Short Story #27 -- Nine-Year-Old, Reimagined

Yesterday when I sat down to work on a Writing Club story (for the club composed of my best friend, Cathy, and me) I was surprised to see that it had been over two years since I'd written the last one, The Killer Whale and the Meadowlark. Cathy suggested the topic for this one -- an opportunity to look back at some event that impacted our younger selves and to respond to it differently.

One of the defining moments of my life was when I was nine years old, and my parents moved our family from small-town Saskatchewan to Alberta's capital city so that they could take over a church supplies store. It was a big adjustment for a little prairie girl. I knew so little about the big wide world, and how was a nine-year-old supposed to handle racism?

One day, helping at my parents' store, I picked up the first badge mentioned in the story below, and when I wore it to school and the kids asked its meaning, they started to call me “Holy-holy.” My nickname didn’t bother me as much as some of the other girls’ nastier nicknames bothered them, but we were all bothered, no question. Here’s that life event reimagined, as my affirmation for anyone who was ever teased or bullied by other kids.

Nine-Year-Old, Reimagined

MCWC #27

November 17, 2020

There was no way around it, these kids were strange.

And loud, and rude, and mean.

Not all of them. But more than I was used to, including the gossipy girls and Tom S and Tommy W. Maybe being a city slicker made you that way. But Diane wasn’t a city slicker in my old hometown, and she had seemed loud and rude and mean sometimes, like these kids. Especially when she swore, and when she tried to make my baby sister eat a mud, leaves and sticks pie. And now it seemed like I was going to a school with lots of Dianes.

Moving from a Saskatchewan hamlet of three hundred to a city of 450,000 was a shock to the system. So was going from a quiet class of 17 to a noisy group of 22. I liked Mrs. Collins, but some of the kids, not so much.

Laurel was paired up with me as soon as I walked into the classroom. She was allowed to pull her desk next to mine so she could help me find my way through the textbooks and activities that the other Grade Fours had already been working through for two months. At first it seemed like she was really excited to show the new girl around, like I was her prize, not to be shared with the other girls. But then at recess two days later, she got into a fight with Tommy W, and I was shocked by the way her fists flew. She seemed to expect me to jump in and help her, but I didn’t understand that until after, when she told me I was useless. After the fight, I overheard her and some of her usual friends whispering about me. The words “small town nobody” filtered into my consciousness, and Laurel abandoned me.

Joan, Karen, and Patricia told me to ignore the mean girls, who were mean to them, too. The unlikely trio who adopted me were quieter than Laurel and her friends, but they were also made fun of by the mean girls, and were picked on relentlessly by Tommy W and Tom S. Patricia’s dad was from the West Indies and her mom was from Holland, so she wasn’t quite as white as the rest of us. She was a small but feisty target for the class bullies’ entertainment, able to shout them down sometimes, backed up by Karen, the tallest kid in our class, and Joan, who invoked her big brother’s name whenever she deemed it necessary to strike real fear into the school bullies’ hearts. They all seemed to know about John, and backed off when she threatened his intervention.

Even so, no one could stop Tom S and Tommy W from chanting at Patricia from a distance, “Paki! Paki! Your dad is a Paki and so are you!” until she was in tears and they ran off laughing.

What on earth was a Paki?

I had no idea or explanation, but Joan, Karen and Patricia would sometimes launch themselves after the Grade Four bully boys and chase them all the way across the school yard, and pull their hair or kick their shins. These chases made me really uncomfortable because I didn’t want to fight like Laurel had. I could see that the boys’ nastiness came out of boredom. It was always a relief when they were busy playing soccer with the Italian kids at recess because they forgot to bother us. But when the Italians got fed up with Tom S and Tommy W’s cheating and kicked the two bullies out of the game, look out! They took it out on Patricia.

Joan, Karen and Patricia seemed kind of strange compared to friends back in my old hometown. They didn’t want to play games at recess. Mostly, they stood around talking about cable TV shows and pretending they were Pinky and the Tuscaderos. They liked to gossip about David Cassidy, Donnie Osmond, or whoever was the flavour of the day on the cover of the latest teen magazine that Joan’s big sisters subscribed to.

And they had so many ‘clubs.’ At recess, I never knew whether it would be The Six Million Dollar Man, Tiger Beat, Fleetwood Mac or any number of other fan clubs from one day to the next. It baffled me, but I tried to seem interested, though I had little idea what they were talking about because my house didn’t have cable TV yet.

After three weeks in Grade Four, Mrs. Collins pulled me aside one recess and asked me how I liked my new school. “It’s okay, I guess,” I said, “and the work is pretty easy so far.”

