Marguerite Joyce Rilstone
We ALL must strive to find a cure. One more is one too many. Most have been hit hard by a loss from cancer. This is my personal reason why I have a passion to help fund that cure.
Mike
--------------------------------------------
Marguerite Joyce Rilstone, “Mum”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.”
- Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
CANCER!
Cancer! Cancer! Cancer! Nothing but cancer!
Cancer killed Mom.
Cancer killed my grandparents.
Cancer killed many of my family.
Cancer has killed many friends and continues to do so.
Statistically, we all have a one in three chance of dying from cancer. Due to the high incidence of cancer in my gene pool my odds are supposedly less “favourable”.
Surrounded by cancer, I was progressively moved from an early age to do something against this foe. In my heart I wanted to help fund the cure.
And if cancer was going to take me, then maybe I could make a difference for my children, or my children’s children
The true commitment was forged when Mom died. I was 31 years old and the thought of helping to fund the cure became innately incessant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a snowstorm on December 23, 1981, four young men were pushing a sleigh, bearing a casket containing their Mother’s emancipated body to her final resting place in Mount Royal Cemetery, overlooking the City of Montreal.
Marguerite Joyce Rilstone was being pushed up a very steep hill to a plateau containing a row of graves. Two of those plots belonged to Joyce’s sister.
She was about to being buried with her mom, Emily Millicent Hamer, who had died in August, 1966. “Gram” had been born in Bermuda, born of black slave heritage. Her family emigrated from the island in 1904, to avoid the race persecution they were facing on the island. You can escape human enemies, but you cannot escape the inner enemy. Gram had died of cancer too.
Joyce was being buried next to her nephew, Peter Lorne Macgregor, who had tragically drowned in July, 1950 at a summer camp in Quebec’s Laurentien Mountains. He went to his eternal rest at the too young age of eight. Much later, in 1999, Joyce’s sister would join them. Frances May Macgregor, Lorne’s Mom. She too passed away from cancer. Therefore, except for the cruelty of a childhood accident, two family plots contained three cancer victims out of four deaths.
The four men pushing Joyce in knee-deep snow were her offspring, all boys. In descending age they were Peter, this writer Michael, David and Paul.
For more than half of my living memory, from the age of seventeen, I had watched her fight cancer with valour worthy of a soldier. In fact, I had chosen Onward Christian Soldiers as one of her funeral hymns.
At the funeral, perhaps many considered it an unusual choice. I had picked this hymn because it had been a favourite with Mom and me. Our family Priest, Canon Bonathan, of the little Anglican church of St. Mark’s in the village of Longueuil, Quebec, had come to the family gathering to plan the funeral and was asking for hymn choices. I looked him straight in the eye and said Onward Christian Soldiers and he knew why.
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus, going on before!
Christ the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see his banners go!
For Mom, cancer had been the foe. Much of the strength she had possessed to fight this war against her own cancer for 14 years had been nurtured through her faith and love of God.
Mom, singing soprano and I, singing bass, had sung for years together in the St. Mark’s choir, facing each other across the chancel. Mom always sat on the church’s south side, near the pipe organ’s console. What a family affair it was, for my cousin Jim Macgregor, Lorne’s younger brother, was at that keyboard every week, bodily pulling the sweetest notes imaginable from that old Casavant, made decades before in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. Jim played that organ with a vengeance, almost standing on those bass pedals, sending forth the boom-boom-boom of heavy, pitch-perfect bass notes across St. Mark’s chancel, helping to keep me on key.
The tempestuous challenges of life vaporized during that weekly hour of heavenly thanksgiving. Over the years, as Mom and I exchanged smiles on every hymn, I could almost forget the constant threat that new cancer cells might be springing up to rage within her.
She had battled those cells often. Over fourteen years, on five separate occasions, her Montreal medical team had found new evidence of tumors. Her scary routine would start all over again, first with an operation, followed by chemotherapy treatments, the life-giving poison cocktails administered one week every month in the Oncology Department of the Montreal General Hospital.
“Canon B” loved Onward Christian Soldiers, giving Mom and me dozens of opportunities through her cancerous years to sing the fight against the foe, smiling bravely at each other.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom! On-Ward-Chris-Tian! Now it was December 23, 1981 and I was not in the bass section. I was in the first pew facing “my” section and Mom’s casket was sitting in the aisle next to me.
The bass melody of Onward Christian Soldiers sets a deep rhythm like a bass drum, “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom”, and as that fateful sound hammered one final time toward me from that Casavant, my mind raced back, Mom was alive, sitting up in the chancel, smiling at me as I belted out towards her the familiar pounding of the chorus like a bass drum, On-Ward-Chris-Tian……..and I fainted in anguish. I remember Paul grabbing me as the lights seemed to go out in that horrible anguish that I would never see Mom again.
Mom’s death closed a chapter in my life. I never returned to St. Mark’s. A part of me was in that casket. Mom had been my best friend and my confident. Even my desire to sing had died and I have never since donned choir robes and belted out those deep bass notes in praise. I know I would break down, even decades later. The memory of Mom haunts me that much. Singing in a choir would be too much.
Perhaps everyone dreams of funding the cancer cure in like situations, as I watched our local funeral director Doug Stride and his undertaking staff place my Mom over that hole in the ground. I swore I would. No matter what!
