South of Town

The wind is howling outside. Somehow, it serves as an eerie reminder that this weekend marks the 100^th Anniversary of the Great Storm of 1913.  November 9^th was also the date when the power went out across Eastern North America back in 1965; an event that was immortalized in the Doris Day movie, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?

 

Sadly, this was also the day that my Grandfather was buried back in 1965. According to my mother, he would often talk about the storm of 1913. Given his farm’s close proximity to Lake Huron, he would have witnessed the events as they were taking place and been of an age to remember it.  A storm of this magnitude would have become part of the local folklore in his community.  The fact that he died on the same weekend many years later seems fitting somehow. 

The phone call came early on a Sunday morning telling us that he had gone out to milk the cows and had been found dead in the barn; later, we learned that he'd died of a heart attack. I was only seven years old at the time. My experience of death had been quite limited up to this point, but I knew that he was gone and that it was very sad. When everyone went downstairs, I sat on the floor of my parents’ bedroom and wrote a poem about him. I have no idea what happened to that poem, but it was the first time that I had ever tried to use the written word to express emotions that seemed too big to say aloud. On an intuitive level, I understood that while my grandfather was gone, he might live on through my words. In that sense, this weekend also marks the date of my birth as a writer.

Images of my grandfather’s death remain vivid in my memory to this day: sitting on the cold, bedroom floor writing the poem; the funeral where our family was closeted away in a little room (picture a closet with church pews) and the funeral director pulling a curtain across at the last minute so we could not see anyone, presumably to shield others from the contagion of our collective grief; sitting in the backseat of the car at the cemetery, shivering; seeing the snow swirl outside the windshield and my mother in the front seat, crying; feeling at a loss as to how to console her; the tea party that was held afterwards in the basement of my aunt’s house where everyone was chatting and laughing over sandwiches and then, looking over and seeing my grandmother sitting at the far end of the table with tears rolling down her face. How dare people laugh when she was so sad? I felt outraged on her behalf. For a child, witnessing such grief can be overwhelming, but I'm glad that the adults in my world did not feel the need to shelter me from their grief or pull the curtain across so I could not witness it. I'm grateful that I was allowed to take part and that I have those memories now.  

Grandma Maddock used to say, “Someday, when I’m south of town…” meaning “Someday, when I’m dead.”  This was just her euphemism for the cemetery where she would be buried eventually; it just happens to be located south of town. South of town puts a lighter spin on what might otherwise be a difficult subject. South of town is like a favourite, old sweater—comforting somehow. When I walk among the graves south of town and see the names of all the old neighbours and friends who have passed on, I am comforted by the fact that I remember them. To me, each name represents a story; each life represents the larger story of our community. Today, I wanted to pause and remember my grandfather and his story; perhaps, one day when I'm south of town, someone will remember mine.