"We are presently passing through the World War I battlefields just south of Vimy Ridge. If you look to your right, just across the field there, you will see the war memorial that the people of France erected to the Canadian soldiers who fought so bravely here. Even today some of the residents from the surrounding towns place flowers on the memorial regularly. Some lived through the fighting and have never forgotten the soldiers who took up their cause. And so, my dear Canadian friends at the back of the bus, I would like to say thank you from the people here in Vimy for the unselfish acts of your Canadian soldiers."
Across the grassy field, the stone monument stood erect and proud against the French sky. A Canadian flag rippled softly in the calm breeze. The passengers, each deep in their own thoughts, stared silently out the windows. Lost in the moment, I could visualize the sights and sounds of war. Suddenly an unexpected wave of emotion swept over me. I felt immense sadness for those men who never returned home to Canadian soil, but at the same time my heart swelled against my chest with an enormous sense of pride. Tears swelled up in my eyes. I was embarrassed by my uncontrolled reaction. As I turned around I realized that each of my friends had experienced the same feelings, their eyes also wet with tears. We smiled knowingly at each other not speaking a word, our eyes rich with understanding.
When Henri Bissette of Sherbrooke, Quebec went off to fight in World War I in 1917, he left behind his love of four years, Emilie Chevrier. The two wrote to each other faithfully, however letters could not always cross the battle-lines and eventually writing became more and more infrequent.
Emilie missed Henri terribly, and constantly prayed for his safe return. One day in April 1918, Henri's family received a letter, informing them that their son was "missing in action".
When Emilie heard the report she was devastated and refused to believe that Henri was really gone. When six months later, no further information had been received, Emilie finally realized that she would never see her beloved again.
Five months after the armistice was signed ending the Great War, Emilie received a letter that Henri had written almost one year earlier. In it he wrote his feelings of desperation and longing to leave the horrific war. His only desire was to return home to Canada so that he and Emilie could be married. The letter reassured Emilie that Henri's love was a true one, and although she kept all his letters, she treasured this one the most.
Emilie felt deep in her heart that she could never love another man as much as Henri. He was her one true love and she and made a promise to herself never to marry. However, In 1921, she met a kind and caring man named Joseph and the two were married shortly after. They moved to Ottawa where they raised a family of four children, and continued to live happily until Joseph passed away in 1959.
Emilie was now sixty years of age, and her full-grown children were living lives of their own. Finding herself alone, she decided to return to her hometown of Sherbrooke Quebec, to enjoy her retirement years.
One day while out shopping, Emilie met an old school friend and the two reminisced about memories of their past. In the conversation her friend mentioned Henri. She hadn't known the details of Henri's war experience and being "missing in action". So when Henri's name came up, Emilie told her of all the events that occurred over forty years ago.
When she heard the story, her friend replied, “ How odd! I'm sure I remember hearing that Henri bought a farm up north in the thirties."
Emilie assured her friend that she must have been misinformed. However, after the two parted company Emilie couldn't help wondering about the woman's story. Could it possibly be true? Surely she thought, if Henri were alive, the two of them would be together now. Emilie needed to know the truth, but both her and Henri’s family had long since passed away.
Emilie began to investigate, and soon discovered that there was an Henri Bissette who owned a farm just west of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. With no other way to discover the truth, Emilie travelled to Trois-Rivieres, and made the trip out to the farm.
In reality, Emilie did not hold out much hope that she would really find her Henri. As it was over forty years since she had received word of his death, she was quite sure that when the door opened, she would simply find a farmer standing there, who would be amused by her story. However, when she arrived at the farm and knocked on the door she received the shock of her life. When the door opened, there was indeed a farmer standing there, but it was her own beloved Henri! He was greatly aged of course, but still as handsome as she remembered. Henri gasped, recognizing her instantly and whispered "Emilie!"
The two fell into each other’s arms, so overcome that for several minutes all they could do was hug each other, crying and trembling. A lifetime had passed but it was if there was no time at all.
