Dear Mick,

I’m sitting here, on this anniversary of your death, thinking of the quote I read not too long ago:

The hole never fills, but new life will grow around it.

Isn’t this a beautiful way to put it?  Lisa just shared your picture with this note:  I can’t believe that 10 years have passed already. Missing you   You are far from forgotten, all these years later. 

So what happened between December 21, 2019 and today?  Holy shit!  Hang on to your hat because 2020 and 2021 brought on so. much. stuff.

After the last Christmas party worked at the golf club (December 8), I got so sick and wasn’t able to work the last two on the 13th and 14th (actually was still sick when I wrote the five-year letter).  Looking back, I think I actually had caught this virus, as taken from the World Health Organisation site:

On 30 January 2020 COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with an official death toll of 171. By 31 December 2020, this figure stood at 1 813 188. Yet preliminary estimates suggest the total number of global deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is at least 3 million, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported.

(By the end of 2021 – this number rose to 14.9 million.)

However, we were not prohibited from going on our planned cruise, and we had a grand time.  I bunked with Mom, and Patrice came with us and hung out our kids’ room. Tracy and her gang and Lisa, Chris and Jay and Tasha.  A crazy good time was had by us all.

Friends and cousins

The Provenchers

The MacIsaacs

Partying with Grandmaman

Pooped

The Kiakases

We got back home and all hell broke loose on Friday, March 13th.  Everything closed down.  The world was in lock-down.  This new virus COVID had spread everywhere and wreaked havoc.  You would have gone nuts!  Pretty much every country instituted curfews and you could only go out after 9:00 pm if you had a dog to walk. Any time we did go out to the necessary stores (like the SAQ) we had to be masked and stand six feet apart.  When Costco opened, the lineup went all around the store to the back.  Insane.   We thought it would never end.  Empty streets and rainbows in windows with the message “Ça va bien aller”.  Weeks turned into months turned into years!

Empty streets

Rainbows

Keep your distance!

Months later, still

People went nuts and stocked up on toilet paper and various other products, leaving others scrambling to find some. Crazy people tried to make a buck selling stuff from their garages.  Did not go well for those caught.  So many people got into baking that stores ran out of yeast.  Even I tried baking, once I found some.  By my birthday, we were still not allowed to hold gatherings inside homes (outside, we were limited to varying numbers depending on the numbers of deaths reported) so Iain made me a fabulous beef Wellington.

My bread

Iain’s Beef Wellington

On May 16, 2020, your mother succumbed to this virus.  Even though she was in a protected environment at Lev Tov, and no one was allowed to visit, it was impossible to keep it out.  Though she was no longer recognised us, I still felt awful that she died alone.  So many people I know lost a parent during this time.

Companies had to scramble to make their business run from their employees’ homes.  Restaurants were closed completely, except for those able to supply take-out meals; those who didn’t, did not survive.  Hockey was played in empty arenas.  Can you imagine?  With no fans in the stands, you could hear the players yelling at each other!  Golf clubs opened, being an outside sport, so when a friend put out a request for staff for the snack bar (making hot dogs and sandwiches), I answered.  I worked Saturdays and Sundays from 7 am to 7 pm, eventually adding a third day.  As I was alone in the little place and there was a plastic between me and the customers, I didn’t have to mask up.

Opening the flap to get a breeze

So hot in there!

Schools were closed and so many kids missed out on their graduations (Ariane missed hers.)  I cannot tell you how glad I was to not have kids of school-age because they had to follow along online – a nightmare for teachers and parents, alike.  Schooling through Zoom.  Working through Zoom.

In July, you basically saved Sébastien’s life.  He started complaining of pains and sounding “just like you”, as per Tracy, so she brought him to the Montreal Cardiology Institute and a few days later, he had triple bypass surgery. Thankfully, the blockage he had was found when it was and now he’s back up to snuff.

On August 15, 2020, Iain texted me at the golf club:  Pat’s dead.  Wait. What?  He had gone camping with his aunt, uncle and cousin with his girlfriend.  He dove off this high cliff that is a popular spot, surfaced and sunk – but no one realised right away.  They only found his body the next morning.  Just awful.  Such a vibrant young man of 22.  It was the saddest funeral I have ever attended which was during a tiny window where they were able to actually hold a funeral (everyone masked, of course).  To watch Iain and his friends carry in that coffin into the chapel to Tupac’s song “Life Goes On” was just a killer.  Jules and Marilyn are still struggling with this, four years later.  Iain and three others all had tattoos done in his honour.

