Our Lady of the Snows | Let them mourn

At the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery, Jimmy Koliakoudakis lights a candle on the tomb of his parents. Around us, thousands of stelae are overgrown with weeds. Piles of tree branches obstruct the paths. All is calm and silent. There is not a living soul in the huge cemetery abandoned to marmots.

At the entrance, the wrought iron gates remain stubbornly padlocked. A security guard keeps watch. His mission: to prevent anyone from entering the cemetery. Above all, God forbid, bereaved families should not gather at the graves of their loved ones.

It’s been six months. Six months since the largest cemetery in Canada – 343 acres, 33 kilometers of roads, on the north side of Mount Royal – has been paralyzed by the strike of its maintenance and office workers.

Jimmy Koliakoudakis’ father, Andreas, was buried here in 2007. His mother, Pinelopi, died in February. In principle, she should be buried next to Andreas. But his body is instead in a cold storage. With hundreds of others, who pile up, since the start of the strike on January 12.

There is no one to bury them.

Pinelopi, 89, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Over time, she had lost her voice. Then the emotions. But he had one wish left. One last wish: to find her husband. Rest, finally, with him.

Not in a freezer.

That a vulgar labor dispute prevents him from granting his mother’s last wish is something that torments Jimmy Koliakoudakis. He has the impression, he says, of having had his mourning stolen from him.

That he is denied access to his late parents saddens him as much as it angers him.

Notice, that does not prevent him from entering the forbidden enclosure. After all, it is not very difficult to deceive the vigilance of the guards. I told you: this is the largest cemetery in the country.

Jimmy Koliakoudakis recounts having circled around the cemetery on a motorbike, like a shark around a prey, looking for faults. He found it. A lot. He is not the only one.

Illegal ? Maybe. But it’s not a fence that will stop a grieving person.

I slipped through a gap myself, along Remembrance Road.

Inside, I saw fallen tree trunks and branches under the weight of the April sleet. Grass that hadn’t been mowed since the snow melted. Some stelae collapsed, others which disappeared under the shrubs. And marmots, lots of marmots, which are said to be digging up more and more human bones.

A million deceased have been buried at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges since its inauguration in 1854. Wednesday afternoon, I saw a totally dilapidated architectural and arboreal gem. A heritage site left abandoned, in the heart of Montreal, to general indifference.

That said, I did not see a “dangerous” place, the pretext used by the Notre-Dame parish factory since the ice storm (and even before) to prohibit access to the cemetery. At no time did I risk my life to write this column. Promised sworn.

Michael Musacchio has found a flaw, too. He enters the cemetery every Sunday. For him, it would be much more dangerous not to do so.

Not to plant flowers, not to cut the grass, not to decorate the grave of his daughter, Vanessa, on holidays. “I don’t want her to think I’m abandoning her. »

On May 27, 2021, Vanessa Musacchio, 26, had dinner, then watched a bit of TV. An ordinary Thursday evening at home. At 10:30 p.m., she was falling asleep. As usual, she said, “I love you, dad, I love you, mom,” before going to bed. She never woke up.

His heart stopped beating, inexplicably.

And that of Michael Musacchio broke into a thousand pieces.

When I ask him to tell me about his daughter, he smiles, inexhaustible. Memories jostle. The neighbours’ cars that Vanessa cleared in the aftermath of a storm, without being asked, just to help. The children she protected from schoolyard bullies. This employer, who accused him of having too empathy for customers…

Vanessa was of all causes. She wanted to change the world, for the better. “If she could,” her father said, “she would be standing next to me right now. To protest against this injustice. »

The cruel injustice of not allowing devastated parents to visit their children’s graves.

Michael Musacchio admits it: losing his daughter tore him apart. His mourning is far from over. “I walk like a zombie through life. I’m just floating in the air. Having to fight, on top of that, to visit Vanessa’s grave, it’s too hard. “It puts a lot of pressure on the family. If I’m not careful, it can destroy me. »

The hundred cemetery strikers must decide today in a general meeting whether they accept recourse to arbitration to resolve the impasse. It would finally allow them to return to work and the reopening of the cemetery.

They must accept the appointment of an arbitrator. Because a cemetery is not an ordinary shoe factory. We are dealing with human beings, fragile and vulnerable, who are going through the worst moment of their lives. I am not speaking of the dead, but of those who survive them.

These families do not have to bear the brunt of a labor dispute that is getting bogged down. From the beginning, they refused to take sides. All they ask is that we stop negotiating on the backs of the deceased.

All they want is to bury their dead in peace.

Like the others, Nancy Babalis found a way to enter the cemetery. Every weekend, she visits the grave of her son Peter, who died at age 13 of a brain tumour.

He would be 23 today. But for Nancy Babalis, Peter will always be 13 years old. That’s why she visits him every week. “He still needs his mother. »

All she wants is for the gates to open. Nothing else. “I just want to come see my son without having to crawl through the mud. »

“Even in countries at war, there are truces to allow people to bury their dead,” said Michael Musacchio. It takes a kind of humanity. Otherwise, why do we live? »

He too would like to stop entering the cemetery like a criminal. Like he was doing something wrong.

He just wants to mourn.