When they began to calm, they both started to talk at once about what had happened over the years. Henri explained that after being wounded, he had spent over a year and a half recuperating in a hospital in Europe. When he finally did return to Sherbrooke, his family informed him that believing him dead, Emilie had been heartbroken, but had since married and moved to Ottawa. They had no further information about her whereabouts. Henri was greatly saddened, but didn't want to disrupt Emilie's happiness in her new life. He bought his farm shortly after, and had lived there all these years, never marrying because he knew that Emilie was his one true love.
With tears running down her face, Emilie pulled Henri's letters from her purse. “I never forgot you either Henri. These letters have meant more to me over the years than you can ever know. I would always read them over and over when I began to feel sad, and they made me so happy to remember that you were the most special part of my life.”
All at once the forty years of separation melted away. Finding each other had made them happier than they had ever been, and shortly after their reunion, Emilie and Henri were married, and indeed, spent the rest of their days together on Henri’s farm.
Crystal Wood
Winnipeg, Manitoba
One True Love is re-printed by permission of Crystal Wood, ©2000 Crystal Wood
"The Autograph"
It was 1963, in the Toronto suburb of Willowdale. I was eight years old and hockey-crazy. My next-to-nil skills had not stunted my passion for the game. Earning himself a reservation for a warm seat in heaven, my dad would stand shivering beside the boards of the outdoor public rink, watching me ride the bench in the Catholic Minor Hockey League. The Leafs were of course my heroes, and their BeeHive Corn Syrup photos plastered my bedroom walls in black and white. I had no idea that one of my most revered icons lived a mere three blocks away.
Back then, walk-a-thons and bike-a-thons had not yet been invented, so we raised funds the good old-fashioned way, selling something the public could actually sink its teeth into. In my school's case, it was the annual doughnut drive -- Margaret's Doughnuts, big and doughy, choice of honey-glazed or chocolate-glazed, cheaper if you bought two dozen or more.
Door-to-door I went, clipboard in hand. Although it was long ago, I can still smell the Gestetner fluid on the freshly minted order form. I sold dozens of dozens; hardly a soul turned me down. Was the irresistibility in my product or my sales pitch? "After all, mister, EVERYBODY loves doughnuts." My sheet was almost full, and my stomach almost empty, when I reached Wedgewood Drive with its two modest rows of look-alike sidesplits. I went up the south side, no-one home, no-one home. The next house would be my last; I had already stretched my parents' limit of a two-block radius, and dinner would be on the table in ten minutes.
I rang the doorbell and rehearsed my spiel while staring at the flamingo on the screen door. The bird swung toward me, and my next and indelible memory is looking up from a large pair of fuzzy slippers, way up, to the face peering down. Once it registered I stood there speechless for what seemed an eternity, opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water. Collecting my composure, but still unable to go into doughnut-talk overdrive, I told him something he already knew. "Yup, that's me", he replied with a nod and a smile.
Having successfully established a rapport, I followed with new information -- that we shared our given name. I have a vague recollection of stammering through my “Please-buy-some-doughnuts-to-help-my-school” speech, and then a vivid one of him taking the clipboard from my hand. Of course, I had no way of comprehending the historical irony of the document he handed back to me. Flushed with pride from our first-name-basis farewells, I flew home clutching the clipboard to my chest. Nobody got a word in edgewise at dinner.
The next morning before the bell, I guardedly showed off the precious paper. In the classroom, my teacher grumbled good-naturedly as she copied out my orders on another sheet -- no way would I let go the form, no way was I giving up that autograph. Doughnut delivery day could not come fast enough, but my return to Wedgewood Drive was anti-climactic -- his wife answered the door. There I stood, red-faced in my Maple Leafs sweater, as four school chums who had doubted my story taunted me from the street.
Fast-forward, several years and several hundred franchises later: I wonder if the runt at the door was his inspiration. ("After all, EVERYBODY loves doughnuts.") In futile search, I’ve torn my folks' basement apart, but it seems I’ve lost that purple-lined piece of Canadiana, the testimony to a feat that is surely mine alone to claim: I sold Tim Horton a dozen doughnuts.
Tim O'Driscoll
Burlington, Ontario
The Autograph is re-printed by permission of Tim O'Driscoll, ©2000 Tim O'Driscoll
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