I do breakfast

7:37 a.m. at the coffee shop This morning, I make my way like a sleepwalker to the coffee shop, programmed through habit. I barely slept last night. Thank goodness it’s Friday and I have no appointments. I really want to share the unusual yet priceless discovery that kept me up all night. A single question tormented me the entire night. Without further ado, here is the question: “If you could keep one single memory and bring it with you in the afterlife, which one would it be?” What would you do if there was life after death and that all your memories were erased, but one? Which memory would you want to revisit eternally? I got into bed early last night, believe it or not, to read for a while before turning in. Happily nestled in bed, resting on two satin pillows, a page from a magazine threw me for a loop! What is most important to me? Which memory would I want to remember forever? I sit straight up in my bed and consider this highly significant issue. You know I’m not the type of person who simply sweeps soul-searching questions under the rug. I have spent the better part of the last three years analyzing my life and telling my story. I jump right out of bed, look for my slippers and head to the kitchen in my dressing gown. I flip open my iPad, tap on a few icons and type the name of the journalist who stole my night’s sleep. I want to know more. Google tells me that this important question comes from a 1998 Japanese movie entitled AFTER LIFE by director Hirokasu Kore-eda. I pour myself a coffee, which by now won’t surprise you, and peruse the Amazon website looking for the movie, but for $37, it doesn’t even mention which language it’s subtitled in. I have to wait to get in touch with a friend who’s better at this type of search than I am. I get comfortable on the couch in my library and I turn to the article in the magazine Happiness that first sparked my interest and kept me from Morpheus’ arms. In the movie, a group of people who have recently died find themselves in a place between heaven and earth – in limbo, I suppose – where they are given one week to choose a single memory from their past life. One single memory they can then take with them into eternity. The movie depicts how each person chooses that memory, which is then recorded so they can play it back at any time afterwards. My head and my heart plunge into a dreadful existential void as I read. Which single memory will I bring into eternity? My body stiff on the couch, I suddenly become like the deceased characters in the movie, parked in limbo with only one week to decide which memory to bring into eternity. Lost in thought, I am up all night creating my own movie; dreaming up a dozen scenarios that I end up ripping apart each time. Around 4 a.m., I grab the magazine again and discover a related article by Jacky van de Goor, a PhD researcher whose work is dedicated to collecting all kinds of memories from thousands of people. I try to find out more about her, but most of the information available through Google about Jacky von de Moor is written in German or a doctorate-level English that is too difficult for me to read. My eyelids are becoming as heavy as lead. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to choose. What do we know about death? Nothing at all. Since I am as curious as Australia’s frill-necked lizard, I would love to know which memory you would take with you into eternity. Dear readers, don’t follow my example! Don’t spend a sleepless night torturing your mind sifting through your memories. Reflect upon it while you are taking a stroll through nature. And if you feel like it, share your precious memory with me – such confessions bring us closer. I am quite certain that each of our precious memories represents the closest thing to what we might consider our life’s core. Cora ❤ P.S. I promise you this: I will revisit all my memories from my life until I find the most precious one to take with me into eternity. Eventually I will share it with you in a letter.

(Note to my readers: This letter was written in December.) I found myself in paradise’s library last Friday. It has to be true because I was in heaven! A huge place, I don’t know how many stories high, with long escalators, lovely posters hanging everywhere, arrows indicating directions, concession stands, information booths and angels dressed as school crossing guards. A thousand kids ran left and right in this real-life dream. I do not have enough words to describe the unbelievable sight: More than a million books revealing their pages to avid readers. The entire space is filled with the desire to learn and discover. Euphoric and curious, I sway from one bookshelf to the next, gathering pearls of wisdom from each story. I have known all my life that reading is the most fulfilling gift we can offer those we love. For the occasion, St. Peter has separated paradise by area of interest. I am even under the impression that the children’s section is a hundred times larger than the space dedicated to adults, which is only natural, I suppose. I have lived a full life for which I am very thankful; I have little left to accomplish down here. Young people have so much to learn in order to live well! As a young girl, I remember not having any books to read at home, no notepad to pour my secrets out in blue ink. And yet Mom had been a school teacher before she married. Had she even read a novel before eczema stopped her from holding a book in her hands? I had to beg and plead for her to register me at Collège de Rosemont. I can easily recall the small navy blue uniform she had sewn from Dad’s old overcoat, the long beige socks the nuns forced us to wear and the black mantilla covering our heads when we visited the chapel. I learned how to read real books during my first year of classical studies. And I never stopped. I took my school books very seriously but could lose myself in a romance novel. Soon enough, however, I much preferred the great authors of true literature; those who could teach me how to properly write. Nearly every wall in my house is covered by a white or brown IKEA bookcase, depending on the room. I’m telling you: I live in a library! And I love to be completely enveloped by books. My books are classified by topic: spirituality, religions of the world, geography and travel, magazines, business, history, literature, pocket book novels, biographies, cookbooks and many more. I guess the only thing I am missing is a book club (I’m thinking about it). I also have many pictures of my favourite authors, who keep me company. I move happily about the library overseen by angels. I stroll between the tables, I inspect the displays, I scamper down the aisles. Time slips through the divine hourglass. After many hours of meeting some of my favourite authors, I look for archangel Gabriel’s cane or at least a kind angel whose wings I might fly away on. My wonderful granddaughter texts me out of the blue as though she had heard me and offers to come pick me up. She wants to have dinner together. So I leave the Montreal Book Fair, transported by the grace of family love. Crossing the city, we find ourselves at her parents’ favourite restaurant in Laval. Do you know just how much I love my grandkids? My love for them could fill the entire heavens, and then some. Cora 📚

