The Day I Cannot Forget

 

 

 

Comments.    Considerations.     Questions.

 

                   by Kenneth Bagnell

   

 

            

       A few words of preface seem appropriate before you read this column. In part it’s here because I’m very pressed for time, preparing for an event that fulfills an agreement I made well over a year ago. Barbara is with me. I’m to speak on The Little Immigrants, my first book, (it appeared in 1960) in a small town where I had my first job, fresh from Mount Allison, as a summer radio announcer back in 1956. The town is Truro, home of the late Robert Stanfield whose widow, Anne is both a longtime friend and a recipient of these essays. The second reason is that I wrote what follows for a magazine published this month (September, 2016) for a unique profession: Canada’s funeral directors, for which I write quite regularly on issues of their vocation, their ethics, their values and their future in a very rapidly changing culture. The actual appeared years ago in The Globe & Mail’s weekend Globe magazine of which I was then editor. The subject of the essay had lurked in my mind for some years, and I felt the readers of the Globe – a sophisticated audience – would respond positively. Little did I know what would happen. It, I’m almost certain, could never happen again. Here is my recollection of a few days in 1970, almost 50 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

    Anne Morrow Lindberg, the legendary writer of many books, said something that still accompanies me in a unique way: “Grief can’t be shared,” she wrote, “everyone carries it alone…” Maybe.  But on one occasion years ago I was truly shocked by an incident that just may be one in a million. This is now the time to put it on paper. It happened roughly 46 years ago, when I was in my thirties and still felt young and ambitious. It was in the spring of 1970 that this once-in- a – lifetime experience took place, an incident so rare it confirms the phrase in Lindberg’s sentence: “Grief can’t be shared….”  At that time, I was as I am now, both a journalist and a minister, living in Toronto. I was working as a journalist during the week as the Editor of the Globe & Mail’s weekend magazine. On some Sundays I conducted services here and there.

     One day in my Globe office, for whatever reason, I came up with an idea for an article, one that addressed aspects of problems of poverty. I shared it with the staff. It was this: what happens in our city, (or any Canadian city) when a person dies who has neither family, friends or funds. What happens to them? So I phoned a man whom I’d met during a discussion on a late night radio show, broadcast from the Royal York Hotel. The man was the “Registrar of the Board of Funeral Services,” the overseeing board of the profession on licensing, conduct and so on. His name was Don Steenson, a funeral director but whose day to day life was spent as Registrar of the Board just mentioned. After the program ended I told him my idea. He truly liked it and said he knew the man who I should contact and where he was located. The man was the late Reginald Carter, manager of the now closed funeral firm called after its founders, Washington & Johnston, on Queen Street East. “They do services for the people you’re interested in: penniless people. I’m sure he’ll cooperate when I mention I know you and trust you. Then you can go step by step, from beginning to burial.”

      In a week I got the call at my office. It was Carter speaking quickly but formally: “Mr. Bagnell we have the situation you’re interested in. It’s a Last Post call. Can you come now?” Immediately I put on my jacket, and in twenty minutes or so arrived at the funeral home. The formal but affable owner promptly introduced me to a smiling staff member. He was 21. His name was Craig. We got in the paneled black vehicle, drove about an hour north to a spacious brick building accommodating many elderly and impoverished people. It was, as I recall, named Green Acres. We parked and entered. A quiet woman at the reception desk – knowing immediately why Craig was there – virtually whispered two words to him: “Oh yes…” She led us to the “cooler room” where an attendant helped Craig place the body of an elderly man, named Harry in a pouch. The assistant seeing me, a stranger, said with a slight smile: “They’re easier to transfer to the stretcher when they’re dead.”

     We drove back to Washington & Johnson. I’d never been in a funeral home “prep room” and while I was a tad nervous I promptly adjusted as Craig and a colleague put the body on the table and turned on the radio. Craig went to work, listening to the rock music of CHUM. Peter Paul and Mary sang “Love on a Two Way Street.”  Craig was shaving Harry, then picked up his false teeth, placed them carefully, then deftly inserted a fine wire behind Harry’s teeth, then did this and that to close the mouth, so that it would stay shut. The embalming machine ticked away. I complimented Craig: “Harry looks better.” He thanked me. Once he finished the  embalming, the owner, Mr. Carter, came in, looked over Harry and nodded approval. He had over his arm, what I assumed was the man’s suit coat. He smiled at me, then spoke: “Many people believe we cut the back out of the suit to make putting it on the deceased easier. Not necessary.” Quickly he raised and swung this arm and that and within seconds had Harry dressed in his suit coat. Then they wheeled him to a visitation room in his modest cloth-covered light blue casket. Somehow, I had been given a couple of names of men in the neighborhood who knew Harry a bit and hence just might come to the service. Both excused themselves. I remember one. I met him at his front door he had a ready excuse: “I got shot.” I paused, shocked. “Really?”  I asked when it happened and he replied. “In the war.” (That was then at least twenty-five years ago.) Excuses, excuses.

           Next afternoon I arrived for the service at 1 PM. I went to the chapel where Harry was waiting in his casket. I was alone. Within a few minutes the minister arrived. He was elderly, his name being Reverend Gilbert Ivany. He’d been a padre in World War II, was seriously wounded but recovered to return and become minister of a United Church not far from Washington & Johnson. He took pride in conducting funerals for the veterans he regarded as colleagues. We talked a bit about the ministry, and when one o’clock sounded we were the only two there. Padre Ivany walked to the lectern. He began with prayer, then read scripture, then gave a meditation that included gratitude for Harry’s wartime service. He read a poem by John Galsworthy which began with this sentence: “God I am travelling out to death’s sea….” Suddenly he paused. He looked directly at me. His eyes fluttered slightly. Then he dropped to the floor. He had died.

     The ambulance was at the door in two or three minutes. The attendants carried the old padre out. Reginald Carter and his staff were in a true state of shock. They’d lost an old friend but worse they had a journalist from the Globe & Mail in the front pew. What headlines they probably feared. I did my best to calm them. They truly calmed when I said as softly as I could: “Listen, I’m also a minister of the United Church. 1’ll look after everything from here to the cemetery committal.” So Craig and I went in the hearse to a section of a cemetery in North York, one reserved for veterans and a section I see when I go to a large nearby library. I did the committal and Craig drove me back to the Globe & Mail. It was by then past 3 PM and the editorial staff was streaming in. As was their daily custom, the Editor-in- Chief Richard Doyle and the Publisher James Cooper, were standing in the newsroom, arms crossed as always, while the staff streamed in. I paused and told them what had just happened. One of them quoted a verse of scripture, the other just slowly shook his head.

I have been a minister-journalist for over half a century. I still deliver sermons, write articles, and do radio commentaries (as recently as yesterday).  My wife, Barbara, and I have a son and a son-in-law who are licensed and practicing funeral directors.  

                              

My blogs on social, political and religious issues are available  here on my website: Your comments aare welcome.            www.kennethbagnell.com.