If I Die Before I Wake

by Jean Little

  I am going right now. Wish me luck.

  I did it. I ran down in my bare feet and put Aunt’s picture of Father under his pillow with a note saying where I had found it and asking why he did not reread his journal and telling him which date to look up. Then I wrote that I was sure she would not say no this time and if he didn’t have courage, he might lose her yet.

  Then I tore back up to bed and am scrawling these few words before I try to go to sleep. I might never sleep again. Fanny is beside herself with curiosity. I just told her that the suffragettes had set me a good example and I had done something brave. Now I will pretend to go right to sleep.

  I wonder if he will speak to me at breakfast.

  Saturday, March 8, 1919

  He did not speak to me. He came in late, looked around at us, walked over to me and kissed me on top of the head. Then he picked up a piece of toast and left for some meeting or other. I thought I would explode.

  Later

  I waited all day for him to say something but he never did. What have I done? Have I wrecked everything? Will they forgive me if I have?

  Sunday, March 9, 1919

  Aunt caught me in the upstairs hall and gave me a big hug and whispered, “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Fiona Rose.”

  “What?” I said, sounding absolutely brainless.

  “Be patient a little longer, honey,” she murmured and whisked away. And that was all.

  Monday, March 10, 1919

  I feel as though I might drop over dead in my tracks if this goes on. I am not good at waiting.

  Tuesday, March 11, 1919

  Still waiting. I cannot bear it.

  Wednesday, March 12, 1919

  I don’t need to keep biting my fingernails. Tonight, when Grandmother had gone over to Miss Trimmer’s house to play whist, Father called us into his study and told us he and Aunt were getting married on Saturday!

  They were waiting to tell us until Grandmother was out, Father said, “so your rumpus won’t upset the apple cart.”

  They are being married in Bloor St. Church at half past ten in the morning and we are all to come. Just us. Jo, Fan, Theo and me! No Grandmother. She doesn’t even know.

  “She’ll be at the wedding lunch when we get home,” he said. “But she would not enjoy the ceremony. Your aunt and I don’t want anybody present who is not glad we are getting married. Oh, Dr. Musgrave and Miss Banks are coming as witnesses.”

  “Is it a secret?” Theo asked, his eyes huge and bright as stars.

  Theo catches on fast.

  Father said it was a secret until we got home from church.

  “Then will Mama be my real mother and not my aunt-mother?” Theo asked. As I said, he catches on.

  “I will indeed, my boy,” Aunt said.

  She sounded as if she was choking over a lump in her throat. She says we girls can go right on calling her Aunt — she would feel uncomfortable if we all tried to change over.

  Jo asked what she was going to wear and we left Father in his study to go look over her wardrobe. She decided, at last, that she would wear her green wool suit. It is nice but she has had it for three years. Jo said she would do no such thing and went digging in the big chest our great-grandmother had and she found a wonderful old wedding dress in there. It is ivory satin with lace around the wrists and a deep ruffle at the hem. Aunt went pink and said it was Mother’s dress and she truly would not feel like herself if she wore it. We started to argue and then I saw we were making her miserable. Jo must have seen it at the same moment. She bundled the wedding finery back into the cedar chest and gave Aunt a hug.

  “You look like spring in that suit,” she said. “I know Father likes it. You can see it in the way he looks at you.”

  I am not so sure about that. I don’t think our father notices clothes at all. Aunt laughed out loud and kissed Jo.

  “You are a dear, Josephine Macgregor,” she said.

  Then she blew her nose and Jo took the green wool suit away to press it. We are going to get her a bouquet. We are not sure what flowers will be available but they always seem to have roses. Too bad we can’t pick her some lily-of-the-valley. She is as partial to them as Mother was.