“Well, Maria, how would you like a bit more of a challenge? The tests Mrs. Hilderink gave you in the Resource Room say that you’re reading way above Grade Four Level, so I was wondering if you would like to go for Grade 5 Language Arts with Sylvia and Simon? This afternoon, Sylvia will take you with her to Mr. Wozny’s room, and help you figure things out.”

Sylvia was one of Laurel’s friends, but I soon discovered that, away from Laurel and the rest of the mean girls, she was okay. I didn’t like Mr. Wozny very much, but he was pleased with my reading and writing, and I kept up just fine. Plus I got to know a few of the Grade Five girls, who seemed nice, if a bit aloof.

Mr. Wozny put me in a desk right behind Anna. She and her older sister were the only Chinese Canadian students in the entire school. She was smart and pretty, I thought, and nicer than Sylvia. She had a quiet smile and a sharp sense of humour, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that she was always having to use it to deflect nasty comments from some of the other Grade Fives, who seemed to be jealous of her.

One Friday morning recess when Joan and Patricia were pretending to be Police Women and had commandeered Francis and Karl to be bad guys, I noticed Anna walking along the edge of the school fence all by herself. I ran over to her, and saw that she was crying.

“Anna, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing you should bother with.”

“No, I want to know.”

She sniffed and used her mittens to dry her eyes. “Michael, Scott, and Greg were just calling me a Chink, like they always do. This time, they tripped me and ran away before the supervision teacher saw it.”

The boys were off in the distance, pointing at us. I frowned and found a crumpled Kleenex in my pocket to give to her. “Is Chink anything like Paki?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look, then laughed out loud. “I guess so. But my family is Chinese, not Pakistani.”

“Neither is Patricia’s family.”

“No, the bullies don’t care what they call people, they just want to pick on someone for being different.”

“But we’re all different.”

“No, you’re white.”

“I know. But they treat me different because I don’t know how to be a city kid. And because my parents run a church supplies store and I’m learning lots about church stuff.”

“That’s not like being Chinese.”

“I guess not, but I think you’re so smart and pretty and funny, and they just need to see it.”

“I don’t think they can,” she sighed. “They just think what they think, and it’s like they all think the same.”

“Well, they need to think different,” I said. “Maybe there's something we can do. In the meantime, can I hang out with you? Karen’s not here today, and I don’t really like being part of the “Police Woman Club.”

“Sure.” Anna smiled a small smile. “I’m not an Angie Dickinson fan either.”

“Who’s she?”

“What else don’t you know, country girl?”

I took a chance and asked Anna a lot of the questions that I had been afraid to ask the other kids in my class since arriving in the city. She told me that Pakistan was closer to China than the West Indies, and that the bullies probably were confusing Patricia with the Pakistanis who were immigrating to Edmonton to get English educations. Anna’s own family had emigrated because things had been difficult for them in China. And Anna knew way more about cable TV shows than I did.

When the recess bell rang, we started back to the school, but Michael, Greg, Scott, Tommy W and Tom S were waiting for us mid-schoolyard.

“Chink, Chink, Chinky-Chink!” Michael, Greg and Scott screamed. “You eat cow stomachs for lunch!”

Tommy W and Tom S circled around me, vying for the older boys’ approval, saying, “Why are you hanging out with the Chink, Small Town Nobody?” Tom S pounded my back with his fist for good measure, watching for the Grade Fives' grins, catching me by surprise. Angry tears jumped to my eyes, but I just stood there, staring them all down.

“Huh,” Tom said. “She doesn’t hit back.”

“Don’t you know that Jesus said to turn the other cheek?” I said quietly. “Leave us alone.”

“Chinky-chink and Holy-holy,” Michael yelled, as Anna and I moved closer together and glared at them. The boys all took up the chant as they ran for the school.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked.

“Yeah, just mad. And I’m thinking about what to do about it.”

When I walked into the Grade Four classroom, Karen was telling Mrs. Collins that she came late because her dad forgot to wake her up. She was eating a cereal bar, and it looked like she had just climbed out of bed and put on her clothes about a minute before. Her socks didn't match and her hair was sticking out all over the place.

“Rooster Tail, Rooster Tail!” Tommy W and Tom S started another chant, and for a few seconds, I was glad they weren’t chanting Holy-holy anymore. But Karen was livid. “Don’t call me that!” she said loudly, her face turning bright red.

Mrs. Collins silenced the boys with a look, and started a Social Studies lesson. But whenever the teacher was distracted by other kids, Tom and Tommy were quietly rude and mean, goading Karen with her new nickname, which they had shortened to Rooster. By the end of the day, she was in tears, too.

When I got home from school, Mom told me that the evening’s plan was to rearrange and reorganize another corner of the new store. When Dad came home, we all had a quick supper and drove back downtown as a family. My sisters went straight to the kids’ corner to look at the picture books and read to each other, but I wandered around aimlessly, thinking about Anna and Karen and the bullies.

