Windows accompany our lives, punctuate them,bright or shadowy, depending on the light,seasons and our moods. Mediation between inside and out, they embody openness or confinement, escape or refuge. At the discretion of her recent paths, our collaborator MoniqueDurand opens a few windows overlooking here or elsewhere, very contemporary or reminiscent of history. Fifth article of seven in our Windows series.
Sept-Îles, last December. Only three little leaves left in the wind blowing in the birch, there, right there, at my window. I cover my view of the sea, the islands and the rusty freighters anchored in the bay. Bare trees, frozen fields, low temperature, everything is in place. The earth is waiting for the snow, it even seems to me that it longs for it.
Will the three quivering little leaves last much longer? I think of her, who was only holding on by three leaves. She, in her CHSLD north of Montreal, on the banks of the Rivière des Prairies. She, in the spring of 2020.
A woman at the window
No longer reading, no longer listening to radio or television, no longer speaking on the telephone, she was nothing more than a window, and had been for years. Many times she had seen the four seasons come and go, toss and turn through the glass. From his armchair, at the beginning, from his bed, at the end.
She was in the winds of the river, of the birds and of the few branches of this aspen which rose up to her room, but less and less in those of the other world, that of the healthy. Coiled in its past, become its present. ” How are your parents ? At first, a little awkwardly, I explained to him that they had been dead for 20 years. Snuggled up in her old songs, which I took up with her. “Little children, play in the meadowuh / Sing, smell the sweet scent of the flowers…” We always stopped before the last verse, too sad. Which contained the word “die”.
The faded pink walls, a family photo taken in the 1940s, a miniature painting she had painted after returning from a trip to Morocco. She had told us that she had loved Morocco, yes, but that she was dying to come back home. She had been gone too long. A lamp brought back from his previous life. A calendar with huge numbers so that she could find her way through the endless days that were hers. Wilted flowers we had brought her on a previous visit, two or three of which had fallen onto her bedside table.
To tell the truth, everything was a little faded in his room on the 7th floor. Everything except the window. Who projected every day on his sheets the declination of the hours with the Earth turning on itself. And, when there was sun, a whole geometry of light.
The most beautiful in Montreal
I told her she had the most beautiful window in Montreal. And not out of condescension. No. It had a window where a river bathed and up to which rose the top of a tree as strong as the mast of a ship.
Vessel. It was she who had made the word “Empress” ring in our ears for the first time. The Empress of England docked at the Port of Montreal, like a cathedral that seemed to lift the waters of the St. Lawrence. She had taken us there, us, her nieces and nephews. I still have a small plastic container where she had written the word BUTTER for our picnics near the river.
From the top of his 7e, she saw the sky in all its nuances and the underside of the birds which passed, ironed, capered, seagulls, crows, sparrows. This square of blue, gray, yellow, orange, pink made up most of her days. “It takes heaven to experience the earth”, I had heard one day on the radio. She had benefited from a lot of sky to experience her small space of floor and dreams of the 7e stage.
After depositing our effects on the sill of his window, we sat on the side of his “good ear” and we chatted about everything and nothing. Everythings and nothings that felt good. Outside, the world was so complicated. Inside, we were safe. As protected.
He still had to get to his haven. And to get there, cross what often looked like the Court of Miracles. Wheelchairs moving very slowly, heavily handicapped people seated, cries coming from other rooms, a lady yelling “Moman! “All the time, another who kept saying “Ayoye! “. It was the daily life of our host, who was not particularly moved by it. She just asked us to open the door ajar to be all ours, the time of our stopover with her.
She no longer had the opportunity to offer us gifts or treats. So she put aside a mini jam every morning, which arrived with her breakfast, a square of strawberries, raspberries or oranges. We left with a treasure.
Often, she would park her wheelchair near the elevators and the nurses’ station. It was an open window on what was left of “real life”. She refused to spend her life dozing in the common room. At least, the first years. She was so proud then, at 85, to call herself “the youngest on the floor”.
She was one of those generations of silence that preceded us. Her interiority spoke only to itself. We didn’t know much about her. Otherwise his thirst for life. Had she never satiated it? And his nonconformity. That she held until the end.
Molto bene!
No complaints, ever. You sleep well ? “Yes, like a baby. ” You eat well ? “Yes, breakfast is the best meal. “Are you being well taken care of here?” She responded with a mimicry, as if to say: that’s okay. She had kept her humor, her formidable humor tinged with a touch of irreverence.
The last time, she no longer moved, saw nothing, only shadows, heard almost nothing, her body was a field of bluish ruins, only her lips still managed to move and expel a few words. “How are you today, ma’am?” asks an attendant. Answer : ” Molto bene ! », in his most beautiful Italian, learned on the job. I burst out laughing, and the attendant with me. She was proud of her shot. Molto welle, spunky, obstinate. Molto beneshattering. Molto benemy God so worthy.
She hadn’t been able to go and kiss her loved ones through the windows on the ground floor. She hadn’t been able to blow kisses to them in this barricaded spring of 2020, as we have seen others do on TV. In the range of our windows, individual and collective, there are now those heart-rending ones that will haunt us for a long time.
” How are your parents ? » « They are fine, I ended up answering him, they greet you and they kiss you. »
Marie-Odile died in her CHSLD north of Montreal in the spring of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. From pneumonia. Wasn’t it more like COVID? We were told no. She died alone. By “alone”, I mean without her family with her. The staff reassured us, consoled us, there was someone to accompany him when the three little leaves, which were hanging by a thread, came off. And that they flew out the window of 7e.