94th Birthday Lunch with Memories Attached.
Pat Sampson turned 94 last Friday. I remembered the day before and realized that I could actually go over to Vancouver if the family had planned something. They had planned a restaurant lunch so over I went.
Pat and I have known each other for 67 years! I was 4 years old when we all moved out to a post-war Montreal suburban development for WW2 veterans in 1947. Pat and my mother became good friends as did my father and her husband, Jim.
Around age 10, I became the baby sitter for their two children, Glen and Janet. At the end of my baby-sitting career, a baby named Brad suddenly appeared but after a gig or two that included baby Brad, I moved on. :-)
Very sadly, Glen died at age 15 when he was hit by a car. But the rest of the family carried on with lots of new and fun twists in the road.
By the early 80's both Janet and Brad had moved to the west coast. Brad and his wife had also provided grandchildren. Pat and Jim decided they would move, too, to be closer to their children and grandchildren. (Janet had provided a couple of ex-husbands but no grandchildren. Needless to say, I felt very close to Janet.)
My parents and the Sampsons had remained the best of friends decade after decade and they always had time together whenever my parents were visiting Vancouver.
One especially dramatic evening, I had Pat, Jim, and Janet at my place for dinner with my parents. During the first course, Jim had a seizure and we had to call 911. As the two medics put Jim into the stretcher, one of the medics and Janet exchanged guarded remarks which set off my radar. As we went down through the lobby to the ambulance, a crowd in the lobby wanted to know if my bad food had been a problem again. Such friendly neighbours! LOL Meanwhile my parents were still sitting back at the dinner table wondering what was going on. Pat and Janet went off to the hospital so my parents and I concluded with dinner for three. Years later. Janet told me that the medic was at that time one of her clients in an alcohol treatment program.
In 2005, Pat and Janet arrived in Victoria on a cruise ship from San Diego to Vancouver. Jason (my then partner) and I met them at the dock and took them out for dinner. As soon as I saw Janet, I knew there was a serious problem. Her cancer became very serious shortly afterwards and, the next year, the family had a funeral back in Pointe Claire where we had all lived so many years before.
As I happened to be in Montreal at the time, I offered to do a photo book of the service and met with the minister before the service. It turned out that he had officiated at both Janet's weddings and was now doing the funeral. He was also very gay so I thought he would laugh when I said that we would have to settle for just Two Weddings and a Funeral. He didn't laugh. Maybe he wasn't as gay as he appeared. :-) I also met Brad for the first time since I had seen him as a 12-month-old baby in a crib. He was now a very big guy indeed.
All this to explain the occasionally sad but mainly very happy memories that came along to this lunch. Pat, her son, her daughter-in-law, her granddaughter, and her first great-grandchild were all there. I'm very glad I was there, too.
At 94, Pat still doesn't miss a beat. As we both ordered wine, she said, "I'm so glad you're here. They're all teetotallers."