Photo: Grâce â vous, Jack

It had already been three weeks since the death of Jack Layton when I returned to Toronto, and yet bits and pieces of the spontaneous memorial to him in Nathan Phillips Square were still there. The chalk had been washed off the ground earlier, and without eyes on the scene, I'd thought that was the end of it - as it was, the messages on the walls survived long enough for me to get there, though I understand they were washed off by the rain a few days after I passed through.

This was just one of the hundreds of messages that had been left all around the square. Considering that whoever wrote it did so while leaning over the lip of a walkway elevated about fifteen feet above the ground, the inverted letters are understandable - and lend a bit of a personal touch as well, I think.

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