Mom’s Obituary

Barbara Mildred Agnes McNaughton Reid

July 11, 1931 – July 1, 2023

Barbara succumbed to Alzheimer’s in the early morning of July 1st in Beaconsfield, Quebec.

She was the much loved and loving mother of Heather (Paul), Ken (Norma) and Gordon (Sara), grandmother to Liam, Mairi, Colleen, Nick, Cameron, Sonny, Morgan, Jordan, and recently, great-grandmother to Frankie whom she would have adored as she did all of her grandchildren. She shared much fun and love with her husband, Larry Reid (deceased 2013), his large family and her step-children, Debbie, Randy and Susan, and their children. Aunt Barbara was especially loved by the McNaughton first cousins, Tim, John, Susan and Anne, and their wonderful mom, Barbara.

Barbara was born to Moore and Mildred McNaughton in July 1931, joining her older brother, Donald (deceased, 2013), with whom she had a life-long friendship. Well-loved and adventurous, Barbara and her brother enjoyed a happy childhood in Westmount, Quebec with summer trips to Kamouraska, the Gaspé Peninsula and Kennebunk Beach, Maine. A great fan of the outdoors, Barbara played sports for most of her life – softball, tennis, squash, golf, skiing, curling – and loved to dance. Barbara attended St. Paul School, Westmount and graduated from the CND Notre Dame Secretarial School (Mother House) in Montreal.

Kindness, fun and strength defined Barbara. She was a devoted daughter and a truly wonderful mother who taught and modeled for her children to never give up, to think positively, and to always be with and there for those you love. Throughout most of her life, she sustained a wide network of friends, from childhood buddies to much younger people who were attracted to Barbara’s energetic spirit. She would talk to anyone and get pleasure from their stories. She loved to laugh and was the best audience. The Halifax home, N.D.G. duplex and Pointe-Claire residence were places where people gathered and enjoyed Barbara’s and soon Larry’s generous hospitality. Space was never an issue- there was always room for one more.

Before she married John Swail, Barbara was an executive secretary at Avon. Thrown into single parenthood with three small children in Halifax, 1968, she moved the family back to Montreal, persevered and worked part- and then full-time at the Royal Montreal Curling Club, Bank of Montreal and Marianopolis College. She was a committed member of the St. Ignatius of Loyola parish in N.D.G., and volunteer.

The world was a better place because of Barbara McNaughton. The gifts with which she was born and given in a loving, secure childhood she took with her wherever she went. Even within the constraints of dementia, she found ways to communicate kindness. Her family is hugely grateful to the Manoir Beaconsfield where she spent the last one-and-a half years surrounded by kindness, compassion and appreciation. 

A funeral mass will be held at St. Ignatius of Loyola,  4455 Rue West Broadway, Montreal at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, August 30, 2023. There will be a reception following at the parish hall. An interment will be held at a later date. In Barbara’s memory, please remember to be kind to all you meet. Donations can be made in our mother’s memory to Alzheimer Group Inc., a Montreal charitable organization that offers therapeutic programs to people living with Alzheimers and other dementias (https://www.agiteam.org/) or a charity of choice.

spring frozen

On Friday the skies blew rain and spewed sheets of snow

                      leaving green casualties everywhere 

lime bud kernels caught in thin sheets of ice

bloodroots folding in on themselves

forsythias yellow dulled by cold.

The viscous leaves of the mayapples turned to vein.

Only the daffodils stood, waxenly refusing the snow to settle; unbudging their push from earth

and the squirrels, impervious to this freeze, swinging from the suet tray to the maple 

through the branches, snatching rugosa buds and dropping them on the ground 

disdainful of their destruction.

Valentine

From the ages of 14 to 25, I would receive an anonymous Valentine’s Day card. It arrived unfailingly on February 14th, stamped, written in block letters with the same salutation, FROM YOUR VALENTINE, accompanied by two straight lines of x’s and o’s.  “Mom!”, I would say, when she returned from work that day , “did you send this?; come on, you did!” “No”, she would say, with her mom-neutral-but-I am-right face, “it must be from an admirer, you might have a secret admirer.” After a few rounds of the same questioning and answering, I would retreat to my room and then wonder, what if ? Was there someone out there who admired me from afar? She had planted a seed. 

