Eulogy for Alice
Five foot two,
eyes of blue
But, oh! What those five foot can do!Has anybody seen my girl?
When I was a little girl I believed that that song was
written about my mother. I think I knew
it hadn’t been written for my
mother…but it was definitely about her.
Even though she would occasionally remind me that she was five foot two and
a half.
My name is Robin Weir.
I’m Alice
When I was small and being chastised for some indiscretion,
I remember cheekily asking my mother if she had ever gotten in trouble as a
child. “Never!” she told me, boldly. Skeptically, I double-checked this claim with
my grandmother. I was suspicious when
Grandma suddenly changed the subject with a smile on her face.
I wonder now
which story was making Grandma smile:
Was it the time Alice and her sisters gave the cat a bath, in the ashcan? Or filled their dad’s brand new car’s gas
tank with gravel? Or could it be when
she fell down the chute in the neighbour’s barn and broke her elbow? Or maybe Grandma was thinking about the time
Nan’s Ford Anglia quit after a camping trip in Collingwood. Alice, Nancy, Joyce and Carol Hepworth
Creasey called Grandma to come and get them and spent the next few hours
sitting on the hood of the car, eating their way through a huge box of
cookies. What else would you do?
Alice loved to laugh.
This was evident even as she was being diagnosed with the brain tumours,
in early September. We had rushed down
after hearing of her admission to Woodstock Hospital. When she opened her eyes to see us entering
her hospital room, she frowned and said, “I know you.” I was a little surprised, but I said yes, I’m
Robin, your youngest. She smiled broadly
and said, “You’re the bratty one!” You
can imagine my relief at this proof that she really did know who I was!
We had other funny moments, in these last few
weeks: Once, as Joanne and I were
helping her walk, one on either side of her, her feet just quit working. We all stared at her feet, trying to get them
moving with the force of our minds. No
luck. Suddenly, she began to sing: “These feet were made for walkin.’” We laughed and then her feet began to move
again. We laughed with her and sang
along. Who knew that she was a Nancy
Sinatra fan?
She accepted the teasing that we dished out with her
usual grace, shrugging it off or, more often, delivering “the look.” It was a look that said, “I’ll remember
this.” Or “careful what you ask
for.” Or even, “Just you wait!” I believe Bill MacLeod was the last one to
receive Alice’s “look.”
She knew her mind, too. The day of her first radiation treatment, we
picked her up at Woodstock Hospital at 10 am and drove to London. That one appointment lead to two others that
day and we didn’t leave Victoria Hospital until almost 5 pm. Nancy, Joanne and I were exhausted and ready
to relax, but Alice piped up from the back seat: “I’d like to go out for dinner.” We were quite surprised to hear this and I
checked with her, “Are you sure you feel strong enough to do that?” Her voice got quite a bit firmer and she
said, “I am taking you all out for dinner." There was no room for discussion there, and
so we did. By 6pm we had a text
indicating that the nurses at Woodstock Hospital were wondering where she
was: we’d been gone for 8 hours! We hurried to be back by the 7 pm
shift-change.
It is so heartening to see so many people out
today. You’ve all been visiting and
sending notes and calling and leaving messages for weeks now. We have been so buoyed up by your devotion, by
your repeated attendance, by your loyalty and your love. It has made a huge difference to us and to Alice
Thank you.
All of this, these moments and gestures and gifts,
were so valuable to her, and to us. They
reminded us that we are not alone, that we are not adrift on this ocean of
grief. You have kept us all connected
and kept us moored to our communities and our life-lines. You have reminded us that while it takes a
village to raise a child, it may take several villages to accompany someone out
of this life.
Thank you. Thank you.