Mike
--------------------------------------------
Marguerite Joyce Rilstone, “Mum”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.”
- Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
CANCER!
Cancer! Cancer! Cancer! Nothing but cancer!
Cancer killed Mom.
Cancer killed my grandparents.
Cancer killed many of my family.
Cancer has killed many friends and continues to do so.
Statistically, we all have a one in three chance of dying from cancer. Due to the high incidence of cancer in my gene pool my odds are supposedly less “favourable”.
Surrounded by cancer, I was progressively moved from an early age to do something against this foe. In my heart I wanted to help fund the cure.
And if cancer was going to take me, then maybe I could make a difference for my children, or my children’s children
The true commitment was forged when Mom died. I was 31 years old and the thought of helping to fund the cure became innately incessant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a snowstorm on December 23, 1981, four young men were pushing a sleigh, bearing a casket containing their Mother’s emancipated body to her final resting place in Mount Royal Cemetery, overlooking the City of Montreal.
Marguerite Joyce Rilstone was being pushed up a very steep hill to a plateau containing a row of graves. Two of those plots belonged to Joyce’s sister.
She was about to being buried with her mom, Emily Millicent Hamer, who had died in August, 1966. “Gram” had been born in Bermuda, born of black slave heritage. Her family emigrated from the island in 1904, to avoid the race persecution they were facing on the island. You can escape human enemies, but you cannot escape the inner enemy. Gram had died of cancer too.
Joyce was being buried next to her nephew, Peter Lorne Macgregor, who had tragically drowned in July, 1950 at a summer camp in Quebec’s Laurentien Mountains. He went to his eternal rest at the too young age of eight. Much later, in 1999, Joyce’s sister would join them. Frances May Macgregor, Lorne’s Mom. She too passed away from cancer. Therefore, except for the cruelty of a childhood accident, two family plots contained three cancer victims out of four deaths.
The four men pushing Joyce in knee-deep snow were her offspring, all boys. In descending age they were Peter, this writer Michael, David and Paul.
For more than half of my living memory, from the age of seventeen, I had watched her fight cancer with valour worthy of a soldier. In fact, I had chosen Onward Christian Soldiers as one of her funeral hymns.
At the funeral, perhaps many considered it an unusual choice. I had picked this hymn because it had been a favourite with Mom and me. Our family Priest, Canon Bonathan, of the little Anglican church of St. Mark’s in the village of Longueuil, Quebec, had come to the family gathering to plan the funeral and was asking for hymn choices. I looked him straight in the eye and said Onward Christian Soldiers and he knew why.
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus, going on before!
Christ the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see his banners go!
For Mom, cancer had been the foe. Much of the strength she had possessed to fight this war against her own cancer for 14 years had been nurtured through her faith and love of God.
Mom, singing soprano and I, singing bass, had sung for years together in the St. Mark’s choir, facing each other across the chancel. Mom always sat on the church’s south side, near the pipe organ’s console. What a family affair it was, for my cousin Jim Macgregor, Lorne’s younger brother, was at that keyboard every week, bodily pulling the sweetest notes imaginable from that old Casavant, made decades before in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. Jim played that organ with a vengeance, almost standing on those bass pedals, sending forth the boom-boom-boom of heavy, pitch-perfect bass notes across St. Mark’s chancel, helping to keep me on key.
The tempestuous challenges of life vaporized during that weekly hour of heavenly thanksgiving. Over the years, as Mom and I exchanged smiles on every hymn, I could almost forget the constant threat that new cancer cells might be springing up to rage within her.
She had battled those cells often. Over fourteen years, on five separate occasions, her Montreal medical team had found new evidence of tumors. Her scary routine would start all over again, first with an operation, followed by chemotherapy treatments, the life-giving poison cocktails administered one week every month in the Oncology Department of the Montreal General Hospital.
“Canon B” loved Onward Christian Soldiers, giving Mom and me dozens of opportunities through her cancerous years to sing the fight against the foe, smiling bravely at each other.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom! On-Ward-Chris-Tian! Now it was December 23, 1981 and I was not in the bass section. I was in the first pew facing “my” section and Mom’s casket was sitting in the aisle next to me.
The bass melody of Onward Christian Soldiers sets a deep rhythm like a bass drum, “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom”, and as that fateful sound hammered one final time toward me from that Casavant, my mind raced back, Mom was alive, sitting up in the chancel, smiling at me as I belted out towards her the familiar pounding of the chorus like a bass drum, On-Ward-Chris-Tian……..and I fainted in anguish. I remember Paul grabbing me as the lights seemed to go out in that horrible anguish that I would never see Mom again.
Mom’s death closed a chapter in my life. I never returned to St. Mark’s. A part of me was in that casket. Mom had been my best friend and my confident. Even my desire to sing had died and I have never since donned choir robes and belted out those deep bass notes in praise. I know I would break down, even decades later. The memory of Mom haunts me that much. Singing in a choir would be too much.
Perhaps everyone dreams of funding the cancer cure in like situations, as I watched our local funeral director Doug Stride and his undertaking staff place my Mom over that hole in the ground. I swore I would. No matter what!
posted by mike | 3:00 PM
<< Home