{"id":73932,"date":"2025-09-14T05:53:40","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T09:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/?p=73932"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:29:18","slug":"the-main-characters-of-my-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/les-principaux-acteurs-de-ma-jeune-vie\/","title":{"rendered":"The main characters of my youth"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Just like at the movies, I open the curtains wide. I no longer try to forget the main characters of my youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother didn\u2019t love my father. My father was crazy about my mother. Grandpa always protected us. My brother, the easygoing drifter. Nini, my younger sister. The youngest girl, crying in her crib, and I, the oldest of the three girls, writing this story. The omnipresent character, to whom we all prayed and feared without ever having met him, was played by God, the stranger watching over us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, adults concealed their miseries. Perhaps they prayed in secret, at the end of the dock or in the barn while caressing the muzzle of a new-born calf. We, children, learned nothing about happiness or joy at home. Our young hearts were as pure as the wild strawberries in the fields, which reddened our fingers and overalls. And Mom, whose mouth would be full of screams all day long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking he was the master of the universe, my brother would relieve himself on the tomato plants. He hid his math book and pretended he\u2019d lost it. Sometimes, he\u2019d amuse himself by burying the capelins that were drying in the sun. The only boy of our brood, \u201cDaddy\u2019s boy\u201d was growing taller and accumulating blunders. After an arduous seventh grade, he was set to start high school, but Daddy\u2019s boy escaped and became a pedlar of all kinds of knickknacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The golden child worked basically everywhere in Gasp\u00e9sie for a few years. When he finally returned home, Dad hurried to find him a good girl to marry. A teacher who\u2019d hopefully instruct him in good manners and encourage him to find a more stable livelihood. When they returned from their honeymoon in Montebello, my brother managed to land a job selling the big 15-book Grolier encyclopedia collection. Dad helped him buy an old jalopy to be able to deliver the merchandise. The wunderkind knocked on a dozen or so doors but failed to sell a single book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a nice fall morning, tired, depressed and desperate, my brother, his hands gripping the steering wheel, hit the gas pedal and sped straight into a pile of lumber. His poor wife later confided that he was looking for a coffin to disappear in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dad cried his eyes out. His only son was gone, six feet under. We, his sisters were dumfounded; our tears falling one by one down our cheeks. Mom was numb with shock, leaving Grandpa to try and console us as best as he could. A priest dressed all in black recited a prayer. A neighbour held a raspberry cake in her hands. The entire village seemed to share our sorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nini, the second daughter, grew up learning quickly how to carry herself in a world of flashy appearances. She spent many hours doing her makeup and hair, beautifying herself in the bathroom, and constantly criticizing the clothes Mom had sewn for her. When she was in a more down-to-earth space, however, she created these amazing pieces of jewellery. She still does today and, when I think about her, I can only admire her talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d often watch mom knit while she rocked Nini\u2019s crib back and forth with her foot. She was her third child. \u201cThe last one,\u201d sighed the exhausted woman. And still, a fourth baby followed. \u201cThe last, last one.\u201d The one who gave Mom such grief, the one who ran away from home and gave birth to a child much too young. Mom cried, Dad cursed the horrid drug addict his daughter was in love with. For years, she stayed away from the family. Then, a miracle. The \u201clast, last one\u201d calmed down, and life moved to protect her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was my beloved father ever happy? He who loved Mom so much, to the point that his suffering slowly killed him. He aged in silence, ending up nearly mute. Mom, embittered but steadfast in her role as wife, fed, washed him and combed his hair without uttering a word. One day, I drove him to the hospital where he closed his eyes and his heart forever at 11 p.m. that same night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less than two years later, Mom decided to bring my kids to Gasp\u00e9sie during the summer vacation. Approaching her hometown of Caplan, she was beaming, singing and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. Her small car crashed into a truck carrying sheep on the way to a slaughterhouse. The car rolled down a slope, flipping several times, before coming to a stop against a tree. Her demise was similar to her son\u2019s death. As if one coincidence weren\u2019t enough, the accident happened right at the green sign marking the town\u2019s limits. As if she\u2019d deliberately returned to die where she\u2019d been born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I collapsed upon learning of her death when the policeman called. I immediately thought that my kids had also died. By some miracle all three survived the accident unscathed. Only the trauma from the accident needed time to heal. The invisible God looking over my kids kept them alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cora
\u2665\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just like at the movies, I open the curtains wide. I no longer try to forget the main characters of my youth. My mother didn\u2019t love my father. My father was crazy about my mother. Grandpa always protected us. My brother, the easygoing drifter. Nini, my younger sister. The youngest girl, crying in her crib, and I, the oldest of the three girls, writing this story. The omnipresent character, to whom we all prayed and feared without ever having met him, was played by God, the stranger watching over us. In those days, adults concealed their miseries. Perhaps they prayed in secret, at the end of the dock or in the barn while caressing the muzzle of a new-born calf. We, children, learned nothing about happiness or joy at home. Our young hearts were as pure as the wild strawberries in the fields, which reddened our fingers and overalls. And Mom, whose mouth would be full of screams all day long. Thinking he was the master of the universe, my brother would relieve himself on the tomato plants. He hid his math book and pretended he\u2019d lost it. Sometimes, he\u2019d amuse himself by burying the capelins that were drying in the sun. The only boy of our brood, \u201cDaddy\u2019s boy\u201d was growing taller and accumulating blunders. After an arduous seventh grade, he was set to start high school, but Daddy\u2019s boy escaped and became a pedlar of all kinds of knickknacks. The golden child worked basically everywhere in Gasp\u00e9sie for a few years. When he finally returned home, Dad hurried to find him a good girl to marry. A teacher who\u2019d hopefully instruct him in good manners and encourage him to find a more stable livelihood. When they returned from their honeymoon in Montebello, my brother managed to land a\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":73958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Comme au cin\u00e9ma, Mme Cora ouvre les rideaux sur les principaux acteurs de sa jeunesse : sa m\u00e8re, son p\u00e8re et sa famille.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"class_list":["post-73932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lettre-mme-cora"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73932"}],"curies":[{"name":"WP","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}