and Kerri Moments. Earlier the same Saturday evening, Matt was complaining of abdominal tenderness. Very much an "It hurts when I poke right here" kind of ouch. Matt turns to Kerri while poking himself in the belly and says, "What is right here?". Nurse Kerri swats his hand away and starts to palpate (fancy medical word for poke) the area that Matt had indicated. After a few winces and a man-child amount of wining, our staff nurse determines that he should take it easy on the sauce that night... because his liver was pissed off at him for drinking Lower Deck amounts of beer for four straight nights.
That liver, the very same that a half-drunk young nurse palpated in a downtown Halifax bar, went on to save a life, even after Matt had lost his. Upon learning that Matt had passed that he, as an organ donor was a match for someone in need brought a smile to my tear stained face. Through tears and heartache, I said to Kevin (ya know the one that plays the role of the second oldest brother that will cry with you, and support you when you need someone to talk to...yeah him) "I am so glad that Matt is able to help someone, even though he's gone." and continue on to jokingly say " I don't know what organs they needed, but I pity the guy who needs a liver, and all that's available is one that belonged to someone with an almost twenty-year zookeeping career." Kevin replied with "That's what they needed, they needed his liver."
Irony has never reduced me to so many tears, but for some reason, it makes it that much more special.
There are more great Matt stories than there will ever be enough words to write them with. The last I saw Matt was in Calgary at the zoo two years ago when they hosted the CAZA conference. He looked great. My first thought after not seeing him for a few years was, "wow, Matt got hot!" and of course, me being me, my thoughts don't always stay inside their bubbles, and as we were separating from our hug, I jokingly asked, "When did you get hot?" His response, in true Matt fashion, was, "I haven't always been hot?"
I'm glad that I was able to make that trip, to see him and the zoo he had formed a new zoo family at (well, not all-new, he had some familiar faces there with him.) I got to sit in on one of his sessions about an endangered species project he was working on with the Northern Leopard frog. The second he started talking to a room full of people about his frogs, his face lit up, and at that moment, without question, I knew he was in his happy place.
Lower deck adventures, this very well could have been the night
the bet took place...Nurse Kerri in on the far right and Matt on the left, in the back row.
Some of the family, Sept 2019
CAZA Conference
Matt, Kevin, Lacey, Little Ray
and polar bear Megan
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