St. Catherine's, Ontario

When I was about ten years old, I went with my grandparents to a funeral in Ontario. I had never been to a funeral and I had never met Great Aunt Kate, so it was a strange concept. But I packed my best silk blouse and enjoyed the drive from Detroit to St. Catherine's.

My Nana's brother, Uncle Bob, met us at the funeral home. I had never met Uncle Bob either, but he seemed nice enough. He told me he had something for me and to hold out my hand for it. He dropped two Canadian pennies into my palm. That was cool. Then he told me they were the pennies they had used to keep dead Aunt Kate's eyes closed! I had never seen a dead body before, and that sent my heart into my throat with fright! I felt sick and I'm sure I shrieked in my pre-pubescent voice, "eeeewwww!!!" Nana smacked Uncle Bob and reprimanded him for scaring me. I'm sure Bob just liked to keep kids on their toes and thought he was entertaining me...but the damage was done.

I remember sitting through the funeral, which was long and weird. I remember my eyes getting blurry with unexplained tears. I don't know if I was scared, faced with my own mortality for the first time, or just extremely empathetic. When it was over I didn't dare approach the casket.

Sometime during our time at the funeral home, my Nana ran into a woman named Shirley. Shirley had been Nana's sister's childhood best friend. They started catching up and didn't want to stop talking. So they decided we would go back to Shirley's farmhouse after they laid Aunt Kate to rest. We were supposed to "have a feed of corn".

For some reason that wording stuck with me. I'd never heard of having a feed of corn, and envisioned us gathered around a trough, jockeying for cobs! I knew Nana and Grampa were up for trying new things, but yikes! On the other hand, it might be a lot of fun.

When we arrived at Shirley's she had already started cooking. She put me in charge of husking corn, Nana and Shirley made potatoes, ham, stuffing, and rolls, and Grampa sat in the den watching hockey with Shirley's husband. Apparently they were old friends too.

When I finished with the corn, Shirley sent me to play. She got out baskets of Barbie dolls for me and talked about the horses she kept in the pasture. She said she might call her granddaughter to come out and play with me, but she never did. That was strange, but I was used to playing alone so I didn't mind.

When the feast was ready, we sidled up to the table and "had our feed." I remember everyone eating quickly...eating too much...fork-fulls of potatoes and stuffing scooped onto pieces of ham... The corn was on the cob and we added too much butter...real butter, which I had never had before. It was delicious.

When we finished and pushed our chairs back from the table, I remember going back to play with the Barbies. Nana and Shirley cleaned the kitchen together, and they seemed to be having a ball doing it. It amazed me that they could have so much fun doing chores.

When everything was clean, the adults had coffee and I had iced tea. I'm sure there was some kind of pie. At some point I changed out of my silk blouse and into travel clothes. Soon it was time for us to go.

Nana, Grampa, and I got into the car and rolled down the windows to say goodbye. Shirley was wearing a designer windbreaker to keep out the chill of the evening. Nana and Shirley talked about getting together some time in the future, and told each other what fun they'd had. Then Grampa pulled the car out of the long gravel driveway, and we waved at Shirley and her husband, who shrunk into the distance as they stood by the pasture gate.