7:35 a.m. at the coffee shop The snow painted our picturesque Laurentian town all white overnight. When I open my eyes, I am five years old and want to go outside. – “Mom, where are my boots? And my mittens and my blue wool scarf?” The snow makes me think back to a time in my childhood when we carved out snow blocks in the snow to build a fort. My brother oversaw the operations while us girls had to carefully listen to his instructions or we’d get a snowball in the neck. Bobby, like my dad used to call him, was the champion of winter projects. And his specialty was igloos, in which he would sometimes imprison me when I teased him one too many times. I still clearly remember one particular winter day. My brother and I were building an enormous snowman. The snow was wet and it was easy to roll into two big balls which we were going to use to make a large figure just like Dad’s. That’s right! We were creating a snowman version of our dad, whom my brother enjoyed teasing; I in turn enjoyed teasing my brother. I had just helped him place one of the huge snowballs on top of the other when my brother’s body started to shake. He was squeezing his thighs and doubling over like he really had to go. Apparently he couldn’t wait, because before I could say anything, I saw a reddish liquid shoot straight out of him, staining the immaculate white snow. My brother was waving his arms wildly, screaming in terror. He thought he had been struck by some illness. It turns out, Mr. Know-It-All didn't know that when you eat beets, your urine turns a similar colour. How could he have known? The pain from mom’s eczema-blistered hands had abated enough to allow her to garden that summer. And the delicious red-brown beets were just one of the many things we had recently discovered. 8:45 a.m. This week at the head office, I received a letter from a little-known area in France. The sender was congratulating me on my French Canadian prose. The return address indicated “Gordes,” which I had to look up on Google. Population: 1,670 habitants Last census: 2019 Density: 35 habitants/km2 Area: 48.4 km Altitude: 373 m Founded in 1031 Gordes is ranked among the most beautiful villages in France. Its distinguishing feature is its location: perched high atop a mountain and visible from far, far away. Seen from the foot of the mountain, it gives the impression that it has been standing guard over the valley since forever. Good heavens, where is that? Google, help me again! “The village of Gordes is a French commune located in the Vaucluse department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.” Distance Paris-Gordes: 718.8 kilometres 8 hours and 5 minutes by car Car rental: 16 euros/day Apoline Duschesne, the author of the letter, wants to know more about me. Her daughter is a teacher living in the province of Quebec and reads my weekly Sunday letters, which she then shares with her mother. Having retired from journalism 20 years ago, Appoline misses the written word. Without much preamble, she tells me that she wants to do what I do: WRITE. Apolline wants to empty her mind of the 30 years of news she has chronicled. She wants to change her life and change her style. She begs me to explain how I am able to enjoy such a close, honest and generous relationship with my readers as I recount stories of my life. 10:28 a.m. Dear Apolline, your letter touches me deeply. We are probably about the same age. After many years of hard work, I stopped my management activities at the business I built in 2018. Fourteen months later, a nasty virus spread around the globe. Locked up in my house, I was eventually asked to write a weekly letter to our wonderful customers, which would be posted on the Cora restaurants Facebook page. And so our customers began to read my Sunday letters. My initial intent was to simply encourage them to keep up their spirits as the pandemic overturned our worlds. Without realizing it, all the sorrow and frustrations I felt in my new retired life disappeared. I dare say, dear Apolline, that WRITING saved my life. Writing each day has become my ritual for happiness. My heart opened up by talking directly to my readers. Each day I explore the present, the surprising everydayness of life such as going for a drive in the mountains, visiting the market, browsing a new bookstore or simply pedalling faster on my new stationary bike. I usually write 4 or 5 hours each day, often at the coffee shop or sitting at my kitchen table while listening to baroque music. A wise man, whose name I forget, once told me that listening to baroque music helps you write. I also admit to taking a midday nap on the couch in the library for one or two hours, a thick mask covering my eyes. I read the rest of the time. I learn or search for new words that call to me. Since I started writing regularly, most of my money goes to purchasing bestsellers, how-to books and magazines of all kinds. They have now far surpassed the cost of all my colourful clothes, scarves, shoes and trinkets I wear on my clothes or in my hair. There, you have it, my dear Apolline. I know you will succeed in finding a new voice. Every human in its own way represents a ground to be cleared, a story to be told, a future to be sown. And maybe one day, in the commune of Gordes, I will have the wonderful opportunity to visit the Notre-Dame de Sénanque Abbey with you. Cora ☃