CHAPTER 6
SECOND STOPOVER…
I don’t know if it’s a reaction of cause and effect but, when I was 5 years old or about, I got hit by a car on my way to school as I was crossing The Big Boulevard (Labelle Blvd, the main road to my town). I was projected 110 feet away…
(my big brother has been remembering the distance since that day, you know me, not good with numbers… and yes at that time Québec was still using the imperial system!).
That rainy day, I was accompanied by a young boy from the DPJ (Social Services) who lived with us at that time (I never saw him after that event. I learned later that he had killed himself since…). We welcomed another boy from the DPJ after who also ended up terminating his life in the same manner…
The poor old retired elderly who hit us with his big heavy car (cars were pretty much all big in those days) did not see the poor old brigadier that day, as he was wearing a long BLACK raincoat because of the rain (hi-vis fluorescent clothing didn’t exist at the time. Hopefully that accident prompted the authorities to do something about this later?).
and he too died not long after, most likely because of the guilt he felt at the time:
“It wasn’t your fault poor ol’ man, it was MY destiny which followed its inexorable course. Sorry you and your family had to suffer because of it”…
After many days it a coma...
I can still clearly see in my mind the kaleidoscope lights that accompanied me during my struggle to come back. With sometime, in bonus, surround sound to help me pass time… Or did time stop for me then?
Eventually, after a million days of lethargy, I finally woke up with broken limbs, a gigantic skull fracture and mister Magoo as my brain specialist.
I was very talkative and agitated pretty much every time during my many examinations (today, they would most CERTAINLY JUST fill me up with some Ritalin but in those days, they let kids be KIDS) …
Therefore, to keep me quiet during my tests, the lady specialist at the time told me that the green wires from electroencephalograms machine would stick to my hair forever if I moved, especially then as my hair was way longer than now! As I had to regularly go for those tests, I got really scared.
I mean really! What a stupid thing to tell a kid! I immediately developed an aversion to the colour green, even though, green is a colour that matches bloody well with red hair! Oh, don’t waste time checking it it’s true… I learned LAST FEBRUARY, at 46, that it wasn’t true that they stuck to bloody hairs! What the?).
But, as a result of this long period of inactivity, I gained 10lbs (about 4kg, I told you, still using imperial measurements then! Follow!). Damn! The weight cycle had just shown its ugly head, never to leave again?
I developed a theory about this, well I think I did. WE talked about it sometimes.
There is a kid’s garden in heaven for kids who depart too early… The way they describe it, it is a place with great wonders, created for all those kids who still have a bit of life to live on earth.
It is sort of a reward I say!
Because we apparently accumulate bits of extra life according to the amount of good or not so good we do around us throughout our lives (past or present).
God is just for everyone.
That is why, for some of us, the is a little bit of bonus life we accumulate during our lives.
But sometimes, medicine, miracles or a change of mind by our Lord... (I didn’t know but, they told me he too can change his mind, sometimes…). All this can explain why some kids luckily make it through. Such a that time I spent an eternity in a coma...
With my inconsolable mother next to me cursing the lord to bring me back subito presto!
She told me many times afterwards that after she told off god, while she was in the adjoining bathroom…
She heard me yell, out of the blue:
« MAMAN! »!
On that faithful day, thankfully, I didn’t go the kid’s playground in the sky…
But, in exchange perhaps, the lord gave me a little gift…
a curse some would say.
I am also convinced that he about bestowed upon my son HIS gift while he was under an oxygen tent at the HOSPITAL STE-JUSTINE the day of his baptist (Montreal’s children hospital for french kids).
While I was not very successfully trying to extirpate enough breast milk so he could get better eventually or for when he has enough strength to breast feed by himself.
Note from the author: I first heard about the concept of the « children playground in heaven » during a later conference from Marjolaine Caron, never before.
I somehow believe deeply that the name I gave it was already defined a long time before…
“C’est ma vie…” It’s my life.