Mme Cora's letter
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May 5, 2024
Two horrific deaths
WARNING: This letter contains graphic details related to death that may offend some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
This morning at the coffee shop, I have the terrible fortune to hear straight from a real police officer’s mouth about all the horrible moments that some humans tolerate and suffer through until the day they expire. Why am I sharing this almost unthinkable story with you this morning? To encourage all of us to get to know and spare a moment for our neighbours, friends and all those who seem to be in need.
While he was on duty one day, my officer friend received a call from the janitor of a 6-unit apartment block complaining about an unusual smell and insisted that he come by for a wellness check. As he approached the building, which was already known to him, a foul odour was noticeable. Could it be dirt? Had something burned? Rotten meat? It’s likely something much worse, he suspected. The two men walked up the stairs and stopped on the third-floor landing in front of apartment No. 6. The officer recognized the smell of putrefaction.
— “Someone died in the apartment?,” asks the janitor.
— “A dead body starts to smell within 72 hours, depending on the cause of death,” replies the officer.
I asked my friend how the other tenants in the surrounding apartments hadn’t smelled the strange stench of death. “Most probably because they weren’t familiar with it.” He adds that it’s a smell that’s impossible to forget.
When the police officer enters apartment No. 6 with the janitor’s master key, he immediately sees the body of a man in a wheelchair presenting signs of obvious death. Flaps of brown and black flesh hang from the man’s skull, his cheeks are sunken and empty, and a battalion of large black flies cover the dead man’s eyes.
The police officer noticed that the marble threshold of the bathroom had likely blocked the elderly man’s wheelchair. Unable to move, he may have died from exhaustion or starvation. “A real tragedy,” says the building janitor, with tears in his eyes. The officer continues his apartment check and, as he enters the single bedroom located next to the kitchen, he discovers a second inanimate body, covered with a sheet up to the chest, the head darkened.
The officer immediately turns back, calls his superior and requests the presence of a detective and another colleague to fill out the two death reports. According to the janitor, the two elderly people were over 80. Were they sick? Alone in the apartment? Did the couple have any children? The police set out to find the answers and determine the cause of their deaths.
When the second police officer arrived to write the report, the two of them worked diligently to preserve and keep the scene intact. Wearing protective gloves, one of the officers took a notebook from the night table next to the deceased woman. Under the watchful eye of the detective, the officer opened the book and found the first names of three women, no surnames. He dialed the number under the first name, identified himself and asked the woman at the other end to identify herself. The woman instantly asked what the man was doing at her parents’ place. He explained that the two tenants in the apartment he was calling from had just been found dead.
— “That’s impossible!” said the woman, panicked. “I spoke to Mom yesterday morning!”
The officer didn’t contradict her. Given the advanced state of decomposition of the two bodies, their deaths occurred approximately 10 to 15 days prior.
Dear readers, I am telling you this profoundly sad story because it breaks my soul and because my officer friend says that it’s the tragic fate of too many elderly people. The old man in his wheelchair and his wife, who was barely able to walk according to the janitor, lived in a single bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building with no elevator. Who cared for whom?
My officer friend has been retired for 20 years now. Last year, he found himself single again. As he recounted this sad story, he wondered if he would be able to care for himself in his cottage until the end. He has two long staircases to manage – one that goes down to his basement workshop and another that leads up to the second-floor bedroom.
The story my friend shared with our little coffee shop trio this morning stirs up a lot of questions, in him, in George (82) and in me, of course. We stay to drink a second coffee and to think aloud. “We have to think about it fast,” says the retired officer, “for age flees like a thief, and we could be left alone, isolated, poorly setup, far from our loved ones and ignored by our neighbours.”
“We are all alone,” continues George. “We are born alone and we die alone, like old, confused, starved mice, hidden away in the back of the cupboard more often than not...”