“Maria,” Mom called, “would you mind sorting out this box for me? All of these pins have gotten mixed up, so they need to be separated back into their proper compartments.”

There were doves, crosses, rainbows, happy faces, lambs, peace symbols, more different pins than I had ever imagined. I dumped the whole mess out onto a countertop and it took me a good half-hour to sort everything. When I was finished, I had about two dozen pins that didn’t fit into the box with the others, including ten round badges of different fluorescent colours that bore the cryptic message, PBPGINTWMY.

Mom checked on my organizational efforts. “Thank you, Maria, that’s much better.”

“You’re welcome, Mom. There are a few single ones that don't match any of the others. And what do these fluorescent ones mean?”

“I’m not sure. Is there a sticker on the back?”

“Just the company name.”

Mom went to the order desk and pulled out a catalogue. “Let’s see if we can find out. She flipped through the pages until she found it. “Hmm, it seems to be shorthand for ‘Please Be Patient. God Is Not Through With Me Yet.’ But if you have to ask, maybe no one else will know what it means either. Do you want these things?”

“Sure. They give me an idea.”

Monday at school, I gave out my own reinvented fluorescent badges to Anna, Patricia, Karen, Joan and a few other quieter girls on the playground who were picked on by the bully boys, or who the mean girls gossiped about. My badges said IASAKAFABANOWSOKWTTA.

“I-a-sak-a-fab-a what?” Joan tried to pronounce it.

“What does it mean?” everyone asked.

When I told my new friends that it was a new club to protect them from the nasty kids, and what the letters meant, they laughed, but they nodded when I said, “You don’t have to tell the nasty kids what it means. You’re the one who knows who you are. Just point to your badge, walk away, and find other friends with badges. We’re a club, remember?”

The loud, rude and mean kids were flummoxed. “What language is that supposed to be? And what does it mean? What does it mean?”

“That’s for us to know and you to find out,” we replied, and I’m not sure even one of us ever revealed our badges’ secret super powers, probably because it was hard to get the saying right. Even I got it mixed up, but it translated as

I
Am
Smart
And
Kind
And
Funny
And
Beautiful
And
No
One
Who
Says
Otherwise
Knows
What
They’re
Talking
About.

S...L...O...W... Short Story #4

I've been feeling stressed lately, an unusual thing for me. As someone who deliberately keeps a slower pace of life, making sure there are enough quiet spaces, I'm finding myself in a busier than usual time that hasn't allowed for a lot of thought or attention to detail. I don't like it when life moves too fast because it's hard to appreciate the little things. Today I'm going to slow down and enjoy them.

Julia is home with a fever, so I have a serendipitous quiet morning with her. Rather than engaging in moodling as I often do in quiet times, I'm going to share another short story here, from eight years ago. When I wrote it, I was wishing to be more like my grandma, and in the years since, I think my wish has come true in a lot of the little homemaking ways mentioned. I'm off to bake some cookies and spend some time with my little girl who has grown so much, and who is not going to be little for very much longer.

S…L…O…W…

We walk down the street, at a snail’s pace, almost, my three-year-old and I.  It is a sunny March afternoon with a cool breeze coming from the north, and snow banks gradually disappearing around us.  There are periodic puddles submerging the sidewalks and we stop at each one as Julia determines whether she wants to push her dolly stroller through it, or whether she wants me to carry it.  With the north wind behind us, and hours ahead of us before the older girls get home from school, I am determined to take this ramble around the neighbourhood at a leisurely saunter.

But how difficult it is to move at Julia’s speed.  The temptation is to lift her into my arms, grab the half-pint-sized stroller, and hustle along more quickly.  Why is that?  Why rush through life when the sky is this blue and the puddles this perfect?  So often I am aware of little boots clomping along beside me at a gallop, as I hold Julia’s hand and stride through the mall to mail a letter or return library books.  I swing her up on my shoulder and lug a heavy bag of books or groceries with my other arm, feeling the tendons in my shoulders strain with the weight of the child on one side balanced by the heaviness of the load dangling from my other forearm.  And lately, I think I may have overdone it, as I can’t sleep on one sore shoulder.

We amble along, turning east, and then north as we circumnavigate the block.  Julia stops and hands me the stroller.  “Here,” she says.  I take it, and watch her wade rather gingerly into a deep pool on the sidewalk.  She stands there a moment, moving her foot and watching the ripples, testing how deep the water is. Then she becomes still as she sees her own reflection looking up at her from its surface.  But the wind is cold, ruffling the water and blowing in her face, and tears are running down her cheeks.  “I’m crying,” she says, matter-of-factly, and in spite of my determination to take this walk in low gear, I lift her out of the puddle and carry her and the doll stroller to the corner so that we can walk and play without the wind in our faces. 