The seed was planted in barren ground. I did not date in high school, I did not date in the two years of CEGEP – six years (twenty-four years in young-romance-longing years). Once a sweetly-secret promise, the card became a sharp reminder that I was being left behind. When the cards started coming to my out-of-town university residence, I knew it was my mother. Of course. I would shove the envelope into a desk drawer. The cards stopped when Paul and I became engaged. My mother never admitted to being the sender. 

Now, so many years later, I send my mother cards with simple, block-lettered messages like: I WILL SEE YOU SOON! ARE THE BIRDS AT YOUR WINDOW? IS IT SUNNY THERE? KEEP WARM! LOVE YOU MUCHLY. xoxo  They are anonymous in their own way, a pretty card with black lettering and the marking of HEATHER at the bottom.

Why is it that a simple memory remains so emotionally vivid? How is a memory recalled and repeated in another way? Why does it come as you are looking blankly onto a snowy yard in the middle of February?

Unleashed and Trapped

The frozen capital is a hot mess.

For the last 17 days, Ottawa has been occupied by mobs and convoys of angry, honking, unlawful protesters. They are actively intimidating our citizens and occupying the centre of our city. They are breaking all kinds of laws – with impunity. They have established – with no apparent opposition – major encampments where fuel, food and who knows what else are being distributed to the protesters and their families. They have barricaded themselves into the downtown area at Parliament Hill and at our baseball stadium that ironically was the drive-through Covid assessment centre just months ago, and is now a convenient 10-minute drive from occupation headquarters.

No one has stopped them. Police stand by as hundreds of jerry cans of diesel fuel are carried into the blockade, protesters set up shelters, playgrounds, saunas and bonfires – on Parliament Hill.

In a city that literally is over-ruled by jurisdictions (federal, provincial, municipal governments, National Capital Commission, OPP, RCMP) and constantly over-administered – we now, as citizens, are at the mercy of thousands of bullies. Residents have left the downtown core fearing for their safety and sanity after weeks of all-night honking and insults and threats on the streets. Right now as I write, two convoys of trucks are honking and snaking their way through major thoroughfares holding us all captive on a Sunday morning.

Where is the justice? Not here in Ottawa. Not right now. The most effective actions taken so far have been by citizens, filing injunctions, and by some city councilors now yelling for assistance. We have been told to just stay home – let the bullies have their space – it is a dangerous situation. This, in a city where protests by BIPOC groups of 20 or 30 have been shut down in minutes, where temporary shelters erected by the homeless are torn down – quickly, where citizens who are disturbing the peace are subdued, and in the case of Abdirahman Abdi, killed by police officers.

Is it a complicated, dangerous situation – yes, very. In the downtown encampment there are hundreds of families and children that need to be protected. There are some very, very angry protesters whom I am sure have weapons. There are cunning, opportunistic, robotic organizers whose past careers include the military, police and national intelligence. The protesters are fueled by frustration and anger and years of feeling they have not been heard. Their angry willingness to break laws has been harnessed, manipulated and sharpened into a well-oiled protest machine that is not just about vaccines. There is strong, white supremacist, international support behind all of this.

Yesterday, over a thousand of us, gathered in parkas, masks and placards to show support for Centretown and our fellow citizens. We cannot stay home anymore. We do not want to be held captive and trapped in our own community, our own city. We do not want to witness desecrations against religious and racial groups. We will not have swastikas and confederate flags flown in our capital city. Are we frustrated by the restrictions of the pandemic and living through our second winter of lockdowns? Of course we are! But not at the cost of human rights being trampled and real freedom defiled.

Photo credit: Ken Hoffman

Where are our leaders, where are our protectors?

A fellow teacher said that it is like having a school full of every angry, acting-out grade 8 student you have ever met. Can you imagine a teacher letting a group of bullies take over a class, intimidate and insult fellow students, re-arrange and barricade the class, block the windows and do whatever the hell they want? An experienced teacher would long before pick up on and address individual anger, protect the vulnerable and develop and fortify a safe community. A real teacher/leader would not let that happen.