As for me, a few weeks short of 77, I believe that, if old age is a time when the body gradually declines, it’s also an incredible opportunity to finally slow down. It’s a time when we can take care of our mind in a way we never had a chance to while making a living. Today, this intelligent body is forcing us to slow down most of the time, so we can pamper our little hearts and the friends who surround us more.
Let’s take care of one another. Call your friends, keep in touch with your neighbours, take it upon yourself to check in with lonely and aging souls that so desperately need our care. Let’s love every minute of our life today. Perhaps the more we stretch it, the more likely we’ll deserve a few drops of wisdom.
Cora
❤
April 28, 2024
How the Sunday letters came to be
I read somewhere that “the way we tell a story has a great influence on our happiness.” So, this morning, I stop lamenting and contemplate the heavenly blue of the sky. Of course, like anyone with zest for life, I would’ve liked to have met an artist, a poet, a rare bird who flies far above, but I already had three children and my two feet were nailed solidly to the ground. With my heart and body invested solely in my work for so many years, numbers were much more important to me than men or words.
That’s how I matured without even noticing it, until two old crows I’ve already told you about, Retirement and Old Age, came into my life. Then with age, Lady Solitude also came along. We lose a few feathers, we lose near ones, friends, sisters or husbands, and we find ourselves facing a void. Do you remember April 2020, the terror of the century disguised as a horrible virus? In all of two seconds, I was alone, worried, locked down between the hills, with only my words for company.
The COVID witch sharpened my emptiness and taught me how to keep quiet. I was afraid of dying. Thankfully, I had a dozen black crows on my roof cawing and asking for my attention. I would throw breadcrumbs at them, and they’d get closer to my balcony. These first friends during my solitude kept me alive. I even came to talk to the ants, the worms and to the big groundhog living under the porch. As the weather became milder, I’d settle each morning on the grass and wait for the dandelions to grow.
While the horrible virus kept passing over my home, I turned on the TV to catch the daily count of elderly souls that had flown out the window. I got scared, I got thirsty; I could see pretty streams of my childhood in my dreams. And then summer came and burst into beauty. Hand-drawn rainbows light up the streets. I’m out for a walk. In front of me, an old couple holds on to each other, welded together and moving as one. I envy them! I hear the rustling of the branches stretching out in the sun, the humming of the bees, the gentle scent of flowers. Lifting my head up high, I admire a parade of geese tracing words for me in the pale blue of the sky.
Weeks fly by and the worst expires. “Don’t talk about it anymore,” repeats a host on an American TV show. Quickly, I turn on my tablet and my fingers start by thanking the universe that I’m still alive. I write to the angels, wrap my lines in golden paper and then console everything that moves around me. With my words flying, my sentences taking flight, a new life writes itself like a novel that we finally want to read.
I love to create meaning by bringing words to life. I love to start a paragraph slowly, like when we enter a river, and then plunge headfirst into a revelation. It’s exactly how the SUNDAY LETTERS came to be, dear readers! In my mind’s kitchen, I started to draft delightful breakfasts of words. Short letters to whet your appetite, homemade caramel, fudge and delicious cake recipes that you could easily make yourself. The faster Sundays arrived, the stronger my enthusiasm grew. My heart, filled with love, rejoiced in your good company.
Without even realizing it, I did what I’ve always done since I was a little girl: write! And so I started writing to you. First my recipes, and then the remarkable story of our business and, by extension, the entire saga of my surprising life story. I ventured into the sea up to my waist, then my shoulders and often into the open water. You followed and loved me. You painted pink all the brown spots on my body. You turned my heart into a lighthouse, a bouquet of tiny lights illuminating my written lines.
Writing these SUNDAY LETTERS awoke the writer inside me. I discovered that my greatest pleasure consists in aligning words, throwing the bare bones of a story onto a page and writing it in black ink, eyes wide open. My memory is a real treasure trove, a live photo album. As I invite Lady Creativity and Lady Inspiration to visit on the white of the page, I jot down the scribbles of time.
By reading me, you teach me to be a better writer.
