Nov. 10: Four a.m.

At four a.m. I am usually asleep. More often than not, my son is beside me. He does not sleep still. If I lay him down in the middle of the bed, he will fidget throughout the night. It's not at all unusual to wake up in the morning and see him curled up on the corner of the bed.

My son has always fought his sleep. Like his father, he resents sleep - he feels it robs him of the joy of the waking world. Sometimes at night, he will lay his head on my chest and close his eyes. He is telling me that I am his pillow.

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I used to work for a transport company. Our job was to drive pilots and flight attendants to the airport or their hotels. We also delivered Air Canada's lost luggage. The job was chaotic. The hours were unpredictable. It wasn't unusual to finish a 10-hour shift and then be told you had to spend the next six hours delivering suitcases throughout Calgary and southern Alberta.

That job cost me a girlfriend.

One day I started working at 8 a.m. and finished at 10 p.m. My boss told me I had to take a suitcase to Golden, BC, which was three hours away. I asked if I could stay the night in Golden and he said no, he needed the car back for the next shift in the morning.

So I drove out to Golden and I dropped off the suitcase and I noticed that the gas tank was almost empty. That's when I discovered that there's no gas station in Golden, BC that's open at one in the morning.

I found a gas station and I slept in the car and when the station opened at five that morning, I filled the car up and I drove it back to the office and my boss asked me if I could work at one that afternoon and I said that I needed sleep and he told me I could sleep at the office and that is what I did.

Four a.m.