Marie-Marthe Shedden (née Boudreau) died a year ago on March 7, 2018. As she suffered from dementia (Alzheimer’s-type, but not quite Alzheimer’s), we witnessed her passing one week at a time, or one day at a time in my father’s case (as he visited her in the nursing home almost every day for several years). For several years - 10? 15? more? - she was slip sliding away. Her vitality, energy, memory, and other cognitive faculties gradually declined in such a cruel way that it wasn’t obvious exactly what was going on. We were confused, sad, angry, embarrassed, and helpless.
Eventually, after a tortuous emotional and bureaucratic journey, we were able to get Martha the care she needed. During that time, the decline was more obvious and I think it’s safe to say we began mourning her passing years before her heart stopped beating.
On my mother’s 75th birthday, I wrote this list of 50 fond memories of Martha, this warm and loving wife and mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, daughter, neighbour, and friend. I can’t remember if she was able to read it, but I think Bill at least brought it to her attention. My list might be slightly different today, but only slightly:
50 Martha Memories (for Mom's 75th Birthday, October 30, 2012)
1. Visiting dozens of cousins in Montreal on many occasions. Always being served 7-Up despite being told about all the Pepsi Montrealers drink.
2. Going downtown so that she could buy textiles and accessories on Spadina Ave. (pre-”new economy”!), and so that I could troll the comic stores and used book stores.
3. Meeting at the Lite Bite Coffee Shop at Queen and Spadina after our those hunting and gathering missions.
4. Always talking about going to the Bo Peep restaurant. Maybe going once.
5. Bert Kampfaert, That Happy Feeling.
6. Bert Kaempfert, A Swingin’ Safari.
7. All soap operas.
8. Slangy, Québécois French.
9. Map-O Spread. (Well, it reminds me of her sister Cecile, but by extension).
10. Voulez-vous.
11. Boney M.
12. Lasagna.
13. Home-made popsicles (half Kool-Aid, half Jello).
14. Lobster on New Year’s Eve.
15. The lunch counter at Eaton’s Shopper’s World.
16. Taking us to the Santa Claus Parade and standing on the north west corner of Markham and Lawrence, all the while knowing that the real Santa was at Eaton’s downtown (only to find out later that the real, real Santa was at Macy’s in NYC).
17. Chocolate coconut cluster cookies (I guess if we were in the south we might call them Chocolate Kokonut Kluster Kookies, as they tend to do with these things still).
18. Playing bingo the whole time we were on the Midway at the CNE. That could be 4 or 5 hours, every single year.
19. Monopoly. But mostly Scrabble and, when her sister was visiting, cribbage.
20. Falcon. Datsun wagon. Plymouth Satellite Sebring. Dodge Omni. K Car.
21. Endless chauffeuring (though I backed off of that service pretty early on).
22. Calm detachment during a couple of parties that were going on in her basement, and tolerating things I won’t be tolerating when Meredith’s that age I was then.
23. Mowing the lawn (a shared activity between Bill, Martha and Jim, but I have clear images of her engaged in the Suburban Pastoral ritual).
24. Fish and Chips after church in Highland Creek. The Fish and Chips are a stronger memory than church.
25. McDonald’s after church and catechism at St. Martin de Porres. Again, it was always about the fries. It still is. By the way, she would generally go to church while we were at catechism. Our teachers, and even Father O’Brien, would tell us that it wasn’t enough to go to catechism. We also had to go to church or we would end up in, yes you guessed it, hell. Yes, I would like fries with that.
26. Pop Shoppe! A 2-4 of the good stuff would include Cola, Root Beer, Ginger Ale, Lime Rickey, Lemon Lime, Black Cherry (!), and Cream Soda.
27. Shabby shops like Family Wear House.
28. Bi-Way.
29. Those not-frequent-enough trips to Sam’s and A&A’s downtown, especially when her sisters were visiting.
30. Pies. Strawberry-Rhubarb. Raspberry-Rhubarb. Pecan. Lemon Meringue. Key Lime. Peach. Blueberry. Apple.
31. CKEY, 590.
32. Smoking. Many activities revolved around getting smokes, lighting smokes, smoking smokes, cleaning ashtrays, etc. That was true for most people back then, so I’m not judging. It’s just a strong memory that I have.
33. L’Eggs.
34. Much sewing. The Singer sewing machine. Patterns all of the floor.
35. Découpage. On every surface imaginable.
36. Waiting for us when we got out of the dentist’s office, frozen, sore and befogged from the gas still, songs like “That’s What You Get When You Fall in Love” still ringing in our ears (fused with the sound of the drill of course).
37. Working at the Borden’s employees store! The best times ever. We always had lots of ice cream and frozen treats on hand then, as well as chocolate milk: treats became the norm.
38. Being drunk, just once, in Jamaica. I think about this occasionally when I consider how many of her ancestors were alcoholics, and how many in her immediate family are alcoholics.
39. The food cupboards downstairs, sort of resembling a bomb shelter.
40. Collecting. Lots of collecting. At first this rubbed off on me and I collected coins, then comics, then books and records, then movies in their various formats. I eventually couldn’t do it and decided to work for an institution whose mandate is to collect, and I ceased collecting everything. I make these lists instead.
41. Making our lunches and putting in way too much junk for our own good. Rooti Root Beer. Club bars. Wagon Wheels. Joe Louis. Mae Wests. 1/2 Lune Moons.
42. Running the show whenever we were camping. The amount of work she (and Bill) had to do to make that work somehow convinced me never to take my family camping, though I loved it and tell myself that I might still like it today (but I think I’m lying). “Darling I love you but give me Park Avenue...”
43. Doing the same in our little cottage in Cape Cod. A little easier, for sure, but not too much.
44. Johnny Cash’s Greatest Hits. Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison.
45. Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. And the singles of “Cecilia” and “Fakin’ It” which weren’t on the album.
46. Two trips to Halifax, where she was raised (for the most part). I only really remember the second one, after her Aunt Rose died.
47. I have stronger memories of visiting her father’s house in “rural” Montreal (it wasn’t quite suburban yet, and definitely wasn’t urban, and the various relatives in Verdun (where so much of that 7-Up was consumed), and my first memories in life, at Expo 67.
48. The Hudson’s Bay coat that Bill bought her.
49. The crock pot.
50. Eggnogs for breakfast for a good five years there, maybe longer. Lots of healthy stuff in them, of course, but also remember a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream being part of the formula. Delicious!