It seems warmer now that we are walking west.  The sun is shining and there are houses across the street to break the wind a bit.  I let Julia take the lead, and watch her cracking the ice on the edges of the puddles the sun hasn’t touched, ready to catch her should she slip.  I’m thinking, isn’t this a glorious waste of time.  The vehicles whiz past on the busy street behind me, racing to their destinations, and my concern is only the journey of the moment.  What a luxury, to meander around the block at the pace of a three-year-old.  How many of the people in those cars would trade places with me in an instant?

And yet, I suspect many of them wouldn’t.  I have to admit that even I find the pace of a three-year-old too slow a lot of the time.  I am a product of our space age culture as much as anyone else.  I love to get things done quickly, to go places in a hurry.  I love the instantaneous world of the internet, and email, and long distance.  I would fly to Europe on the Corcorde if I could.  I drink instant coffee and I eat fast food now and then.  My kitchen has a microwave, and a dishwasher.  The news comes immediately via radio and television (though I don’t have CNN).

But I am also a child of my ancestors.  Their world wasn’t so rushed, and I find myself longing for that world, even though it was much more labour-intensive than mine.  Were letters more valuable when they took several months to reach their destination?  Were journeys to visit distant friends more of an occasion when they lasted several days in horse-drawn wagon?  Was music more appreciated when new songs appeared on the radio less frequently?  Was food tastier when it wasn’t fast?  Was clothing more special when it was made by hand?  Of course, of course, of course, of course, of course.

My pioneer grand mother wasn’t able to drive to the store for frozen peas.  She grew her own, and knew a satisfaction that I don’t know when I pull a bag from my freezer.  When she made supper, she was working with earthy things that she had helped to bring into existence.  She shelled peas, cultivated potatoes and pickled cucumbers and carrots, and preserved myriad other things.  Her husband grew grain that was eventually transformed, by hand, mind you, into noodles and strudel and bread and pastries.  He raised feed for the chickens, pigs and cattle that became the meat on the table.  And I, I am so far from it all, except for the few weeks of the year when my puny garden patch yields its carrots and tomatoes and beans.

Slowness is not a virtue in the culture within which I exist.  All the time-saving devices that speed up processes that the pioneers in my past would spend an entire day, or week, or summer doing, mean that I should have enough time on my hands to do twice as much as they ever did.  Yet somehow, I don’t see that happening in my life.  How often have I said, “I’ll write that letter tomorrow,”  “I’ll call my friend this week,” “I’ll scrub the tops of my cupboards soon,” and these small things are undone until this moment in time.  I spend less time washing the dishes, yes, but do I spend more time on other, important, time-consuming things?

How often have I wished that I could stop everything so that I could savour a moment?  At the same time, I suspect that, if I could suspend the laws of the universe and prevent time from moving so quickly, it would last but a few minutes before I became impatient and said, “That’s enough; let’s get on with it.”  And how often am I impatient with things that move slower than molasses running uphill in January?  The driver ahead of me.  My nine-year-old as she peels a carrot.  The institutions that seem to carry on forever without changing for the better.  And yet, these forms of slowness are, sometimes, a good thing.  The driver ahead of me saves me from a photo-radar ticket.  My nine-year-old has yet to peel her finger.  The church I belong to has continued to work for justice and peace at its own pace for 2000 years. 

Some of these things roll around in my mind as Julia and I stroll along.  We come to a piece of sidewalk where, when the cement was wet, another little girl pushed her doll carriage and left footprints and wheel marks behind.  Julia is fascinated, trying to fit her stroller’s wheels into the tracks of 35 years ago when the sidewalk was poured in 1968, as the concrete stamp announces.  That other little girl could have been me, I realize, had I lived in this neighbourhood in 1968.  Time moves more rapidly than I think, but moments like this, caught in concrete, give me pause.  If it has taken so little time for me to grow 35 years, it won’t be long and Julia will find herself at a moment like this.

We stop near a drain on the curb, and watch bits of street flotsam move through the water and slide through the bars and down into the sewer.  I find a stem with several mountain ash leaves on it, and pull them off one by one to put them into the racing current so that Julia can watch the boats float away.  Soon she has found her own mountain ash leaves, and is dropping them, one by one, into the water along the curb.  Some of them get stuck, and I reach in a finger to set them free.  I take Julia’s hand and walk a little further down the sidewalk, where the water flows more gently, and I tell her to float her boats here.  She drops two leaves in, watches a moment as they gradually start to move toward the drain, but loses interest and goes back to where the water rushes the leaves away.  She drops in the rest of her little boats, several at a time now.  Even Julia is a child for velocity.

