Mum's Celebration of Life was on Tuesday, and in some ways, it was as hard as the day she passed. It was a comfort in far more ways, however.
It was held at St. David's United Church in Leduc, the same place I'd gone to Sunday School and sang in the junior choir. I would guess there were more than 200 people in attendance.
Pastor Blaine, the same fellow who had done Dad's service back in 2012, met with us last week at Mum's apartment to sort things out. Hymns were selected, a program outlined, and we left the scriptural selections up to him. Fenya agreed to sing a solo, and Glory said she would dance at the reception if we could find appropriate music.
Walking up the aisle to our seats in the front row, I saw friendly, sympathetic smiles from familiar faces and strangers alike. But there were also pained faces, wracked by grief, as much, if not more so, than my own.
There had been quite a bit of discussion about the order in which Tara, Fenya and I would do our contributions, along the line of, "No way I am doing the eulogy after Fenya sings!" Followed by, "Well, I am not going to sing after Dad does the eulogy, and that's for certain!"
In the end, we went with Fenya singing before Blaine's sermon, then Tara reading a poem that our cousin Gwendy had sent her, followed by my eulogy. The photo montage would come immediately afterwards, giving me about ten minutes to compose myself.
Fenya sang a traditional farewell, "The Parting Glass," which might be familiar to you by tune if not the words. It's actually Scottish in origin, and reflects the tradition of the "stirrup cup," a final drink served to a departing guest already in the saddle. I was so proud of how well Fenya sang it that there was no room left for sadness, even though reading the lyrics now breaks my heart.
(Fenya recorded this version Thursday night at the church after choir practice)
Blaine's words were wonderful - insightful and comforting at the time, and I wish I could remember them better now.
Tara had been concerned about her ability to get through Gwendy's poem but pushed through like a champ:
Then it was time for me to deliver my mother's eulogy.
I'm always somewhat nervous before speaking in front of a crowd, but this was a whole other degree; palms sweaty, stomach aching - at least I was spared the flop sweat that will sometimes strike and saturate my shirt collar. I had run through it aloud three different times the day before, and my voice caught in a different part each time.
But by the time I got to the pulpit, the support of the room was almost palpable. I swallowed, forced myself to smile, and began.
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Thank you all so much for coming to share in this bittersweet celebration; the commemoration of the life of a woman much beloved by her family and many friends, taken from us far too soon.
At various times in her life, Helen Fitzpatrick had lived in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Alberta and British Columbia, and her travels with my father took her to many other places as well. It’s comforting to know that when her journey came to an end, it did so here in Leduc, the city where she had resided the longest and had the deepest roots.
That journey started, as Mum liked to say, “as far East as you can poke a stick,” in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1940. The majority of the world was at war, and Newfoundland would not join Confederation for another 9 years. She grew up in the east end of town, close to Quidi Vidi, with her parents Bill and Jennie Hynes and her younger brother Don.
Despite my mother’s nearly encyclopedic knowledge of 1950s music and her many recollections of roller skating to popular artists of the time like Bill Haley, Bobby Vinton and Frankie Dion, I only recently put together that she would have been 16 years old in 1956, perhaps one of the peak years for being a teenager, if the tv show “Happy Days” is anything to go by.
But even Mum’s teenage years were atypical. Tara and I knew she had dropped out to go to work, but she recently explained to my daughter Glory that her revelation came the moment she walked into her grade ten exams. Seeing everyone in their seats, preparing to write, she said to herself, “Nah,” and walked out to begin looking for a job.
She ended up doing bookkeeping and clerk work at CBC in St. John’s. Going through old photo albums last week, I came across a few black and white pictures of workplace parties, especially Halloween, one of Mum’s favourite times. It was clear that Helen Hynes made friends there the same way she did every other place she went.
In 1965 she met my father, Maurice, an ex-airman and sailor, now working for Transport Canada as an air traffic controller. I only found out during the preparation for his memorial seven years ago that his claim of meeting Mum while she was “bowling in the nude,” meant that Mum had been wearing a loose and untucked top that left her somewhat exposed during her follow through on every throw. For years I’d thought he was pulling my leg when it turns out instead that he was admiring Mum’s form, as it were.
Mum and Dad got married in 1966 in St. John’s, and I was born there a year later. I still love to watch people ruminating when I tell them I was born in the same hospital as my mother, but in a different country.
