Ghosts of Montreal

Back from a short trip to Montreal. Well, actually I've been back since Saturday . The last few days I was in recovery mode.

It was a strange feeling to be in that city and only have one relative to visit. When I was a girl, I spent most of my summers and winter holidays in Quebec, either visiting my Italian relatives( father's side)or my French ones(mother's side).Now they are all gone. No more pasta dinners at my Aunt Rose or Aunt Jeannette, nor pork roast and sugar pies at my Grandmother's. No matter how I try I simply can't make those foods the way they did. Picking wild raspberries with Aunt Aline, at her cottage in the Laurentians, while my sister and my cousin Richard tried to get bullfrogs to smoke cigarettes(they were a weird pair of kids). Why did so many of the French family die so young and so tragically ? At least the one surviving member of the older generation of Italians is fit and doing well, although it was sad to hear him tell stories about how this neighbour, and that friend ,had passed away. His circle getting smaller every year.

Now I walk the streets of Old Montreal with my son, and look for ghosts.