The Garbage Disposal Unit
14th February 2013, 00:07
. . . a few nights ago. My father was with her at the time, and performed an improvised last rights.
While my Catholicism is highly suspect, in a way I admire her quiet and lifelong conviction. She came from a dirt-poor Acadian family, and only ever received a third grade (as in three years of elementary schooling, not metaphorically) education; yet none the less devoted herself to good works and service that went largely unrewarded (save a medal from the archdiocese in 1998).
In some ways, I feel like she was the last of my connection to an Acadian heritage. My father's generation was, practically when not officially, forced to anglicize, both linguistically and culturally. By and large, my Grandmother's generation of trappers, fishers, and small farmers have disappeared through attrition and economic necessity.
While French persists in some parts of the province, and to a much greater degree in New Brunswick, I feel like my grandmother's passing is another death in a slow cultural genocide that is achieving what "le grand derangement" failed to.
Sorry if this is an over-share.
While my Catholicism is highly suspect, in a way I admire her quiet and lifelong conviction. She came from a dirt-poor Acadian family, and only ever received a third grade (as in three years of elementary schooling, not metaphorically) education; yet none the less devoted herself to good works and service that went largely unrewarded (save a medal from the archdiocese in 1998).
In some ways, I feel like she was the last of my connection to an Acadian heritage. My father's generation was, practically when not officially, forced to anglicize, both linguistically and culturally. By and large, my Grandmother's generation of trappers, fishers, and small farmers have disappeared through attrition and economic necessity.
While French persists in some parts of the province, and to a much greater degree in New Brunswick, I feel like my grandmother's passing is another death in a slow cultural genocide that is achieving what "le grand derangement" failed to.
Sorry if this is an over-share.