Dad’s career meant taking a lot of transfers in their early years together, and in their first four years they lived in St. John’s, Gander, Moncton and Westmoreland County in New Brunswick. That’s where Tara was born on Mum’s birthday in 1970. In 1974, Dad transferred to the Edmonton Control Centre at the International Airport, and they began putting roots down in Leduc, where they would spend the next quarter-century together.
During those years, Mum looked after and helped raise two kids, and kept a caring and watchful eye on many others in our cul de sac in Willow Park. Innumerable cups of coffee were enjoyed on our front step and eventual deck by her and our neighbours, congregating to watch the sun set on long summer evenings. Mum’s openness, friendliness, hospitality and magnetism are probably her greatest legacies.
That hospitality extended to the basement of our house as well. In my adolescence, it was not unusual for a half-dozen friends and I to situate ourselves there to play games like D&D from noon on Saturday to 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Not only did my nerdy chums feel welcome, when Mum got asked if she was concerned about our pastimes (at the height of the “Satanic panic” surrounding them), she replied, “Why should I be? I’ve met all his friends, they’re quiet as mice except when they’re laughing, and I know where they are at ten at night when other boys are out getting girls into trouble. Where are your boys at?”
She maintained the household and kept us quiet when Dad was home sleeping during swing shifts, keeping us fed and driving us to Cub Scout meetings or dance practices. She volunteered at Second Glance, Meals On Wheels and other local causes, but is perhaps best known for helping out and working at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 108. Eventually Mum served on the executive as first vice-president and earned her Life Membership. She also enjoyed her role as “first lady” of the mayor during Dad’s two terms in that office, accompanying him to many conferences and official functions.
And keeping us fed brought its own challenges, and not just because the eulogist has a 50-inch beltline - Dad is actually the one who taught Mum to cook, and the first time she made breakfast without him, he actually thought their trailer had caught fire. I also laugh, remembering how exasperated Mum got with Dad when he brought home some kind of take-out after she had spent the day preparing a pot of stew or chili. This was because he (rightly) believed it was better on the second day, so why not start with that. “I forgot,” he would always say, unconvincingly.
Mum and Dad both loved music, and all types of it. Growing up in our household meant hearing the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Al Hirt, Anne Murray, Abba, the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar, an assortment of old school country and novelty K-Tel 8-tracks like Goofy Greats. This is, of course, in addition to Newfoundland music of all sorts. She was a highly coveted teammate for games of Name That Tune and helped the “K.P. Crew” to many victories.
Mum also loved dogs, and Tara and I grew up with our fair share of furry “brothers and sisters”: Rex, Duke, Duchess, Freckles, Sox, Finnegan, Kali, Pepsi, Cola, and of course, Willow. Willow was Mum's constant companion and best icebreaker the last seven years- you would think people had never seen a dog before. Wheeling the two of them through the University hospital on her last day there, a man walking by said, "What a cutie," but I told him, "You can't talk to my Mum that way, mister."
Mum had bowled in a 10-pin league back east, but quickly picked up the 5-pin game more common out here in the west. One season her team successfully fought their way up to the bottom of the tier above them to get a cuter trophy featuring a skunk for last place. She was also a competitive horseshoe player, partnering with me one year on a team for the Legion, which got her another trophy for poor ranking, this time with a horse’s behind. She loved it.
Her dedication to ceramics was significant enough that Dad installed a kiln in our basement so Mum could fire her own pieces. I can’t tell you how many chess sets and Christmas trees came out of that house Willow Park in the late 70s and early 80s. They were sold to Dad’s colleagues at work or given away as gifts, and I only wish we’d held on to more of the fantastic work she’d done. Yesterday’s disposable kitsch is today’s coveted nostalgia, it seems.
On the other hand, I was scandalized by the number of saucier pieces she did, including a gold, full-body nude figure that stood - pardon me, kneeled perhaps 18 inches tall. Coming across pictures of "Blondie" last week, many of which featured relatives hoisting her up like a trophy, brought all the repressed memories flooding back. Make no mistake: Helen Fitzpatrick was a proper and elegant lady with almost zero regard for decorum. A source of embarrassment for us as children is now a point of pride for Tara and I as adults, and if we are open-minded, it may well be because we were given no choice in the matter.
We saw Mum’s brother a few times growing up and enjoyed visiting with him, but saw Dad’s family in Manitoba at least every other summer. Mum got on so well with Dad’s siblings that when comedians made disparaging jokes about “the in-laws” I had to get her to explain to me what they meant.