Words of love

Friends gathering to celebrate a late friend

In memoriam

Pat

The borders were closed for months and months and months but then there was a loophole where we could fly into the States so in October, I hopped on a plane and made my way to Philly to visit my beau Marc. (Sorry for not mentioning him sooner.  We met in 2018, (met twice), didn’t even get together in 2019 and then the pandammit hit and… shit.  Plus, it took us a good while before we made things “official” 🙂 )

I got a job at MegaGroup in Boucherville, starting in October (was there for 1.5 years).  We still had to mask up and it was half-staff on alternate days.  Just before Christmas, all offices had to be closed again for a month or so, and we started working from home (kinda difficult when you’re receptionist) but I still had to go to the office and get mail, send out stuff, etc.

Of course, Christmas was a subdued affair.  We had supper with Mom and Yvon – where Iain again made his Wellington. The Kiakases and Provenchers celebrated in their homes.  Zoom became the buzz word and that’s how you had family get-togethers.  One could never have imagined this until it happened.

2021 will be better, right? Wrong.  Covid was still front and centre and we sort of got used to having to wear masks in public (even if it drove us nuts).

Our dear Yvon died on March 19th.  He had been up and down for a few months prior and it just so happens we had managed to visit him (the kids and I) on his last day.  It was a shock when my mother called me a half hour later to say he was gone.  A month later, Samanta’s dad, Jean-Pierre, died on April 16.  We ended up having a double funeral way later in August.  As it was an outdoor gathering, there wasn’t too much hoopla to worry about.

Yvon’s last Christmas

And then in May, I had to make the hard decision.  Zeke was having more and more trouble walking.  We couldn’t even go around the block anymore.  He never complained, and was always enthusiastic but his back leg dragged and you could see in his eyes that all was not well.  I just couldn’t let him suffer.  I found a vet that does house calls so we didn’t have to give him the added stress of getting into my car (not easy), waiting in a clinic and everything associated with it.  The kids were with him and Iain even made him a huge steak first.  And Jules and Marilyn came to say good-bye with  Gaffe.  The vet and her assistants were so gentle with him.  They shocked me by sending a beautiful card with is pawprint, nose print and some of his fur.  Just. Whoa.

Steak dinner

Card

By August, 2021, the borders were still closed to Americans so I once again flew down to Philly to visit with Marc. Things were a lot more loose in the States, tell you what.

We were not able to celebrate Christmas 2021 again, but this time because Covid hit both the sisters’ families. Fucking thing.

Nothing to report until September, 2022, where, with the worst of the whole Covid thing over, I decided to finally move forward with remodeling the house thanks to your mother’s estate. As a result our kids were “renovicted”.  It was time for them to move out and fly the coop.  The house was gutted and heated floors put in, walls removed or moved, new kitchen and bathroom.  It is now amazing!

Before

After

Your baby boy Aidan, is now your baby girl with her chosen name Ariel.  She had announced this to me in the fall of 2019.  It was quite the process and she had her bottom surgery in February 2023.  She is happier now and I think she was so courageous to undertake this huge transformation in her life.  Iain supported her from the get. (She, who was petrified of even telling him of what she wanted to do – goes to show).

As for Iain, he just finished a two-year stint in Windsor, Ontario, working (electrician) for a battery plant – he wanted to do another couple of years but he was laid off  last week.  He finally has a girlfriend, the lovely Kamylia – they’ve been official for just over a year now.  I don’t doubt that she is not sad that he will be working closer to home!  And now he can take his cat back, too.  She’s been staying with me since he took the job.

And me?  After changing jobs four times in two years, I am now pretty happy with my latest (1.5 years now) at a company called VDM Global.  It’s in the tourism industry and it’s where I will work until I retire because I am done with jumping from one to another.  Besides, if all goes well, I only have another 2-3 years to go.

Good grief.  I hope to hell I have not bored you with my tale.  But as you can see, a helluva lot happened in the last five years.   I often wonder how you would have taken all the stuff that happened but knowing you, you would have taken it in stride – after your initial freak-out, of course.  😉

I’m sure I’ve forgotten bits and pieces but hey, you’ve got the gist of it all.

Just know, we are all doing quite well, you will forever have a place in our hearts, and we miss you still.

Lotsa love,

Rog

xoxo