"Hi, my name's Jack and I'm a berry-aholic."

I just spent the weekend with my nephew, watching helplessly as he plunged into a downward spiral of addiction.

Jack is one year and nine months old. While he spent the majority of his time ransacking my parents' house in Kingston, he would periodically let out a sudden shout (as if he'd just remembered something) and make a bee-line for the front door, let himself out with a tippy-toes stretch for the knob, and pad his way over to the blueberry patch a good hundred yards away, his bare feet numb to the cold, hard ground. He went out once in only a diaper, in the drizzling rain, senseless with longing.

It was like he had no concern for his own well-being; like he couldn't see anything but those clumps of blueberries beckoning in his mind's eye; like nothing else mattered. He was truly in the grips of this thing. He would take my hand for help down the stairs, but didn't even look at me.


I was an accessory.

He would allow himself to be held, but only so he could reach the higher berries. Does this make me an enabler?

Once there, he would proceed to stuff his face with one berry after another.


Like a fiend.


He would kick his legs against my sides to signal that it was time to move on to the next bunch. He was a relentless horse-whipper. Giddy-up! Driven by a deep need.

But one doesn't have to look far to find the source of his addictive behaviors. Like father, like son:


I guess the berry truly doesn't fall far from the bush.