Like most of my aunts and uncles, Mum had a wicked keen sense of humour, and was a great one for a memorable turn of phrase, especially her expressions incorporating "Newfanese":
- She was more often gutfounded than she was hungry
- Looking at her crosswise would get you told “Don’t slire at me”
- If that goes wrong, there won’t be enough of him left to bait a trout hook
- Touch that dial and they’ll be picking you up in China for speeding
- Ask her how she was feeling and she was likely to answer “with me hands, how else?” (She would even gesture this in the hospital when she was unable to articulate the words.)
- “What do you want?” Nothing. “Then take nothing, and go.”
- What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China or where bacon comes off a pig?
- “What do you want for nothing, your money back?”
There were many more, but I know Mum would be mortified to hear them spoken in church.
She was also an unrepentant prankster, tormenting her own mother with a tiny plastic spider I'd gotten from a gumball machine and which she’d gone to the trouble of attaching a piece of thread to. She would casually flick it onto the leg of Nan’s pants while she knitted in her chair at home and then wait for her to notice, yanking it away as Nan shrieked, before it could be snatched away and destroyed.
Mum was a bigger fan of Halloween as an adult than I ever was as a child. She delighted in full-face masks that completely obscured her features, forcing people at parties to guess who she was. Her commitment to this was such that not only would she remove all her jewelry, refuse to speak, and drink with her right hand instead of her left, she wouldn’t even let Tara walk in with her. Even if Tara was similarly masked, Mum was convinced that Tara’s gait, or “longshoreman’s walk” as she indelicately put it, would give them away.
Still, Halloween was not as important a day to Mum as Remembrance Day. She loved it, even if it meant a lot of work. She and Dad instilled a respect for service and sacrifice that resonated with Tara and I, and that Audrey and I have passed on to her granddaughters. Mum also appreciated a chance to reconnect with those people who might only come out to the Legion once a year.
During Tara’s time as a bartender and server, Mum and Dad made a point of checking out the many different bars and restaurants she worked at, getting to know the people she worked with and the local regulars. They made new friends at every locale, people who inevitably left happier than they’d arrived. Tara thinks these visits from her parents, and especially her charming mother, became a critical element of her resume, and she made sure to find ways to introduce them to her coworkers when she moved into office work.
After Dad retired and her own mother had passed away in Leduc, it was time for a change. They sold their condo, bought a motorhome and drove to Newfoundland with Tara, with a plan for eventually residing in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. But they stayed nearly two years on The Rock before eventually returning to Alberta.
The gypsy lifestyle of RV living still appealed to Mum and Dad, so they divided their time between summers at the Leduc Lions Campground and winters at various communities in B.C. with much less snow. They were vibrant participants and valued citizens of these microtowns, as you might expect, and developed long-term friendships everywhere they stayed. Mum was also a frequent patron of the Home Hardware in scenic downtown Osoyoos, and Tara and I have the trinkets, gadgets and knick-knacks to prove it.
I was grateful for those summers in Leduc, because we could visit my parents with my girls, Fenya and Glory, and they could spend a little time together.
The two of them kept this up for seven years, even in the face of Dad’s failing health, and Mum maintained the RV lifestyle for another four after he passed in 2012. A woman in her seventies driving a 40-foot motorhome through the Rocky Mountains twice a year sounds surprising until you remember it’s Mum. Tara, who often accompanied her to keep her company on the drive and assist with set up, maintains that she never saw a better RV pilot than Mum, even when she was doing 140 km/h on the QEII in hopes of making last call at the Legion (which, sadly, they did not).
Eventually, Mum sold the RV and moved in with Tara and Jerry in Leduc, looking after the house since the two of them were now spending most of their time in Houston due to Jerry’s work. She also used those two years as an opportunity to connect with Jerry’s son, Jason, chatting with him about school and life, the same way she had with us.
After the house was sold a couple of years ago, she and her beloved dog Willow had been living happily in a sweet little apartment here in Leduc, within walking distance of downtown and the Legion.
There are a number of other mature ladies made single by time and circumstance within Mum’s circles, and Mum was instrumental in getting them out and about, serving as ringleader for brunch outings or wing nights. And that magnetism I mentioned never wavered - most people go to the Legion to eat, drink or visit - Mum held court. Bad behaviour was scorned, good acts were praised, loudmouths were ostracized and people picking on other folks had best not do it in earshot of the Dragon Lady. After all, this is someone who was breaking up fights well into her 50s (which is how she got that nickname from our father). Whinging was discouraged, but people feeling hard done by could always count on a nearby seat and sympathetic ear.
Even people who only met Mum once, like at my 50th birthday two years ago, carry strong impressions of a bright, lively, and charming lady, with a delightful accent and a trove of stories to share.