  Thursday, March 13, 1919

  I just disobeyed my father and did a brave act, Jane, and my hand is shaking so hard that I can hardly write. Everyone was either out or in bed but me. This hardly ever happens in our house and, all of a sudden, I was inspired. I MADE A LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHONE CALL! I used my deepest voice and I practised ahead of time. I got Grandy. Grandma was already in bed. I told him about the wedding. I thought they ought to know. When I asked Aunt about them yesterday, she said she and Father thought it was not fair to tell one grandmother and not the other. Besides it was too far for them to come. She and Father would go and visit afterwards.

  But I decided it was not fair to let Grandmother’s meanness steal Grandma and Grandy’s joy.

  I could hardly believe it when the call went through easy as pie and I heard Grandy’s voice. I gabbled out the news and he listened without making a sound. Then, when I stopped blathering, he laughed.

  “Thank you, Fiona Rose,” he said. “It is wonderful news. I will tell your grandma. She’s in bed but I’ll go right up.”

  “They’re not telling Grandmother until after the wedding,” I said.

  “Well done,” he said and hung up.

  Am I in deep trouble, Jane? I wouldn’t be surprised.

  But I can’t feel too terrible. I just looked out through the glass in the front door and Jo and William Galt are out there holding hands.

  Saturday, March 15, 1919

  Jane, I have only a few blank pages left in this book. I should have written smaller but Father has already promised to buy me another.

  Father and Aunt were married this morning. It was quiet and private and so beautiful that I cried and cried. Theo got so worried that he said, right out loud, “I thought you loved my mama.”

  “Oh, I do,” I sobbed. And everyone laughed, even the minister.

  When we arrived home after the wedding, Grandmother was watching for us at the front door. Father had just left a note saying we would all be home for lunch. She must have been wondering where on earth we had all gone.

  And hear this, Jane. As we got out of the car, a taxi pulled up with Grandma and Grandy inside.

  Grandma got out and rushed straight over to Grandmother and did her best to hug her.

  “I came to support you, Dorcas, since neither of us was invited to the wedding,” she said, grinning at me over Grandmother’s shoulder. I looked at Grandy and he winked.

  Grandmother went stiff as a bolster. Her face turned purple and she could not utter a word. Then she actually began to cry. I wanted to hit her, Jane. I thought she was going to ruin everything.

  But Father kissed her and then Aunt did, too, and she mopped her face and remembered her manners.

  “I pray you will both be very happy,” she got out in a starchy voice. “But we needn’t stand out here for the neighbours to gawk at. Come into the house, all of you.”

  I felt almost sorry for her at that moment. After all, Jane, it isn’t her house.

  We crowded into the sitting room. And Grandma walked over to the piano and, still wearing her hat, sat down and began to play Beethoven’s “Song of Joy.”

  It was perfect.

  Sunday, March 16, 1919

  So that is the story of the big day. What excitement!

  Nothing much has changed in our house, but it feels different. Grandmother stays in her room more or is out with Miss Trimmer, as though she cannot bear the sight of Father and Aunt gazing blissfully at each other. Maybe they don’t do that, exactly, but almost.

  Saturday, March 22, 1919

  I saved the last three pages until I had something good to finish with. Nothing happened all week, but today I have a great story to finish off with, Jane. And some good news, too.

  The entire family was sitting on the front v
erandah. It was chilly but the sun was bright, perhaps to celebrate spring having really arrived. Father and Aunt were in the swing, holding hands as bold as brass, and the rest of us here and there. Everything was thawing and the birds were singing their heads off and it was peaceful.

  Suddenly Theo sprang up like a jack-in-the-box and backed against the house wall with his hands gripped together behind him. He looked horrified.

  “What on earth …?” Father began.

  Then we followed Theo’s gaze and there was Miss Dulcie Trimmer, her cheeks very red, coming to call for Grandmother to go to a WCTU meeting. She had on a new hat, very big, with a wide brim. And, perched on the crown, was the sweetest little jenny wren. It was stuffed, of course, but it looked so lifelike and it seemed to be gazing straight at my horrified little brother.

  “I won’t,” Theo said.