How did we get here – to so much anger and so much hate? We have not being paying attention and we are not taking action.

As I go to publish this, I hear that citizens are blocking the Sunday parade convoy from re-entering downtown. Might just get back into the parka and mask and head out.

Imperial cheese memories

I found the red and black container at the fifth store visited, tucked in behind the gouda. MacLaren’s Imperial Cheese. Professed to be one of Canada’s first, processed, Canadian cheddar cheeses, made in Stratford, Ontario. Orange, very orange, dense, sticky, and as advertised on its cylindrical sides, “carefully aged/vieilli avec soin”. We should all be so lucky.

Finding that little red orb of orange cheese was very important for me this Christmas. Imperial Cheese cresents were one of my mom’s Christmas staples. Her Alzheimers now is progressing with unrelenting intensity. I wanted to honour her by making some of her favorites – to remember her baking and be with her in that way this Christmas. Scottish shortbread and her famous nuts and bolts preceded.

Cheese-grape jelly mini crescents were probably popular in many ’60’s-’70’s households. Artificial enough to make it to middle class holiday platters. Flagrantly orange cheese dough curled around a plop of grape jelly baked at a high heat would fill our home with a sweet, cheesy fragrance. I remember Mom sighing and scraping any exploded jelly off the skins of the crescents, carefully sliding them onto a silver tray and tossing sidelong warnings to us kids to leave them for the guests.

The best part of the recipe was in the making. Sitting at the kitchen table watching Mom beat the butter with the cheese, using the ancient wooden spoon, seeing her slowly add the flour, constantly checking the recipe as if the directions would change, rolling out the dough with the creaky pin, banging it back and forth against waxed paper, cutting out the circles with one of our metal cookie moulds and then carefully assembling, placing the pastry on an old, uneven cookie sheet. The second best part of the recipe was the rich smell of hot cheese and sugar. If we did get to sample one of the crescents, I would have to say the third best part was the taste. After the initial heat, the cresents would take on a strange metallic quality. The joy was in the making and the smelling. The joy was temporal.

As I carefully make the crescents, my mind is with Mom – her ability to pull off a multi-dish meal for large groups in our small duplex, her abilty to laugh easily with guests once the stress of preparing and guarding food was over and the party had begun. Her insistence on wrapping all leftovers with leftover tin foil and being surprised when she found those two lone cheese crescents at the corner of the fridge months later.

This year, I used grape jelly from a friend as a filling as well as the more trendy red pepper jelly and grainy mustard. I worked with careful attention to the recipe – an unusual action on my part having not inherited my mother’s strict adherence to directions. I was making these for my family and I was making them for Mom. I had some control over the planing of the dough and incision of the fillings, unlike much of life. As I write this, my mother is in a geriatric bed at the Lakeshore General Hospital, just a few kilometres from her last, beautiful, independent home. A third fall in the shower sent her immediately from her care residence to the emergency room, with no return, and now, for us children, a search for a new home for the parent who made our home so special.

If I could capture the smell of the cresents baking I would send them to you now, Mom. Thank you for always being there for us.

Tom Thomson I

The waters dark and deep

are violet-ore, cobalt blue, white-lashed

with winds that swirl up from the trees

dark-green monikers fringing sky.

Sandy, short-lipped shores feed the pines,

sharing land with twisted-bark cedars

looking for light a light that blooms pink in the east

and sleeps purple west.

Rocky outcrop ledges reach into, out of the lake.

Lichen climb and clutch in clusters of green and black.

Deadheads and errant tree limbs simulate animal shapes

reflecting back into the dark lake.

He would perch on a sun-warmed rock, maybe anchor his feet on tree roots,

look out and find

a way to sketch and capture such rough beauty.

HS

Storm Clouds, Tom Thomson (Algonquin Park)

A morning in Ste. Genèvieve

We have been talking for a while, looking at photos and the Friday Gazette – 

weather forecasts and predictions –

36 degrees in Abu Dabai, I say – nooooo, she says.

“And how is your mother?” she asks.

Pause.
“She is fine and looking well.”

