2006
...
Your passing was at the exact time
when HOPE springs anew...
And in my anger...
I don't remember seeing that.
I only remember the sorrow.
I was the April Fool then
I admit it!
I sure was fooled...
I was foolish even!
I let my own eyes deceive me
I was fickle enough to not realize
that this was not the end
but truly the beginning.
As Palm Sunday - Easter - Passover were ON...
And it was in one of those churches
built in the late 1800's
that it all took place - a year ago...
One of those "twin parishes"...
A parish that was still "solid" -
one which had been paired up with another -
and the other parish would soon... perish.
The funeral was held at St-Maxime
when its twin parish, St-Norbert, was on its last throes
The year would not end before it did too
It was sold, as it was - to one of 3 bidders...
The Syrian Catholics won out
with a bid of 1 MILLION DOLLARS...
over the "baptist Arabs" (?)
who, sensing they would not get it,
only bid 950,000$... but it was going to be IN CASH.
And the 3rd bidder was also Syrian...
but Orthodox - with a bid in excess of a million
(100,000$ extra, to be precise)
The St-Maxime council decided to cash in the lone Catholic bid of the three...
A short time after pocketing the modest sum I paid for a funeral
just before Palm Sunday.
Money keeps pouring in, after all...
Even with attendance at an all-time low...
But that is another story...
The sad story here is that of many who are no more ~
no longer "with us"...
And so many favorites disappeared in 2006,
in some way or another:
the host of a radio show that both Dad and I used to listen to on a weekly basis...
the perennial candidate in my electoral county...
a singer exactly the same age as my sire...
a cabaret artist I took after, somewhat...
the aforementioned St-Norbert parish...
a French actor with a voice and a particular appendice quite similar to my own...
several other stalwarts, verily - too many to list...
and my dear saintly father.
---
So many new beginnings
Not "the end" - at all...
The Beginning
Labels: commemorative, pai, santo