Not long ago, I posted a piece titled "Dear Neighbour" which spoke about how life is filled with goodbyes, whether permanent or temporary. On the thirteenth of May, my family and I (along with a great deal of other people) were forced to say goodbye to Manon Aubin, my aunt, and Richard Filion, my uncle. But, unlike my grandfather's departure two years ago, they did not go willingly into the arms of Death. It was an accident along the highway 148, a head-on collision that left two people dead and one in critical condition. My aunt and uncle were on their way to work when it happened. It was most likely a daily routine for all the people involved. As far as I can remember, my uncle has been taking that same route to work everyday, but all those years of safety can be compromised by a single moment. For their twenty five years together, all it would take is a simple moment to put an end to their lives.
I guess, in some astronomical and historical sense, all of our lives are just moments. Aren't we all not much bigger than specs on this planet? Yet, for specs we do change quite a bit about this planet. Richard Filion was my uncle and the owner of the pharmacy in Shawville, some 45 minutes away from home. He, like the rest of us, was just a spec on this planet, and yet he managed to touch the lives of so many people and change them for the better. On top of serving the people of Shawville, he also served those in Quyon and even in his home itself, often delivering the packages himself. The wide range of people that he touched positively only serves to prove that even a spec can change the whole. After all, isn't that what humans have been doing almost their whole existence? Haven't we been changing the world, even though we are so small in comparison? And even though Richard has been embraced by Death, all that he has done remains. The people who's lives have been changed will never truly return to a time before him. But my uncle wasn't the only one who spent his life helping others.
My aunt (as far as I can remember, at least) worked as a teacher for elementary schools. I remember seeing her substituting at my own school once and being completely confused as to why my aunt, Manon Aubin, was there. But beyond that, I remember her telling me a story about this first grader that she had named Noah. This was only a few years ago, while I was in high school. As long as I have been able to walk, I have walked on the front of my feet when not wearing shoes. My heels rarely get close to the ground. Apparently, this little Noah boy would walk the same way all the time and, being the responsible adult that she was, she would tell him "feet down, Noah!" Inevitably Noah left her class, but the story remained. In fact, she had gotten into the habit of telling me the same thing when I walked that way, name and all! I never really listened, but it was always an amusing time. It's a little harder to see how my aunt has really changed the world unless we consider that she was a teacher and a mother. There is a bit of a tendency sometimes to disregard the sheer value of teachers in a child's life. For most children in our society, they see their professors more than their parents, which usually means that the way in which they are taught and treated can have astronomical effects on their lives. However, it is often hard for children to recognize how they have grown due to their teachers. But Manon was an elementary teacher, so she taught and helped them develop their most basic of abilities, such as mathematics, reading, writing, and social abilities. At an older age, it's easy to take these sort of things for granted, considering that just about everyone (in our society) can read and write and do basic math. But if it wasn't for our teachers, our second set of parents, we might not have learned to do those things at all, or not as well as we did under them (as our parents would still have to work and wouldn't have nearly as much time to invest into us as the teachers do). And although my aunt's time is over, those that she taught continue to live with the skills that she has taught them. For all we know, we may depend on them one day to do the same.
But enough of that. There is something that has been on my mind since no longer than two hours after I heard of the accident. You see, I was informed rather late due to the fact that I was asleep at the time and I tend to sleep well into the day. Essentially what I ended up doing was meeting up with the rest of the family at the hospital, and then got into a car with my parents and brother before heading over to my aunt and uncle's house. More family showed up and there was a great deal of sorrow and crying. Some snacks were put out, and some music put on, and everyone was left to deal with the sudden loss. I took a seat on the couch and waited. I considered all the consequences of the crash. There would be no more "feet down, Noah!", nor will there be anymore trips on their boat. But for all the things that I was losing, an aunt and an uncle that my family were close with, my cousins were losing their parents. This overtook me not long into the whole event. For a long time I have considered that it could happen to me, that one day somebody might call and deliver the news that I am an orphan. I never thought it would happen to them. But it did, and I'm not sure I could ever understand how they feel. Officially, they're all adults, but adults or not, that doesn't mean that they weren't close with their parents, that they didn't still live at home, that they didn't lose main pillars of their lives. Their home will likely remain theirs, but how terrible it must be to live in it after losing their parents. Every nook and cranny of the house, every toy, and every pot and pan, belonged once to their parents and bears their mark. Everything, from the stairs to the front door, from the shed in the backyard to the car in the driveway, serves as a reminder of what has been lost. I can only imagine how terrible it must be to suddenly find the house empty every time they return from school or work when their parents would otherwise be there. I can only imagine how lost they must feel now that their parents are gone, no longer there to guide and help them through the complication that is life. They have each other, and they have us, but nothing and no one could ever replace their parents. It is their loss that touches me the most out of this whole event. When I am brought to tears by it, it's not because I miss my aunt and uncle or am sad because I lost them, it is because of how I imagine them to feel, fully knowing that it is probably a fraction of the true grief.
So, as I sat there in their living room, the same room that we had celebrated Christmas and New Years together for as long as I can remember, I grew restless and horribly frustrated. My aunt and uncle truly lived their lives. They traveled to all sorts of places, from Venice to Paris, to Jamaica and New York. They saw far more of the world than anyone else in the family has and they loved to travel. What made me frustrated was not the sudden and unfair nature of the whole accident, but the fact that I had wasted time the night before pursuing mindless entertainment. For those that know me, it might be clear that I am terrified of mediocrity ("A Fear Greater Than Death") and the sheer idea of giving myself up in order to live an unfulfilling life. Their deaths only reminded me that I had been wasting my time, that I had been wasting my life (not in whole), and that I needed to change it. I hated myself for allowing myself to fall so far. Perhaps it is due to this that I grew so horribly restless on that couch. I tried writing there, but even that was not enough. I needed to leave the abyss of sorrow and feel the world. Death, for me, inspires further creation. When my grandfather died, I needed to create, so I wrote poems (see bottom half) and a blog post. But these deaths required more processing. I did not see Death float over them and speak to me, as I describe in the blog post about my grandfather. No, instead it all happened away from me, and so I could not write about Death itself, but its effects. I kept myself occupied with other actions, though, knowing that the moment I would write this post, it would all come out, and I believe it has.
If there is any positive thing that could come out of such a terrible loss, it is the renewal and strengthening of my resolve to live my life and not just survive. It is the strength that will carry me through every day, learning with each step, searching for the answers I don't expect to find. It is the resolve that drives my pen across the paper and causes my fingers to fly across the keyboard. It is the resolve that provides me with a reason to live, and a meaning to my life. So, until next time,
-Zero
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