When we arrive at our front stoop, we sit a moment on the steps and watch a car splash through a puddle.  We have been out for over an hour, and I find I am not anxious to end the magic of the slow-motion walk.  I go into the house and get two glasses of water and some crackers, and we sit on the steps, munching and getting up to go look at the tulips peeking through the soil, examining a spider that has awakened from its hibernation early.  For the ten minutes that we spend there, I watch my daughter eating her crackers and poking around, and I am grateful that I have a three-year-old to remind me that life shouldn’t be lived in such a hurry all the time.

Short Story #1

Today's moodling is pre-empted by tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes. It's spaghetti sauce day. Rather than leave you moodle-less, I'll share something I wrote in 2002, at the start of the MCWC (writing club) that my best friend and I formed. It's loosely-based on the life of a friend named Jean, God rest her. I still have her teapot, which now contains an aloe vera plant.

A Visit with Jean

I suppose you’ve come for tea.  That’s what we always used to do, isn’t it?…  You still have our old, cracked teapot?  I can imagine that wandering Jew would look nice trailing out of it.  I always loved houseplants.  See my china doll over there?  I made sure it came with me to this place.

Do you remember our teas during that storm that closed school for a week?  Father was away on one of his trips to Guadeloupe, and I was alone, looking through some knitting magazines, and the doorbell rang.  Who on earth would be out on this howling winter night, I thought?  I was afraid to answer the door, but I thought it might be an emergency, someone needing Father.  So I opened the door, but I wasn’t sure who it was until you peeled off your scarf.  25 below, and blizzard conditions, and you had come for tea.  I knew better.  I knew you had come to check on me.  We had tea every night that week, didn’t we?

Oh, I’m doing all right for an old lady.  This place isn’t so bad.  Madeleine comes to take me to mass every Sunday.  The food is good.  The people are nice enough, though Harold across the hall gets a little loud at times.  Sometimes Madeleine drags one of her grandkids along for a visit.  It’s nice having young ones around now and then.  No, I can’t complain.  Even if I had something to complain about, what good does complaining do?

If you wouldn’t mind reaching the tea from the top shelf there?  Thank you, my dear.  I’m just not as tall as I used to be…  No spring chicken anymore, either – I’m eighty-eight.  I’m sorry I didn’t know you at the funeral.  To be honest, there were a lot of faces I just didn’t recognize anymore.  You’ve changed quite a bit, though, in the last ten years.  Did you lose some weight?…  I thought so.  And your hair is going a little grey.  But I’m sure it was the little one in your arms that confused me the most…  Yes, let me see that picture.  Oh, aren’t they nice!  Hard to believe you have three of them already.  I guess I still think of you as a young lady schoolteacher.  I still think of me, sometimes, as a twenty-five year old, too.  But my body doesn’t let me get away with that illusion for long.

Do you take milk?…  I do, too.  It always tasted better to me that way, even when I was much younger.  It’s been a long time since I was twenty-five.  I loved my life then.  Yes, I suppose I’ve loved my life most of the time.  Back then I had a nice job at the Montreal Gazette switchboard during the war.  Bonjour, la Gazette!  Comment puis-je diriger votr’ appel?  I lived in a tiny little flat with another girl on the switchboard, a short walk from the office, and a two hour bus ride from my parents, God rest them.  I was in the Legion of Mary and did some work for Victory Bonds and had other involvements I’ve long since forgotten.  I’ve forgotten so much French since I came west, but sometimes I still think about answering the phone, Bonjour, la Gazette!  English?  I learned that at the convent school my parents sent me to; one of the nuns took the trouble to teach us.  But I’ve told you all this before, haven’t I?

I need to sit down, but if you wouldn’t mind, there are some lemon cookies in the third drawer there…  Yes, that one…  You’re right; it’s been a while since we had our evening teas…  Twelve years?  Well, time does fly, and it flies faster and faster as you get older and older.  My memory’s not so good anymore either, but I remember the first time I saw Joe at the Montreal train station like it was two minutes ago.  I was thirty-seven when I came to Alberta.  My parents had given up on their only daughter ever finding a husband, but they were pretty upset that I would go all the way to an unheard of place like Killam with this strange German farmer after having spent only two weeks getting to know him in Montreal.  They didn’t think my running off as a mail order bride with a man ten years older than me was such a good idea.  But my brothers talked to Maman and Papa, and told them I was a grown woman with my own choices to make.  Even without my parents’ blessing, I’d have gone.

I was far more concerned about Joe than about what my parents thought of me.  His four kids lost their mother when they were so young, and he needed a woman’s touch and help with the farm.  I liked Joe right away.  He wasn’t tall, but he was lean and dark, losing his hair when I met him, and almost like a billiard ball later on.  He was the kind of man you just knew was honest by the way he looked at you.  There was nothing hidden behind those eyes.  Good thing he didn’t have much of a temper – he’d have worn it on his sleeve!  He was quiet, he didn’t drink, he didn’t have anything physically wrong with him other than one missing finger, and I was intrigued by the thought of Alberta.  Those mountains!