Cora
❤
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April 21, 2024
Our family's Easter brunch
Since all of us in the family are restaurateurs and excellent cooks, our Easter brunch was, if I may say so, an amazing feast! To start, my granddaughter placed three large plates of fresh, nicely cut fruit on the table, filled with strawberries, raspberries, cherries and blueberries. The youngest kids climbed onto their chairs in no time and reached out their hands and raided the colourful plates. A few minutes later, their cheeks were coloured blue and pink, and their small aprons stained with raspberry juice.
I’d prepared the crêpe mix the night before, but as soon as my daughter walked into the kitchen, she took control of the helm. She still had to assemble the various elements of each service. With her daughter by her side, they first prepared over 20 crêpes filled with different garnishes: spinach-feta, ham and Swiss cheese, bacon-cheddar and delicious apples brushed with homemade caramel. They were all kept warm on the stove’s hot plate.
My daughter and her daughter then cooked all the meat traditionally found in a good French Canadian breakfast and placed it on the table alongside a big tureen filled with baked beans, a big plate of smoked salmon garnished with capers and red onions, a large bowl of roasted potatoes, my famous cretons and a nice spread of homemade jams: strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, orange and citrus marmalade. I’ve long had a knack for making delicious jams. I never measure anything and my middle finger is my helper, letting me know when it’s time to turn off the heat. It never fails!
My eldest son’s sons were tasked with preparing a variety of breads, toast, bagels and croissants. They cut the butter into little squares that they placed in small dishes to be arranged in front of each place setting. Then the 15 adults sat down at the table and the feast began. As they’d already swilled their coffee while talking, they switched to orange juice. Heavens! I still remember the fresh orange juice I forbade the employees and my own kids from drinking while they were working at the restaurant. In those days, the juice imported directly from Florida was expensive and precious. No one was allowed to drink any of it except the customers who paid for it.
I was left penniless in 1987 when I opened our first small restaurant. It was an old wreck of a snack bar that had been closed for two years. I remember it like it was yesterday: a 29-seat room covered in cobwebs that I bought after selling our house in the suburbs. I’ll never understand why my young kids and I immediately fell in love with the place.
Perhaps this was a new adventure for them? Maybe this was my opportunity to build a brilliant destiny for myself? We had to scrub, clean, paint, sew a few nice aprons and write our menu on the walls. I never could have imagined in those days that I would create an exceptional breakfast restaurant concept. Living in a third-floor apartment on a commercial street in Montreal near our tiny eatery, the kids got used to the city cacophony, public transportation and the sleepless nights their mom spent inventing new breakfast dishes.
My daughter and her daughter are at the stove ready to take omelette orders. Over 15 bowls filled with omelette garnishes are lined up on the counter next to them. Service is running smoothly! By the sounds of it, you would think that all the adults haven’t eaten even a crumb in three days! Seated at the end of the table, my eyes sneak a look at each of my guests’ face. They are hungry, thirsty and are relishing their food.
My oldest son congratulates the cooks, thanking them warmly. He volunteers for dishwashing even before he’s done eating his main course. His girlfriend says she’ll assist. Dear Josée is a very good cook herself; she especially excels at roasting meat and her man, a big eater, couldn’t be happier.
All the guests are content. The youngest ones ate earlier, and they’re now running around in the big house, playing hide-and-seek and having fun with the toys their grandfather (my oldest son) brings them each time he sees them. All the adults are helping themselves to more coffee and chit chat like they haven’t seen each other in 10 years. Then Josée stands up and orders me to stay seated.
– “You’ve done enough already, mother-in-law! I’ll take care of the dishes.”
