Tilly guards the expressway

Good dog in a dodgy place
Montreal, QC
June 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

This isn't just any dog mural. It's Tilly, and it's located on Decarie Boulevard in Montreal, overlooking the sunken expressway that brutally bisects this neighborhood in a way only a relic of 1960s-era car-centric civic planning can.

We came here for an unhappy reason. June 2019 - my father-in-law had passed away, and I was running errands with the kids, ordering food for the shiva house, trying to keep everyone focused on anything beyond what they had lost, and maybe crack a smile every once in a while.

A family acquaintance who I won't identify for obvious reasons had gotten into the habit of calling our dog, "Tilly". For the record, her name is, "Calli", but he couldn't seem to master it. What was funny was the way he said it. Absent-mindedly, as if he couldn't be bothered.

The kids, understandably, thought it was hilarious. And when we happened to come across this wonderful piece of public art on a building across the street from the Snowdon Deli, it was a given that a photo had to be taken.

This scene almost feels like Montreal to me, a timeworn streetscape that almost feels like a signature of this beaten-down city. Rough-hewn concrete notwithstanding, it nevertheless feels like a brightly lit micro-moment in the midst of so many dark ones, when our kids were given a chance to smile.

After all, we have to find those opportunities wherever they present themselves. Tilly would no doubt agree.

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