Mum was a terribly difficult person to encapsulate, but if I had to distill her spirit down to a single word, that word would have to be “bold.” She was bold in her actions, in her words, and in her appearance. In the hospital, many of her nurses marvelled at her sparkly nails, and Mum would smile tiredly at them from her pillow, with no makeup on, her hair tousled, and say, with no trace of either vanity or irony, “well, I like to look my best.”
Our cousins still recall an Aunt who exuded style and confidence in every way on visits three to four decades ago, brandishing two handfuls of rings and wearing a rainbow of bright colours.
Mum’s boldness expressed itself in other ways. She wasn’t afraid of any person, although she was wary of horses and terrified of mice and rats and suchlike. She could always be counted on to say the right thing, stick up for those who couldn’t do it themselves, and could not abide bullying.
As a child, you might not always want bold, and Mum could also be sweet and on rare occasions even mild, but her boldness is behind almost all my fondest memories of her.
I could say Mum never raised a hand to me, but there was that one time - in my teenage years, Mum and I were bickering about something as we made our way to the house from the car in the driveway. I said or did something particularly disagreeable and she quickly shook a pointed finger at me - a finger that I know many people in this room are familiar with - and the force that she pointed at me with from two feet away was such that I jerked my head back with enough force to embed a half-dozen pieces of stucco in my scalp. As I picked the sharp, tiny pebbles out of my head, she smirked and said, “That’ll teach you,” defusing the moment and effectively ending the argument.
Mum taught Tara and I a lot over the years:
- To speak up for ourselves.
- To stick up for others.
- To be proud Newfoundlanders (which was tricky for my sister since she was born in New Brunswick, but in truth, she is a better Islander than I ever will be)
- That marriage is a partnership, and like all partnerships, requires honest and frequent communication - two things Mum excelled at.
- To face your problems, not run from them.
- That love is probably the most powerful force in the universe, and should be respected, nurtured and encouraged. She was fond of telling us “I loves ya with a purple passion.”
Mum and Dad loved their friends too, especially Bill and Doreen McGregor. The four of them essentially double dated for a quarter-century until Bill passed, and were a happy trio for another decade after that. If one couple won the meat draw, they cooked the winnings up for the other (unless they caught fire -long story), and they travelled and camped together on many a weekend as well. Mum and Doreen’s friendship lasted for more than 40 years, and I know Mum would have loved to have been at her 80th birthday earlier this month. We should all have friendships that last so long and remain as strong.
Most importantly, Mum and Dad taught Tara and I what family is all about through 47 years of loving marriage, a lesson we’ve done our best to carry forward into our adult lives.
Her parting came suddenly, despite those 29 days in hospital feeling like the longest in my life, and at far too young an age for someone so full of life and joy. But even then, Mum was bold. In many ways, Mum died as she lived - she never ran from anything in her life. She knew where she was going, and moved on to what’s next without hesitation.
I don’t know what comes next, or precisely where she may be, but I can tell you what I feel; I sense she is with my father. I believe she is at peace.
Peace will come to all of us as well, eventually, and lessen our grief. It’s what Mum would want, and we all know how futile it would be to try and fight her on it.
The truth is that Helen Fitzpatrick was Mum to a lot more people than just Tara and I, and a grandmother and a sister and a great friend to the rest, and it was our privilege to share such a magnificent lady with so many appreciative people.
Thank you.
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Close to the end, my voice caught and my eyes began to leak. I cleared my throat, took off my glasses and wiped the tears away with a tissue as I stubbornly forced my way through to the end. And then I was done.
We headed straight over to the Legion for the reception, and there was a wonderful turnout there as well. In addition to friends and family there were many faces from long ago, and some I'd never met, but all impacted by the death of a loved one.
Joanie, the brilliant manager at the Legion (a.k.a. Murphy's Public House), had arranged a piper to come, as Mum's love of bagpipes was legendary. We threw Mum's photos up on the big screen and her playlist (of Newfie songs, country music, a bunch of Abba and more) onto the speakers. While the piper took a break, we put on the "Tishialuk Girls" medley by Great Big Sea and Glory danced a reel, to much applause and another swelling of pride from me.
There were sandwiches and chili and pints, and a steady stream of people coming to tell Tara and I what a special person our Mum was.
We didn't need to be told that, necessarily, but it was still nice to hear, and knowing how many lives she'd touched salved the hurt, at least a little bit. The most healing words came from several of those present, who looked, listened, and nodded slowly, saying, "Helen would have appreciated this."
