I do breakfast

I was 5 and I already knew you were terribly sad, Mom. A martyr with eczema-ridden fingers, your mummified hands, gloved and painfully burning, Mom. The morning tears when you’d pretend to go to the neighbour’s to borrow a half-pint of cream, Mom. All the sleepless nights you spent unstitching and sewing one of Dad’s old jackets to make me a pretty coat, Mom. I remember your delicious meals, and the jams you’d make for us, Mom. Sewing, cooking and cleaning. You always did your duty, but your broken heart was incapable of loving us, Mom. Your long silences bewildered our little hearts desperate for love, Mom. As you busied yourself with chores, never resting , you kept your mind occupied to avoid thinking about what had ripped out your heart, Mom. The rage, the sorrow and the disappointment must have exhausted you each day. This heavy secret you kept and took to your grave, Mom. We had no clue about your indescribable sorrow as you suffered in silence, Mom. Indiscernible and menacing, a mysterious pain had turned your life, and ours, upside down, Mom. Our childhood was muted, as we gingerly stepped around you, afraid of disappointing you, Mom. I blamed you. I needed to know about the important things in life. You failed to teach me or your two other daughters a single thing. Too young and naive, we found ourselves with our own child, Mom. Was it the lack of knowledge or fear that kept you silent? We were pristine white goslings and you let our little wings become soiled, Mom. This cursed ignorance caused us a thousand torments. Your daughters became trapped in loveless marriages. And our lives, totally lost, became battle grounds, Mom. You knew nothing about my sad life then. Miserable as I was, I sometimes thought of leaving this world for good, Mom. In that moment your car crashed head-on, you, your grief and your secret all died together, Mom. At the morgue where I went to identify you, I was terrified. I was scared of your disfigured face, of the congealed blood on your cheeks, of the open veins in your neck, Mom. As tough as life can be, it has spoiled me. At your funeral, one of your sisters finally told me your secret. That story, unimaginable today, nonetheless happened to you and ruined your life, Mom. You were the most beautiful schoolteacher in the township, in love with a Protestant that the Catholic church forbade you from marrying. Do you remember, Mom, that in those days, religion ruled our lives? You did as your father wished when he introduced you to a brave and hard-working young man who had recently arrived in Gaspésie. Grandpa liked him a lot, but you were in love with another, Mom. I hate myself for accusing you, criticizing you and blaming you, oblivious to your sad fate. I feel so remorseful, Mom. All the unused love inside me, I give to you, Mom. Wait for me, because together, we’ll begin a new and beautiful life again, Mom. Your daughter, Cora ❤

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 ❤

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 ❤