“I’d like to say a few words, if nobody minds. This would be easier if I texted you all, because that is how I communicated when Noreen was in hospital, but here goes.

I have known Noreen for a long time. Not as long as you, Terry. We didn’t share a womb together. But Noreen wasn’t just my cousin, she was my friend. We were always close as kids. Our families would visit each other. I would protect her against her brother. But as Terry got bigger and stronger and tougher, he and I had to get along.

I remember at our cousin Cathy’s wedding, it had been a few years since Noreen and I had seen each other. I was nervous. Would she remember me? What would it be like. We said hello, and then later we spoke in the kitchen, and it clicked, and it was like old times again.

Over two summers when I worked in Nanaimo I would visit her and her family in Comox. Noreen was a groupie for a band she was involved in. So I was a groupie too.

Then as we got older and were heading off to university, we had to decide which of us would move into our grandmother’s house. Well, I won, and Noreen moved into our grandmother’s house.

We didn’t keep in touch much after that; would see each other every so often, or get updates through our families.

After her terrible tragedy, when she lost her two children in that fire, I didn’t know how to react. I felt so sad for her. My own daughter Jessica was the same age as her children. How could I tell her how Jessica was doing as she grew up, realizing that if Noreen’s children would have been the same age as Jessica. How could I stay in touch with her? What could I say? We had little contact after that.

Unfortunately Noreen kept it all inside her, and started to take comfort in the bottle – that was her therapy. Then Noreen had more tragedy. Her mother and very close friend died suddenly, and Noreen drank more to cope with that. Then her father developed ALS and ended up in hospital, and Noreen would go every day to look after him. And to cope, she drank.

After he died, which was a year ago, she drank more. She carried so much guilt. She didn’t know if anyone appreciated what she did for him, or if anyone cared. I was able to tell her that we knew, and the extended family really appreciated all that she did.

She drank more and more. It seems, looking at her calendar book that she always had with her, that her life ended in early September. She only has one entry, then nothing. Even her former fiancee, John, said that near the end he would go weeks without seeing her, and he would hardly recognize her.

In the end, I think she wanted to die all alone. But because of her medical condition, finding it hard to walk, and being unable to get up the stairs to her apartment, she went to a motel where she knew the people who ran it.

But I don’t think they wanted her to die there, bad for business, so after a few days, on a Wednesday after she fell, they called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital in Comox. They couldn’t help her, so on Thursday they sent her to Victoria. The hospital contacted Michial, who contacted Terry, who called me on Friday, and I went to see her.

Throughout the next week I would go see her every day. And I thank our cousin Jeannie who also visited her often. We would talk with her, comfort her. I always tried to be there when her doctor was there.

On Thursday I think she was ready to die. In hindsight, what she said to me, and what she said to Jeannie, she said goodbye.

I know she didn’t wait for you, Michial and Terry, but I don’t think she wanted you to see her in that condition, to see how bad she looked, how much she had changed.

In hindsight, there are so many ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’. We’ve been talking a lot these last couple of weeks. It is like the movie Butterfly Effect and we don’t know what we could have done. Was it
losing her children, or something even earlier. We just don’t know, and we can’t feel guilty or feel bad trying to figure it out. We just don’t know.

I think that, after seventeen years of torment and struggling, Noreen is finally at peace.”

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She was not a blood relative, but she was my friend. She was a friend of the family going back to the late 1940s in Montreal. She was a friend of my mother’s oldest sister, Georgette, and helped celebrate my parent’s wedding in 1954. They took some wedding photos on her rooftop.

She was the youngest of many children, her parents having come from Italy, lived in Montreal, and ran Segatore’s Pizza on Marquette Street. When she was seven years old her father died. At some point she developed polio, and a bar, a metal brace, was put in her leg. Her leg remained stiff, and she was unable to bend her knee, and had to walk with a cane. Her leg with the brace was shorter than the other one, so she had to wear special shoes with one sole thicker than the other.  She went completely blind too, and after so many years was operated on by the famous Canadian brain surgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield, who was able to restore her sight. If I recall correctly from what she told me, it was experimental surgery. It worked, and her sight was restored, tough she remained legally blind. She loved to read, and read through most of her life.