  But we all knew how badly he wanted to snatch that tiny stuffed bird off her prison of a hat and set it free to fly. The fox fur had not been alive either but, for Theo, it came to life and made itself a den in the snow. The bird could be set on a twig with a grassy cup of a nest made for it by a loving little boy. But he remembered the shock of being spanked by his father who did not believe in “corporal punishment.” The next minute, we had begun to laugh. Father himself started, reaching out a long arm to pull Theo onto his knee. Within seconds, we were all in whoops. I thought of Jemma, but only to wish she could be there to enjoy the fun.

  Grandmother glared at us and stiffened to her full height. Her chest puffed out like a pouter pigeon. Her hair grew bigger and her glasses flashed. Then she made a speech, informing us that Miss Trimmer had invited her to come and live with her in her little house.

  “We see eye to eye about so many things,” she said. Her fierce look made it clear that none of us had managed this feat.

  “I’ve left my bags packed in my room, David,” she said. “I trust you will bring them over this evening. We can make arrangements for my furniture.”

  It was just like the day she arrived.

  “Of course I will, Mother,” Father said, sounding stunned.

  Then the two women marched down the walk to Dulcie Trimmer’s Model T. Their backs were poker straight. They looked like Christian soldiers marching off to war.

  I cannot believe it. Grandmother is actually leaving us!

  As the car coughed and snorted away, we burst into laughter again. It was different, though. It was like a trumpet blowing “Freedom!” It rang out farewell to the War, goodbye to the Spanish Flu, and so long to Grandmother’s trying to take us over. Having her occupying our home was hard on everybody. Having her come for dinner is no trouble at all!

  Now the day is over. But inside, Jane, I am still listening to that trumpet call and laughing. I thought I would never laugh again, but I was wrong. It feels as though tomorrow I will wake up to a new morning, shining with hope and happiness. And someday, when you and I sit together, reading my words, we will laugh together and maybe cry a little at all the memories of my thirteenth year when my sister Jo started medical school and the Spanish Flu took Jemma from us and the War ended and Father and Aunt were married and your Uncle Theo was just five and had a Great Dane called Hamlet who helped us to heal.

  Until then, I send you my heart’s love on all the pages of this journal, which holds only eight months worth of events but is now filled to bursting.

  Your mother-to-be,

  Fiona Rose Macgregor

  Epilogue

  The first astonishing event to follow this story was the birth of Father and Aunt’s son Ben, just a year after they were married. The girls were shocked, but Theo was overjoyed to have a brother at last, even if he was only a baby. He saw to it that Benjy grew up to make mischief, as he had done himself.

  Jo finished her medical training but she did not marry William Galt. She stayed single and became a sought-after midwife and baby doctor. When she was thirty, she met a doctor who planned to go out to China as a medical missionary. The pair married and went to China together. They had no children, but Jo opened an orphanage and loved the children as if they were her own.

  Jo’s friend Carrie Galt achieved her dream and became a doctor. She also married one — a fellow medical student whom she came to know years after the flu epidemic was over.

  Fanny attended the Macdonald Institute in Guelph and trained to be a dietician. She married a farmer and ended up having boy triplets.

  Theo grew interested in flying and joined the Air Force at the outbreak of the Second World War. He fell in love with a British girl named Sabrina and they settled in England and had a daughter whom they called Jemma. When Jemma was two they came to Canada on a visit and, while here, Sabrina contracted polio. She was able to survive only by being in an iron lung which enabled her to breathe. She lived in the hospital, and Theo and Jemma stayed with Fee.

  Father and Aunt’s son, Ben, became interested in ham radio and, when he grew up, got a job as a radio announcer. He fell hopelessly in love with an actress, but she was not interested in him, so he remained a bachelor all his life.

  Fee herself did write short stories for magazines, as well as two children’s novels, before marrying a man who ran his family’s grocery business. They had no children until Fee was nearly forty, and then she gave birth to a baby with Down’s syndrome. Fee loved him dearly and insisted on keeping him at home even though, at that time, many such children were placed in institutions. The child had a badly damaged heart, however, and died when he was just five. Without her own child in the house, Fee grew increasingly closer to her niece, Jemma.

