Illustration by Alex Siklos
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Losing your parents, if you are one of the lucky ones who had it good, means a part of you is always missing.
My sister and I buried our mom and dad not long ago. Or at least half of them. Two not quite traditional services. One in Ontario. One in Quebec, 250 kilometres apart. One in an English ceremony, one in French.
Dick and Lucie (as I like to call them) had been happily married for more than 60 years and, to her dying day, he was her knight in shining armour. But in no way was she going to be laid to rest outside of Quebec surrounded by anglos and he, having begrudgingly spent most of his life in the francophone province, was absolutely clear that he did not wish to spend eternity here as well, especially some six feet under.
They were soulmates but one can only compromise so much in marriage. It was a problem.
Asking Mom to read me her old diaries opened a window to her past
To be fair, my father didn’t have it that bad. After having met when both were stationed overseas, they settled in Montreal not because it was my mother’s home, but because it was where he found work. When he left the RCAF, Dick was hired as an Air Canada pilot and, back in the 1960s, the city’s Dorval Airport (now Trudeau International) was the country’s main hub. And life on the West Island at that time meant he need not learn French anyway. Plus, his hometown was no more than two hours down the highway and we visited a lot.
I suppose it doesn’t say much for Quebec-Canada relations or multiculturalism joy and acceptance but Dick and Lucie did respect the other’s roots and traditions and they made it work.
He strangely carried three maps of Ontario with him wherever he went and while she might occasionally inform my dad how she and her francophone community were often the target of English prejudice back in the day, she could also laugh at the fact that she had gone on to live in a half-English household and raise half-English children.
It took years, but one day I realized that my dad had become my best friend
But while love may break down barriers, certain things run deep. So when the issue of who was going to be buried where popped up in their last years, I was not all that surprised. Neither was my sister. And yet, the thought of them apart felt wrong.
Which explains why when Dick died three years ago, we did the only thing we could think of. Nothing. And because Lucie was sick in hospital and most of my dad’s lifelong friends had already beaten him to the finish line, we didn’t have a funeral either. This did not sit quite right with my sister even though I was secretly thrilled to be spared from that whole ugly-cry in public thing. But excuses aside, funerals seem so final and neither of us were ready to say goodbye. We should have been but we weren’t.
And so my dad’s cremated remains were placed in a nice boxy-wood urn on a shelf at my sister’s house. And then mine. But this year my brilliant formidable mother – who I never thought could be taken down by something so ordinary as death – died, too, and suddenly my only sibling and I were forced to confront reality. They were gone. We needed to give them both a proper farewell and, even though we still didn’t like the idea of an eternal breakup, we must respect their wishes.
But then we got to thinking. … If these two lovebirds were fine to be separated from one another till the end of time, was it okay to go one step further?
Sometimes a little absurdity is just what you need when you’re grieving
And so, on a fine summer day in Brockville, Ont., to the haunting sound of the Last Post played by a very hard to find bugler, my proud veteran father’s ashes – or half of them – were interred in his family plot. He is surrounded by dozens (if not hundreds) of his Upper Canada Loyalist ancestors and cousins. I know my dad, my hero, is looking down at us with a smile on his face.
The next morning and with much joie de vivre in a small rural Catholic cemetery in the Outaouais region on the other side of the border, my mother’s ashes – or half of them – were laid to rest with her Québécois maman and papa, where one day, her older sisters will join her and her parents.
It was all perfect. And finally, Dick and Lucie – or one-half of them – are back together again in a new but identical boxy-wood urn. I am also pleased to report that ugly-crying is easier to shake off when grief is not so raw.
My sister and I are aware that we should bury that boxy-wood urn with their other halves, too – in a neutral, not Quebec-not Ontario place, perhaps in a spot they both loved or maybe even where they met so long ago. But I can’t do it yet. I like having them on my shelf. I need my sister to hold my hand. I am not ready to say goodbye again. I should be but I am not.
Danielle Murray lives in Montreal.