“And what school are you at now?
The third time I answer: “the Villa Maria – you know
between Decarie and the Boulevard.”
“Oh yes, I know that one”, she says, fingering her scarf.

We laugh quickly about the brown uniform I did not like.
“I will never wear brown again, I promise”, my voice lightening,
anticipating a new line and an old conversation.
“Oh, yes”, her voice trails off.

“It is almost time for your lunch, I had better go.”
I lean in.

Pause.

“ You know”, she says, “sometimes things work out for, you know,
and then, then they don’t for others, I mean.” Her fingers twitch against the cloth.
Blue eyes up, looking.

“I know, Mom, but I think life has been very good to you and me,
and you gave us so much to do well with.”

“Oh, ok”, she says. 

Pause.
“Goodbye.”

Water

I developed a strong thirst for water

on hot Laurentian afternoons

when we would swing our tender, round feet

off the blistered dock, skimming

the cool-blue waters of Lac Major.

The sound –

the sweet-licking sound of water –

would stick with me all day, pulling me back into the lake

to fill what always felt like an unquenchable thirst.

At night, after supper, a desperate feeling drew me back into the water.

That last dive in, as our mother called from the porch, pulling,

That last hand in the canoe, compulsively cupping,

the last curled hand of water splaying water on skin.

The Long Spring: Humidity and Humility

Summer came into the weekend with a feverish intensity. High temperatures and humidity covered the Ottawa valley and environs with a solstice vengeance.

And now, we are hot and sweaty. Today was my third day to go back into school, help for a bit with locker-belonging retrieval and finish up the purge on room 201, my second home and experimental- learning pod for a very long time. An earnest walk to the school got me steps and a whole lot of perspiration that bubbled up for the first hour in the “close”, hot classroom. Looking like “22 Minutes” Raj Binder, I sweated and rifled through all of my paper files. Most went into the recycling bin except for some student work and photos. Oh, the faces of students from 2004, 2005, 2008, and on. And my crazy ideas! Such effort and intensity and energy!

Onto the ancient “craft and game cupboard”. Good God. I should have had a tetanus shot. Rusty compasses. Plasticene, sweating in the heat, dating back to Roman times, broken pencils and Scrabble tiles everywhere. Glue guns with snouts stuck to the wooden shelves. Recycled folders with lovely remembered names: Ezra (who cried when we went to Foreign Affairs and the Palestinean flag was not hanging); Nadia (who beamed like a lighthouse as she casually lifted supplies from my desk, and gave me a “Happy Christmas Great Grandfather” thank you card); Mario, (whose drawings were like music). My sentimentality mixed with a robotic need to get it done and not leave anything  cumbersome for my colleague moving in.

More water. Eat a banana from home, now riddled with fruit flies. Teaching is such a glamorous job. I labour alone because that is what we do these days. Find copies of yearbooks I helped produce with the kids. Great, hands-on projects that meant so much. Beautiful, mature faces staring back at me. Luke, Divine, Cameron, Curtis, Sarah. Faces and stories that would launch a thousand ships. The yearbooks are kept and put on my little trolley.

Three o’clock. Time to go. My internal temperature is approaching Vesuvian records. I wheel the trolley into the empty hall, the map of Canada grazing piled-up desks and cabinets. Our old tarp used for an outdoor activity crinkling as my entourage and I get into the old elevator.

Done. One more quick trip tomorrow to hand in my keys before coming back home for class meetings and on-line games to celebrate their end of a long spring. And that is that, and that is ok. Because this is what we have to do now. And, I think of my last high school days, looking back now, so casually spent in long hours gathered around outside, gossip interspersed in intervals of heat and drags on cigarettes. I feel for all the 2020 kids who looked forward to a natural end.

Teaching is the ultimate profession of mindfulness. The joy and energy are completely in the present. And an empty classroom is the past or future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Long Spring: Last week

Joni Mitchell was right.

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?”

It is the last weekend of school time, and in my case, the last weekend ever of being an employed elementary teacher. This weekend usually is a sweet spot in a teacher’s life. Report cards finally done, the frenzy of June almost done and the summer just beginning.