Of course it wasn’t easy.  I soon learned that my English wasn’t as good as I thought.  Joe’s children didn’t take to me very well – they were teenagers who didn’t want a mother by then.  And I knew nothing about farming!  The children made fun of me using English words I didn’t know.  They were always leaving things in a mess and a muddle, on purpose.  Their dad didn’t see it, or didn’t want to – he had to take their side – I think he carried a lot of guilt that they’d been motherless so long.  I tried to be happy, but it was a challenge.  Madeleine tells me now, usually on my birthday, that she’s sorry about how mean she was to me as a teenager.  We laugh about it sometimes.  The boys never did get over the fact that their dad remarried, though they still extend a polite courtesy to me.  I think Madeleine was just young enough to need me a little bit, and for us to learn to love each other.

Joe knew I was having a hard time, especially with the boys, and he tried to make it up to me when the children weren’t around.  I’ll never forget the time he came in from the fields after seeding was done, saying, pack your bags, we’re taking a little trip.  And he drove us to Jasper before sundown.  We stayed at a little bungalow on the edge of the river, and it was beautiful, to say the least.  We hadn’t really had a honeymoon, unless you include our short so-called courtship in Montreal, so we made up for it in two days in Jasper.  I fell in love with the mountains then, and the town.  Nothing fancy there back then, but unspoiled beauty!

Then it was back to the farm, and the children, and reality.  I wasn’t too crazy about reality, but I did my best with what I had.  That’s what life is about, isn’t it?  Joe wanted us to have our own baby, but it just didn’t happen, and honestly, I was relieved.  Being a farmer’s wife and the stepmother of three boys and one girl was enough to get used to.  I know that Divine Providence was smiling on me, though – I got to know Barbara, the wife of Joe’s friend Leo, and she helped me adjust more than anyone could.  Being a farm girl all her life, she knew the ins and outs of a farmer’s year and was pleased to teach me, too.  How to butcher chickens, how to make sausage, how to plant and tend a garden, cooking for the hands at harvest – she taught so much to this city slicker!  I think our relationship started out of pity on her part, but we ended up bosom friends.  She lost Leo three years ago, and found that really hard, poor girl.  She has arthritis pretty bad now and doesn’t get around too good.  We talk long distance some Sunday nights, and she visits when she comes to town to see her daughter.

Where was I?…  Oh yes.  Farming was in its boom time, and Joe’s boys were all able to buy land and do well enough, and get married and start their own families.  The boys all settled around Killam, but Madeleine met a boy at a dance in Delburn, and before I knew it, she was married off, too, living a hundred miles away.  To be honest, that’s when I came into my own, with those children out of the house.  I got used to the rhythms of farming, and I loved my life with Joe.  We often spent our evenings with Barbara and Leo and other couples in the area, playing cards and visiting.  Whenever there was a dance, Joe would try to take me.  He was a wonderful dancer!  And he made sure we visited those mountains at least once a year.  For our twentieth anniversary, he took me to Emerald Lake for a whole long weekend and surprised me with this lovely band of diamonds…  Yes, I think you’re right; they call them eternity rings now.

 

It was when I thought I couldn’t get any happier that the shock hit.  Paul found Joe unconscious in the field, and until we got him to the hospital in town, he was dead.  He died in my arms in the back of the pickup without me really realizing…  Heart attack, the doctor said.

You’ve probably guessed that Father was the priest in town then.  He was very kind and patient with us all through the days after Joe’s death, and made sure the funeral was done right.  He’d only been transferred to town the previous summer, but he seemed to know that I was the outsider in the family, and made sure that I was included in the funeral planning even though Paul, Ed and George would have excluded me.  Joe’s boys respected Father, and I was glad of that.

The boys were basically running the farm by then, and Joe had left it to them in the will.  Without Joe there, I had no desire to stay on at the farm anyway.  Joe left me with enough to be comfortable, though.  I probably could have bought a little house in town and still managed alright.  I thought about returning to Quebec, but after 22 years, there really wasn’t anything to pull me back there.  My parents had both died, and I’d been back for their funerals by train – and found I felt out of place.  But if I didn’t go back East, where would I go?  I didn’t know.  Thank heavens for Barbara – she made me come and stay with her for a few weeks, and told me that Elsa Gerber, Father’s part-time house keeper, was going to Stettler to help her daughter with a difficult pregnancy, so Father was looking for another housekeeper to fill in – maybe I could consider that.