  When David Macgregor and Rose were growing old, Fee and her husband and Theo and Jemma moved back into the old house on Collier Street, where they could all care for each other. Theo went back to university and eventually became a philosophy professor. Although Sabrina’s paralysis could not be cured, in time it became possible for her to live outside the hospital. She was moved to Collier Street, too, where she and Fee became as close as Fee and Fanny had been.

  One day, when Theo’s Jemma was thirteen, Fee found her old diary and she and Jemma began reading it aloud with Sabrina listening. They all enjoyed it hugely even though Jemma cried over her Aunt Jemma’s death.

  Finally Jemma said, “Aunt Fee, you are just like Aunt in this book. You love us all. But you would still rather read a book than clean house.” And Fee, laughing and blushing a little, admitted that Jemma had seen through her. Keeping house for such a large family would not have given her much chance to indulge in her love for reading, except that Sabrina had a nurse who came by during the day to help with her care, and Theo also paid for a daily woman who was a dedicated housecleaner and cook.

  Fee marvelled, as the years passed, at how much was written about the Great War and how little was remembered of the devastating Spanish Flu that had ravaged her family. Whenever Fanny came to visit, the two of them often spoke of those days when Fanny’s near death drew them so close together.

  Historical Note

  “Have you had your flu shot yet?” we ask each other as autumn brings shorter days. “I think I must be getting the flu,” we tell our families and friends. “I ache all over.” We feel no fear, only irritation at the prospect of a few uncomfortable days swallowing pills, drinking juice, resting, moaning and feeling sorry for ourselves. Unless we know that we are extra frail and susceptible, we do not see “flu” as endangering our lives, although approximately 5 million Canadians get the flu each year, and up to 1500 die. We may feel truly miserable as the days pass without our being able to shake off the symptoms, yet few of us are fearful.

  We have forgotten the Spanish Flu.

  Yet we in Canada, at the beginning of a new century, are beginning to be reminded. Daily, we read in the paper about the Norwalk virus or the West Nile virus. We are given frequent updates on the advance of the avian flu across Asia and into Europe. On television, we have seen people walking the streets of Hong Kong wearing masks. Only a few years ago, SARS hit Toron
to, killing over 40 people. Many families who may have been exposed to the disease were required to put themselves in voluntary quarantine until they were past the incubation period and safe from infection. Even after the acute danger passed, we wash our hands more frequently and more thoroughly than we did before, since we are told constantly that washing your hands often and thoroughly is one of the best ways to halt the spread of influenza. And, more and more, we are being reminded about the flu epidemic that swept across Canada and the world in 1918–1919.

  Authorities are starting to think about stockpiling flu medication, and wondering whether we will be ready for the next pandemic. Politicians reassure us, but medical personnel are not so positive.

  I came to understand the concern the medical profession has been feeling only after beginning to research the Spanish Flu. Here are some of the astonishing, often heart-rending, facts that I found: more people died worldwide from the Spanish Flu than combatants killed in World War I. Estimates range from 20 million to 22 million people in only a few months. Some researchers even suggest that, because deaths from the flu were not always reported fully in underdeveloped countries, millions more may have died of the Spanish Flu. In Canada, over 2 million people got the flu, with up to 50,000 dying from it — approximately 1 in 6 of those who contracted the flu died. (In the United States the figure was 1 in 4.) Across the country, undertakers were swamped with work. Toronto was so short on hearses to carry the dead that streetcars were used to move the bodies. In other communities, trucks were used.

  But it is the human loss and human grief caused by the Spanish Flu that stand out — as well as human courage in the face of it. It is time we studied what happened in 1918 and to consider how this world of ours has changed during the years since. So much is different now, but not all the differences will help to save us from such a pandemic if it actually comes.