Your work this weekend typically is to rev up your engine and be ready with: game ideas; party plans; potluck and music lists; end-of-year cards; and a 12-inch strategic-freezie – storage plan in a school with no central AC, one working freezer and 700 students. Oh, and get the script ready and find some suitable clothes for the grade 8 leaving ceremony right smack in the middle of it all.

This last week can be very, very, very long, but am I ever missing it. I have thought about this week ever since I decided to retire – 8 months ago. What would it be like? Would I be emotional? Sentimental? Overwhelmed? Probably. But this last week is not ending school the way things usually end and I am missing it. Yes, we have activities planned for the kids, on-line parties and games, gifts for the grade 8s, and a new way to say goodbye. But not in person. And I am such a person-person.

I will miss the sharp promise of a June morning before the heat hits and soaks the building. The hurried call-outs and reminders to colleagues as we rush through the halls. The chaotic clean-ups of student work: paper, posters, shoe boxes and rolled -up art. Errant shoes and lunch bags, inevitably filled with old cheese strings and wrappers. Locker cleanouts and buckets and spilled water and unreturned forms and envelopes. “You need this, Miss? ” (IEP return form, term one). The half-hearted slosh and application of water and soap to locker insides. Shopping and garbage bags full of winter coats, locker shelves, gym clothes, papers, papers, papers. And, the groans as they descend the stairs with a year’s worth of living.

I will miss our school clap-out after the grade 8 dance in the big gym. The whole school lined up in the downstairs hall in a hot crush of excitement. The PA system blasting “Celebration” and the rush of the “big 8s” as they parade down the hall, high 5’ing the little ones and dancing. The looks of the few who feel this is the last thing they want to do. For many of our students, this walk represents the end of 10 years at one school.

I will miss the crush of bodies as the grade 7 orchestra in white shirts nervously commandeer their string instruments through the hall with calls of “careful with that bass”. The hot procession as we all head over to the high school auditorium for our leaving ceremony. The harried plans for the 7s left behind: movies, water bottles, popcorn and warm freezies. Testing of the mics and the wooden podium, adjustment of giant fans to keep us cool, all the 7s in the orchestra pit below squeezing out the last practice of “O Canada”. The 8’s and their families coming into the foyer. Young women in teetering heels and wide smiles, clutching at each other; young men, some with shirts still tucked in, lining up for the procession. Former students coming for hellos and hugs and teasing about how tall they are now. “You are so short, Miss, you STILL teaching?” Parents and families filing in, the wheeze and hit of auditorium folding seats. Rising heat, students crossing the stage, laughter when someone does a flash dance move, a few tears, the valedictory, and the hot flush of relief when the recessional starts and we have completed another ceremony.

I will miss the last day that never seems to end. Rushed coffee and treats early in the morning with colleagues who are trying to sign report cards without coffee spills, make last-minute plans for 35 – degree outdoor play, securing freezie space. The grade 8s who come to school on Thursday and don’t really know what to do with themselves and how to leave. Yearbooks traded and signed and inevitable shouts of “OMG, I hate that picture of me!” The 2 – 3 pm party with hotly-contested playlists and chips and enough cherry coke to sink a ship. Hugs. Glances. Spills and shrieks. Paper plates and napkins smashed into overflowing recycling bins. Tears, smiles, looks down, hands brushing faces. And the length of the year and the length of the day and the heat turn you into the always practical technician, directing, re-directing, reminding, nagging the crowds. And then they are gone, many not knowing how to say goodbye. This is not a Hollywood movie, this is real life. Adults rush out to the front to wave and cheer as the school buses pull out into traffic. Small faces at windows, hands waving and a rare middle finger. Then it is quiet (once the office realizes that “School’s Out for Summer” in on its 7th go-around). And empty, quiet schools are the loneliest places.

So, I will miss the last typical week of school despite the heat, fatigue and chaos.

But I will always know what I had: an incredible school that gave me the chance to teach and learn. A humbling every day.  Talented, supportive, funny colleagues. So many laughs. So many tears after 3 pm dismissal. Beautiful faces and so many, many stories. This week, faces and voices on screen. What a way to go for the grade 8 students and those of us retiring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I have the wherewithal to pause and review the landscape before the emotional roller coaster starts up once again