When Marie was in her early 40s, her mother died. As Marie had lived alone with her on Chabot Street in Montreal, her siblings worried about what to do with her.  They said she could not live alone, that she had to go live with one of them, but she refused. She stayed living in the same place, alone and determined, until about 2003. She did her own cleaning, cooking, washing. She was incredibly independent and a true inspiration for handicapped people, as her apartment had an outside staircase, as she got on in years, with the Montreal winters, she would stay in her apartment all winter long, usually from November until May. She loved to listen to her radio, usually a Montreal Expos or Montreal Canadiens game, as she was a great sports fan.

I learned from her what a washboard was. She did her laundry by hand, using a washboard, until the mid 1980′s.  Maybe the only person in a major Canadian city to still use a washboard for so long. She was so happy to finally get a clothes washer. 

When I was six years old she came for an extended visit to North Bay where we were living, to help my mother who had been ill in the hospital.  I remember one Sunday my father took my brother, sister, and I out to Dairy Queen, and Aunt Marie stayed to look after my mother. When we got back and went in the house, the house was empty. They were gone! We looked all through the house, and no sign. We got concerned my mother had had a relapse and been rushed back to the hospital. This was in the days before cellphones and instant communications.  Eventually we found them. The back door neighbours had invited them over, so both my mother, who should have stayed in bed, and my Aunt Marie, had walked through the yard, climbed over the back fence, and were very happily at the neighbour’s house. It must have been quite a site to see.

During that visit Aunt Marie noticed, when I read aloud, that I was a very poor reader. She asked me if I wanted to do a surprise for my father, as Father’s Day was coming up, that I could read a book to him. I agreed and got one of my children’s books, and with her guidance and teaching, practiced and practiced. On Father’s Day I read the book to my father. I have been a reader ever since, and have always been eternally grateful to her for teaching me how to read. Now, whenever I tell my children about her, I always tell them that she taught me how to read, and emphasize how important reading is. Indeed, the last time I saw her, and introduced my daughter Evelynn to her, I reminded Aunt Marie that she had taught me how to read, and I thanked her again.

By coincidence, I set up a personal Twitter account today, before I found out about her passing, and in my profile, I put the word ‘reader’ – that is how important reading is to me.

Another time when she visited us, we had a hammock, the kind suspended in a metal frame. Aunt Marie wanted to try it, but was very unsure.  My father said to go ahead, try it, it will be safe.  She was nervous, but tried it out. She sat on it, and as she lay down the hammock part flipped around, with her in it, so she went a horizontal 180 degrees, and was dumped on the ground and burst out laughing. 

As a child whenever we went to Montreal we would visit her, and I have fond memories of big gatherings in her apartment of real Italian pasta.

I went to Montreal in 1983 for a visit. Before, my mother suggested I go see her. I called and arranged a visit. Walking to her apartment I was so nervous. I had not seen her in five years; I was no longer a kid. Would se remember me? Would we have anything to talk about? Would it be awkward? I was so nervous but as I walked up, there she was, standing on her balcony, enjoying the sun and waiting for me. I had such a great time, we talked all afternoon and really got along.

Three years later I moved to Montreal to go to school, and would frequently visit her, usually on a Friday. Either she would cook, or we’d have take-out. I always had a great time visiting her, lots of laughing, lots of stories, good discussions. She was one of the best conversationalists I knew. Sometimes she’d give me the key to her liquor cabinet and we’d have a drink or two.  She never drank alone, only very rarely with company, and I felt like one of the privileged few to have drink with her.

After I moved back to BC I stayed in touch with her, phoning her, and visiting her on each of my three visits to Montreal, when I introduced her to all but the youngest of my children.  My last time speaking with her was her birthday, October 3rd.