I didn’t know Father very well then, being only a Sunday Catholic in those days.  Farm wives couldn’t exactly drop everything and take the truck to daily mass.  Barbara talked to Father about me, but I wasn’t too sure I wanted to fill that position.  Father knew what he wanted, though, and the second Sunday I saw him after the funeral, he took me aside and practically interviewed me for the job right there.  He decided I would be fine for the job, and that he wanted me to work for him full-time.  And I didn’t really argue because I felt I had been living on Barbara’s charity long enough.  I could work for Father instead, at least for a while.

Town life was much easier on me than farm life.  I moved my few things into the little room in the back of the rectory, and started to cook and clean and care for another man.  No grown children to worry about.  At first there was a bit of talk about Father and me as I was only seven years older than him, but he said to just ignore it and it would go away.  He was right.  We settled into a rhythm, and it was quiet and good for my soul.  When I was young, I had thought about becoming a nun in a cloistered convent, but I was such a social butterfly that it was never a serious thought.  Life with Father was sort of like I pictured life in a convent to be, except I was still able to socialize.  If a parishioner invited Father out to supper, it was an unwritten rule that the widowed housekeeper would come, too.  Father and I were card partners in social gatherings.  It was almost like being married, except for having separate bedrooms and complete privacy from each other.

Sure, I missed the closeness of a physical relationship, but being Father’s housekeeper seemed to keep single men from approaching me unless there was some sort of emergency and they needed Father.  I was his receptionist, too.  Bonjour, la paroisse!  I was tempted to say sometimes.  The calls were usually for him.  My friend Barbara invited me out fairly often, and one day she told me that Elsa Gerber was back, but was happy to let me stay on as housekeeper as Father didn’t pay much for part-time work.  I was actually quite relieved.  I realized that day that I had become quite fond of Father and my life with him.

No, not that he was the easiest man to live with.  I’ve never met a man with such a mind for numbers, especially where money was concerned.  Having been poor as a child, he watched every penny.  He could tell you every price he ever paid for his antique cars, and lots of other things besides…  I’m not surprised he knew the price of your parents’ house – things like that stuck with him…  No, he didn’t pay me much, but with room and board as housekeeper, I didn’t need much to get by. 

With Father, things had to be done just so or his sarcastic wit would come out swinging.  I could always tell when I’d done something wrong by the way he’d go quiet.  Later I’d get the sermon.  He was real picky about some things.  Don’t forget to polish the silver.  Don’t buy apples from the Lucky Dollar; they’re cheaper at Stein’s.  Don’t interrupt him when he’s watching M*A*S*H*.  Make sure his laundry and mine aren’t hanging outside together or the neighbours might see.  Make sure it’s Earl Grey Tea after mass, and English Breakfast in the morning.  Don’t bother him while he’s restoring his Thunderbird…  I suppose you’re right, all men have their quirks.  I guess his weren’t so bad, really.  He treated me very kindly for the most part.  I have to admit I got a kick out of it when he took me around in one of his classic cars.  I felt like a teenager!

I learned to play the organ because of Father.  It was in Jasper that it started.  We were transferred there in 1980.  I was so happy!  I actually was living in those mountains, and not just as a tourist!  Even better was the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes at the side altar of the church.  She had such beautiful eyes, and a little smile always on her lips.  We became good friends, she and I.  I think she commiserated with me over my organ playing.  You see, there was no organist when we got to Jasper, so Father decided I should learn.  It bothered him that a big expensive instrument like that was just sitting there.  Playing it was a nightmare at first.  I had had piano lessons when I was a girl, but organ is something different.  You don’t play the organ the way you play “The Darktown Stutter’s Ball.”  You have to hold those keys down.

The first song I learned was the old Lourdes hymn, “Immaculate Mary,” for Our Lady.  You know the saying about teaching old dogs new tricks?  I got good at it eventually, but for a long while it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Our Lady shudder over at the side altar.  Some people complained that I had my own rhythm, and I suppose I did, but no one else came forward to play the organ for about three years, so they just had to put up with my rhythm.  Finally Dolores, a teacher from town, took over.  She was so nice about it, and we got to be good friends.  She even gave me some pointers about my playing.  For the most part, I lost my job as organist, which was fine by me.  Unless Dolores was away, and then I had to remember how to do it all over again.  I’m only glad that Our Lady and most of the tourists kept their smiles.  After we left Jasper, I tried to go and visit Dolores and Our Lady once a year, but I’m afraid it’s been nearly ten since I’ve been back.  Dolores still writes me, and says Our Lady is as lovely as ever.

