i had to travel from my home in Toronto to Niagara Falls, New York to attend the funeral of an aunt of mine. Ovarian cancer. She’d been what i’d call hyper-vigilant when it came to medical screening, going to doctors every six months or so for general check-ups. Nobody caught it. 

My brother drove to Toronto to pick me up. When he arrived i was running late and hadn’t packed so i hastily shoved a bag of toiletries and a change of clothes into my worn gray knapsack. Funeral clothes. Black A-line skirt, black cotton blouse with short puff sleeves, black shoes. Then, to offset the darkness, i pulled out some glittery jewelry. A rhinestone wrist cuff and earrings; a charm bracelet loaded with little silver hearts and animals i’ve had since i was a kid but rarely wear.

i quickly fed the cat and topped up his bowls of water and crunchies. And just before going out the door, i reached for one of the smallest books on my shelf, thinking i may need a little literary distraction on my trip. It was The Way Of Myth by Joseph  Campbell. i’d read it before but it had been a while. Then i opened my jewelry box again, reached in and randomly grabbed out a brooch. The lovely rhinestone butterfly pin. It had belonged to my mother.

We got to my brother and sister-in-law's house in St. Catharines at dinnertime. i hung out in their kitchen and made small talk while they prepared the meal. But inside i was thinking about how weird my hometown feels to me now. It seemed like forever since i’d been living in Toronto. And now Mum and Dad were both gone. My brother’s house felt like all that was still left standing of my connection to this city. A loose last link.

i loitered in the kitchen, feeling out of sorts and covering it with casual conversation. Directly in front of me on the fridge was a colourful magnet the size of my palm of a black and orange butterfly made out of some kind of textured hybrid paper. A little on the garish side. i’m sure i’d probably seen it many times before, but looking at it this time i was struck. Immediately i noticed that the elaborate pattern on the lower portion of its wings spelled out a cryptic message. It said 'new life'.

i pointed this out to my brother and sister-in-law and they were pretty freaked by it. They’d been living with this thing front and center on the fridge for years and the words had never revealed themselves to them. Now it was so glaringly obvious they couldn’t miss it.

After dinner i spent a little web time on my brother’s computer, and then retired to my room with Joseph Campbell.

We crossed the Canada/US border the following morning, over the bridge between gushing world wonders, to fill pews at a Methodist church. i sat to the far left in the first, next to the one aunt i still have alive - ninety years old, frail but sharp - and took her hand as she sat crying.

i was crying a little too, although not so much over the specific loss of the day, but more for all loss. It seemed so beautiful and sad to me that grief be absolutely necessary and unavoidable in this existence. i thought about love’s long shadow, the one i’d been living in for the two years since my mum had died. How it had nearly killed me. How i couldn’t comprehend what good could possibly ever come from such intense emotional devastation. How i’d swollen with pain until i could no longer fit into everyday society, so i’d become a secret  outsider - alone in carrying the suffering that was so ugly and terrifying to others. But today i’m on the inside.

We came to a part of the proceedings where those in attendance were invited to stand and share a brief personal story about deceased with the congregation. i considered getting up, but what would i say? My aunt and i hadn’t been close, barely keeping in touch at all. i could tell them all about the fondness that her brother (my dad) had for her, and how he’d taken delight when his daughter turned out to be a lot like her. There was a physical resemblance, and she and i had both become singers - her in church, me in clubs. But i reckoned that wasn’t much of a story really, so i kept my mouth shut.

With all the sermons, solos and selections from the Methodist hymnbook on piano and guitar, i couldn’t help but notice the shit sonics and wish i’d been around to help during sound-check, although i’m quite sure there hadn't been one.

When the pastor finally stepped out from behind the muffled mic at the dais to give communion, i could see that she was wearing a long white sash over her white robe and it was appliqued with a great number of butterflies. Yellow and purple. Resurrection colours.

As people filed past to dip croutons into a fancy water goblet, i thought about something Joe Campbell had been going on about the night before. He’d noted that so much in mythology was really just local transformations of the same imagery. That Jesus and the Buddha are the same figure. Buddha sits under the tree, where Jesus hangs from it, but both are saying “Don’t be afraid. Come and die to immortal life.”

He talked about the Buddhist goal of 'joyful participation in the sorrows of the world' and how, when you submit voluntarily to the processes of time, which are largely of sadness and death,  you are coming to the cross -  the cross of life and time. By embracing that, you are in the imitatio Christi and have achieved the aim of the Christian message.

i thought to myself, i’m doing that. i may be doing it more than anyone else here. i should take communion - ritualize it, express it, share it right now as an act of humility and gratitude.

But then i considered how fucked up that would be.

Me, who was brought up unfamiliar with any church because my parents had witnessed the implosion of theirs from political infighting and wouldn’t have anything more to do with it. Me, with my acute anger about what organized religion has done to oppress women, homosexuals, and anyone else they’ve cared to deem unfavourable along the way. All of the violence and plundering done in the name of God and still at its worst today - with whatever of the multitude of fundamentalist factions you want to finger...

And what about my brother? He’s sitting on the aisle and could very likely have a heart attack if he were to see me up at the altar. So i stayed in my seat.

After the service, i was getting into the car when i noticed a little gray butterfly hovering around the handle of the rear door. It flapped around the wheel well for a bit and then flew away. i flipped open the glove compartment which was bursting with CDs and grabbed the top one for the drive back to Toronto. 

It was Johnny Cash’s last recording, a raw and fragile account of struggle and death. The liner notes were written by producer Rick Rubin - all about how he and John had kept in close touch, talking every day since June Carter-Cash had passed. And how, during the phone-calls, Johnny had taken to getting out a small communion kit he’d owned and performing the rite for the two of them. Then they'd end each exchange with i love yous.

Getting back to the big city, i felt strangely relieved and imbued with a quiet urge to keep fighting, and keep creating. Somehow i could see my way to new hope, new strength for all of the old fates, stonewalls and pitfalls. Of course it’s impossible not to have anxiety and vertigo. That’s because the world is constantly reconfiguring itself. But hang in there and stick out the nausea, and you do get a reward. New life.

Walking home i encountered sometime Blue Rodeo keyboardist James Gray, out busking on Bloor with his accordion. He was playing I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones polka-style as i passed him. i don’t know why it’s taken so long, but i’m beginning to love Toronto.

BB

August 2006