My mother-in-law Beatrice died this morning. She hadn’t been well for much of this year, but we also didn’t expect her death this weekend. I know that Dion and his two sisters Joy and June feel relief that she is out of pain, while being very sad about her parting. No matter how familiar death has become to me, it always initially takes my breath away. It’s hard to believe that Beatrice is gone. 

I remember first meeting Beatrice. I was nervous. Dion and I were dating and while he’d met nearly all of my family, I had not met much of his as they were mostly in Newfoundland. I wondered how she would feel about this “mainlander” girl from Toronto. Dion and I arrived at his childhood home and waited for his mom, who needed to leave work and come home for lunch. She immediately greeted me with a hug, admitting that she was likely as nervous as me. We shared our first cup of tea that day- Tetley, with canned carnation milk- just the way she liked it. 

I learned very quickly that Beatrice was meticulous in the way she kept her home. She had different tea towels for different dishes (“Erinn, you have to use a cup towel for that my love”). Twice a year she would empty out every kitchen cupboard and carefully wash each item. She would even clean the underside of her kitchen table by crawling underneath it. We would tease her about all of this, to which she would laugh and promise that she was never going to change. 

In the 25+ years that I knew Beatrice, I always got a birthday card (early) in the mail, signed “with love and prayers”. She would send us a big box of things every Christmas in the mail too, which included, among other things, jars of homemade jam and her baked goods (she knew each of our favourites). When Cate came along, the mail only increased. Beatrice loved being Nanny to her granddaughter and often lamented that we didn’t live closer.

Faith was a fundamental part of Beatrice’s life, a life that was accompanied by a lot of challenge and loss. I know that Dion’s illness broke her heart. She faced all of it by clinging to Jesus. I remember the way that she and my mom connected about this. They knew hardship, and they knew what it was like to have God draw close. Beatrice loved to sing at church, regularly telling me how the music would lift her up. Just yesterday Dion, Cate, Joy and her husband Max (they are actually visiting us and helping Dion to feel not so far away) and I sang her Great is Thy Faithfulness via a video call, a song that was her testimony.

After my mom died, Beatrice told me that while she knew there was no replacing Elaine, I would have a mother in her. It is a sad thing for me that she is now gone too. I also feel so much for Dion and his sisters, knowing what it is like to lose a parent, and for the rest of Beatrice’s family including her own sisters. As I’m always reminded, grief is not a linear journey. It can force us to examine the complexity of our relationship with the one who is now gone, accompanies us even when we don’t want it to, and though it changes, doesn’t go away. What a relief though that hope can permeate it all. 

Beatrice, I will miss you. Thank you for bringing Dion into the world. Thank you for welcoming me into your family and even making me an honourary Newfoundlander. Thank you for the countless meals. Thank you for your thoughtful gift-giving, which included many things that you made by hand. Thank you for the walks along the river in Springdale and through the ravine in Toronto. Thank you for your faith. Thank you for our shared laughter. Thank you for loving Cate deeply. And thank you for loving me. I look forward to one day sharing another cup of tea.