When the conversations finally dwindle, my children’s children get up and raid the leftovers, like they always do when they come to grandma’s house! Again, my daughter and her daughter busy themselves wrapping up the pastries, crêpes, meat, baked beans, cheese and the other leftovers on the table. You have to be quick to get what you want! When the table is empty and the stove and counters wiped clean, the young ones help with the dishes. Soon the kitchen sparkles and the adults move to the living room. It’s time to digest, continue conversations and tell me repeatedly how everything was delicious. I can hardly take any credit; I just have to get them together. At Christmas, Easter and a great-grandson’s birthday.
How many more Easter brunches will I be able to host? Time goes by so fast! Three more short years and I’ll be 80. Perhaps I’ll have crooked fingers, cracked kneecaps and my memory will be gone? I’ll forget my superb cretons recipe, my great-grandsons’ ages and maybe my daughter-in-law’s address? For now, I still have my head on straight and I intend to enjoy every family occasion and celebration to the fullest!
Cora
❤
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April 14, 2024
Things I'm grateful for
A gratitude list is an expression of thanks for the people and things that make you happy. Ideally, you should create one each day, paying homage to the little moments that brighten your day. Note everything that elicits a sense of gratitude in you during the day; things that you feel thankful and lucky for.
Experts on the matter say that it can be a difficult exercise at first, but one that quickly becomes second nature. You can also thank life every night before you fall asleep or each morning when you wake to another day of being alive.
I personally have my own gratitude ritual. Each Saturday afternoon after my nap, I pour myself yet another coffee and open my pink notebook which I fill with huge THANK YOUs. I discovered gratitude during the pandemic. Instead of worrying I’d die, I started to thank the universe for being alive each day. Fear faded away, and I slowly learned to recognize the good things that were happening to me.
Each one of my writing days is different, but I can say that I’m grateful for being alive every day! I always have a good reason to be grateful for a friend, a good idea and especially for the wild woman inside my head who keeps me alert and inspired.
Here are a few sentences taken from my gratitude list:
– Thank you, my friend! Your burly arms and enjoyable company were just what I needed to install the two new IKEA bookshelves in my living room.
– Thanks to my children who shaped me into a courageous mother.
– Thank you, dear Pénélope, your love keeps me alive.
– Thank you to my generous neighbour for giving me such delicious jams!
– Thank you to my friends who invite me along on outings and events.
– Thank you for all the coffees I’ve enjoyed with great company!
– Thank you, dear Claude, for repairing the thermostat for my heated floor.
– Thank you, Stephen the Irishman, who accompanied me to the annual St. Patrick’s luncheon, and to my good friend who invited us.
– Thank you, dear Bruce, with whom I always have deep conversations.
– Thank you, Marie-Pierre, our circle of friends’ favourite aerial host, for all the delicious privately imported chocolate she’s brought back on her flights to the old world.
– Thank you for the inspiration I am gifted with from above.
– Thank you to the wild woman in my head who inspires me and governs all my thoughts.
– Thank you for my perseverance, my patience and my love of words.
– Thank you for my advanced age, and to this sublime life that keeps me strong and healthy.
– Thank you, Life, for this incredible sleigh ride.
– Thank you for the spot you’re keeping warm for me up there.
– Thank you for treating us to such a mild winter, with its snow so white and sky so blue.
– Thank you, dear life, for allowing me to recognize what’s good for me.
– Thank you to my ex-husband for being just vile enough for me to finally decide to leave him.
– Thank you to all my cherished readers, who follow me each week through my Sunday letters.
– Thank you for all the comments you leave for me week after week.
– Thank you to all those who bought my book Cora l’ordinaire endimanché and who talk to me about it!
– Thank you to the sea, who’s fed me all my life and continues to do so.
– Thank you to all the handsome gents who grace my dreams and feed my hope.
– Thank you to my 10 well-practised fingers that still allow me the pleasure of cooking for my children, grandchildren and even for my colleagues at the head office occasionally.
Since I’ve started making these lists of gratitude for the universe to hear, I always look forward to tomorrow to see what I’ve learned to appreciate more.
VERBA VOLANT, SCRIPTA MANENT.
Spoken words fly away, written words remain.
Cora
❤
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