When Father was transferred to Ponoka, my organ days were behind me.  They had enough organists there, and Father never wanted music at daily mass, so I was just the housekeeper.  I liked Ponoka, too – it was a little like returning to Killam.  Do you remember Millie Abt?…  She was one of my close friends there – she often came to visit Father and me, and she came to Father’s funeral, too.  There were a lot of people from Ponoka who came.  They proved what a good man he was, even though I know a lot of people in Ponoka complained about him, too.  Well, people don’t like change, and complained a lot about the way Father renovated the church, but he saved a bundle by doing most of the work himself.  I did try to tell him that the orange and green shag rug he installed in the meeting room was too dated, but it was a bargain, and he was so frugal that he wouldn’t listen to what he called vanity.  Millie told me that the first thing that they did after we left was get rid of that rug, and I wasn’t surprised.  I never did mention it to Father, though.

When we retired to Red Deer, Father seemed a little lost at first…  True, his life in Ponoka got to be almost like a retirement at the end, but I guess not having the responsibility for the Church day in and day out left him feeling antsy.  That’s why he built the chapel in the basement of the new house.  And he took on leading a couple of pilgrimages to Guadeloupe.  Las Vegas and Guadeloupe were his favourite places to travel, but especially Guadeloupe.  He loved the Mexican people, and was so delighted to discover the small Spanish community in Red Deer.  That’s where he found Josie to come in and help me with the housework.  I just couldn’t do it all anymore.  Because of Josie, Father started saying daily mass in the basement in Spanish, and before long, we had a dozen of her family and friends showing up for mass every day.  Did you ever get a Christmas card signed Padre Antonio?  He signed all of them that way…  No, I don’t know why he called you Mitzi – especially since your name is the name of Our Lady in Spanish.  Maybe you didn’t look Spanish enough in his mind.  Another one of his quirks, I guess.

My eightieth birthday party was the biggest surprise of my life!…  Father sent you an invitation too, did he?…  I’m not surprised.  Father rented out a small hall in the Black Knight Inn and invited some of the people we both knew from Killam, Jasper, Ponoka and Red Deer, all behind my back.  He often took me out for supper to the Black Knight, so I didn’t have a clue until I walked into the room and everyone shouted “SURPRISE!”  You could have knocked me over with a toothpick.  It was a wonderful party.  I’m sorry that you missed it.

Father didn’t complain much about the effects of aging.  I don’t think he thought much about getting old.  He did make sure, though, that he had a plot here at Mount Calvary and I had reserved the one beside Joe in Killam cemetery.  Once in a while Father would ask me if I had any special requests for my funeral.  Those were always short conversations because I never did, other than Immaculate Mary as one of the songs.  I always assumed I’d die before he did, and he’d do just the right thing for me like he did for Joe and so many other people we’d buried.  I think he thought I’d die first, too. 

The stroke came after Father had had the flu for about a week.  He woke up one morning feeling worse than usual, so I called Ed, his nephew, to come and take him to Emergency.  I had no idea that he would never return to the house, or that he would never speak to me again…   Yes, I suppose it was better not to know, but I felt so sad, having taken everything for granted up till that day when the stroke hit.  Had I known, I’d have talked with him more that last week, or gotten his family in to visit more, or…  You’re probably right; he just wasn’t up to company.  But I still think I could have looked after him better those last few days he was at home.

Ed and the rest of the family were very kind in looking out for me while they settled Father into the nursing home.  They helped me to find this place before they put the house up on the market, and Ed drove me to see Father every Sunday up until the week he died.  I’m not sure if Father really knew I was there, all those visits.  He just pushed his walker up and down the corridor with a blank expression, or sat in his lazy boy chair, drooling.  It broke my heart.  I wondered if he still was thinking about the cost of the first church he had built, or the time he guessed the exact score of the Grey Cup game and won fifty dollars from George Dewald.  I got too sad, talking to him and him never answering, so I started bring books to read to Father.  He had loved westerns, so that’s what I read.  I got to like them too.  I also took out his photo albums once in a while and showed them to him.  It was hard to tell, but I think he was trying to smile those times.

It’s so hard to believe he’s gone.  I think his passing took a lot out of me; I’m so tired now…  I was his housekeeper for 24 years.  That’s as long as I was married to Joe.  The funeral was nice, wasn’t it?…  Yes, so many of our friends were there, and the priests who used to come for supper.  Wasn’t Father Karl’s homily nice?…  He always was a good preacher.  Father was his mentor, you know.  It was all so nice, in spite of the fuss about the Last Post.  Millie told me that the newspapers picked it up.  I still don’t understand why the priest at the church refused to let Father have the Last Post to play him out.  He was a military chaplain, after all, and probably would have liked that…

I’m sorry, my dear… but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave… so I can have a little rest…  I guess that’s what happens when you get old…  I’m ready to fall asleep in this chair, but it’s been so nice to visit with you.  Next time you come, bring your girls.  I’d love to see them…  Forgive me for not getting up to see you out.  Yes, I’m fine… I really am…  Father’s death was such a great loss… such a loss…  He’s up there now, looking out for me…  I guess now it’s his turn…  I guess it’s about time… they both look after me… both of them…