My father’s watches

“Do you want your father’s watch?” Sur­prised, my first instinct was to refuse because I have one of those mod­ern watch­es that speak to you and accom­pa­ny you in ways oth­er than time.

Dad had passed away the day before. His watch had been tak­en off a few days ear­li­er because the strap was mak­ing bad marks on his already irri­tat­ed and atro­phied skin.

“A sou­venir, you know.” I nod­ded, reached out and put the watch in my right pants pock­et. All day long, while we were already rem­i­nisc­ing about the last moments, already start­ing to sew the quilt of our mem­o­ries, I dipped my hand into the pock­et and caressed the jewel.

That same day, Mom pre­sent­ed me with his brand new Kanuk, which he had worn only two or three times on his way to the hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. She also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to give me a com­fort­able cot­ton vest that he had not worn either.

I wear a medi­um ; these clothes are loose fit­ting, espe­cial­ly since dad was heav­ier before his ill­ness. How­ev­er, they fit me quite well.

I was both uncom­fort­able and touched. Uncom­fort­able because although I am the only boy in the fam­i­ly, I thought the broth­ers-in-law could ben­e­fit from these clothes. Touched because the objects are an exten­sion of a per­son­’s iden­ti­ty even after death.

Try­ing on the Kanuk, I hugged myself tight­ly to recon­nect with my father’s pres­ence. I almost burst into tears, and my sis­ters smiled at me.

Back home, I went to a draw­er to get the oth­er, much old­er watch that my father had giv­en me. A Bulo­va with cracked glass. Dad had exchanged it for the new one he had bought with Mom.

I under­stood at that moment the vol­un­tary but spon­ta­neous pow­er of mourn­ing. What Mom was doing was tak­ing con­trol of her new exis­tence. This appro­pri­a­tion will take time, espe­cial­ly after spend­ing six­ty-six years with her man. It will be hard because when I get back to my apart­ment, I can already feel the waves of the last days and all the ges­tures and words I will have shared with dad. I imag­ine that this swell will be all the bumpi­er for Mom.

Dad died in his house. Dur­ing the few days I spent in Sainte-Croix, I observed the ded­i­cat­ed work beyond the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the doc­tors and nurs­es. We exchanged with them, and gave them our smiles and good humour to say thank you. They are over­whelmed in a health­care sys­tem that strug­gles to under­stand that it is cheap­er to pro­vide care at home than to rely on hos­pi­tals that are always too far away.

I did not wait for my father’s death to rec­og­nize his lega­cy. Already at work, to the col­leagues I accom­pa­ny, I repeat the same ques­tion he used to ask me when he called me : “What is beau­ti­ful in your life that con­cerns me ?

Of course, I don’t go so far as to say, “Hi, lit­tle boy”. A greet­ing that I believe he also said to his grand­sons. This sen­tence belongs to us, and it tes­ti­fies to the gen­tle­ness of this man.

I want to offer as a trib­ute, not my words, but a lengthy excerpt from the let­ter he wrote to us on their 45^th wed­ding anniver­sary, twen­ty years ago. He had writ­ten it with­out any­one know­ing and want­ed to read it to us before we start­ed read­ing ours.

***

Let­ter to my children

On my moth­er’s day, you, my chil­dren, expressed the desire that I write some­thing about you. I am tak­ing advan­tage of this today since you are all here together.

I said to myself : I will lis­ten to my heart and try to tell you some of what I think ; this is not a cus­tom for me because I am a man with only one friend, your moth­er, and I don’t need another.

You are not my friends ; you are my chil­dren and will always be my children.

I always knew that I would have chil­dren ; that was part of my vision of life.

I am a man born on a farm, so close to nature.

This was my first school of life. To evolve, as a young man, I looked at nature and the way my father func­tioned in the face of it all. Because my goal was to evolve and advance, I would need to have chil­dren. I had to choose a com­pan­ion and a friend because I am very inde­pen­dent and lone­ly and like it that way.

You may say that I am macho, but if it is so, I accept it.

I chose a com­pan­ion, but I still had to seduce her, as is human nature. I want­ed her to be beau­ti­ful, tall, inde­pen­dent, able to walk by her­self, good with her hands, a good cook, intel­li­gent, and in love. I also want­ed her as a friend because she would be the only per­son I would dare to con­fide in. She had to be able to let me live my life because I am not a man who can live with a han­dle on my back. I want­ed her to be perfect.

There is a say­ing : seek, and you shall find. I had no trou­ble get­ting girls. I was look­ing, but I could­n’t find love in them.

One morn­ing at the Arthabas­ka fac­to­ry where I worked, dur­ing the break, I saw the mar­vel I was look­ing for. She was work­ing in the house next to the fac­to­ry ; she had gone to shake a car­pet on the gallery. I said to myself : this is her, I want her, and I will have her. You’ll say damn macho again !

I left the girl I had. I still had to con­quer Irene, but I knew I could do it.

And it is now forty-five years that she is my friend, my mis­tress because your moth­er is a real woman, which was essen­tial for me.

I love the woman who is your moth­er ; if I could keep her, I would let her free of her actions. I told myself that if I caged a pre­cious bird like her, she would die ; I want­ed to keep her all my life. She is spe­cial, your moth­er ; I want­ed her like that.

So I had every­thing I need­ed to start a fam­i­ly. The rest, I did­n’t think about it, I was uncon­scious, but that’s me.

I told her that I would sell my car and that we should get mar­ried. I took her by sur­prise, and she said, “yes.”

For a long time, I have been ask­ing my spir­it for wis­dom, peace, seren­i­ty, health and con­fi­dence in life, and myself. I had health and con­fi­dence in myself.

[…]

You know, when I am with my chil­dren, I am always with the most beau­ti­ful and the finest. I mean it when I say that. Because you are so dif­fer­ent, unique and wonderful.

You do not belong to me because I did not choose you as my chil­dren. You chose me as your father.

I am very grate­ful to you. You have allowed me to evolve in this life. You are my birds, but I nev­er want­ed to put you in a cage because you were too pre­cious. I would have destroyed you ; I love you too much.

We should nev­er regret our past expe­ri­ences because every­thing we expe­ri­ence moves us for­ward. Still, we can look back to know our­selves better.

You were unhap­py when­ev­er some­one want­ed to put a han­dle on your back and put you in a cage. Don’t let it hap­pen again because life is too short, and you don’t owe any­thing to anyone.

Love life, and it will love you, have con­fi­dence because every­thing even­tu­al­ly pass­es. Ask, and you shall receive. Life is worth living.

I am in my six­ty-eighth year. I thank God that I have been blessed with chil­dren like you. It has allowed me to grow up.

When I ana­lyze my life, I can say mis­sion accom­plished. I did what I had to do ; I loved a lot, and I did my best.

But I would like to live to see you and my grand­chil­dren evolve. I owe it all to the good for­tune of hav­ing a wife, a moth­er, a friend and a lover who want­ed to make a life with me. It was not always easy for her !

Thank you, Irene, you are my most pre­cious, I love you very much, and I owe you a lot.

Jacques

***

Thank’s dad. I love you.