Lives & Legacy

Part of the charm of living in a small community is that, after a while, you discover there are rules. Not the kind posted on a sign or buried in a municipal bylaw. These are the unwritten rules. Nobody explains them to you. You just pick them up along the way.

We are a few days into August. The annual construction holiday is over and, if you are like me, you are wondering how you’re going to pack in all the things you had  planned to do this summer — and haven’t yet — into the next few weeks.

There are few things more uniquely Quebec than the annual construction holiday – not poutine, not arguing over whether the Canadiens should be more active in the off-season, not even debating the proper pronunciation of “Vaudreuil.”

This, in my not-always-so-humble opinion, is the absolute best time of the year.

Here is a take that will probably be wildly unpopular. At the very least, though, it should get a few people fired up. We are only about a week into the World Cup soccer tournament and I have already had more than my fill of the whole spectacle.

There are certain milestones in life that society collectively agrees are important. Then there are the quieter milestones. Those are the ones I have been thinking about lately.

It is springtime in our little corner of the world. All the unmistakable signs are there. The leaves are out, the temperatures are pleasant, and the black flies and mosquitos are coordinating their assaults. This year there is an added bonus — the Habs are in the playoffs. And, they’re winning.

Over the past 10 days or so, I’ve attended the funerals of the mothers of two of my oldest friends in the world. “Sadly” is the word that comes to mind, of course. Oddly enough, however, I came away from each experience feeling uplifted. Even joyful, which might sound like an unusual takeaway from a pair of funerals, but there you have it.

Here we are in mid-April in Montreal — that magical, confusing, slightly unhinged time of year that requires decisions. Or, more accurately, “leaps of faith.” Should I finally put the snow boots away? Swap the winter tires? Drag the rake out from wherever I defiantly tossed it back in November? Or, is this all an elaborate meteorological prank, with one last snowstorm lurking like a villain waiting for its cue?

Recently, I had one of those moments that gave me a sudden, almost cinematic understanding of what my parents must have been thinking when they first heard the music of my youth.