Rememberances

George Bergeon

1 April 1915 - 15 November 2012

Celebrating Papi’s 95^th Birthday!

There once was a little girl, who, every night after brushing her teeth, went to bed. But she didn’t go to sleep right away. She would lie there and wait. Until she heard the quiet footsteps to her door and he would slip into her bedroom like a thief in the night. There in the dark, they would sit side by side on the bed, nibbling away on pieces of dark chocolate. This went on for quite a while until one night they were caught by the little girl’s mother. The mother wasn’t very impressed. After all, grandfather or not, the little girl had already had her after-dinner piece of chocolate AND she had brushed her teeth.

I must have been about 8 years old. I will never forget my mom’s expression. Arms crossed, tapping foot, frown on her face, marred slightly by the fact that she’s trying very hard not to laugh at the two mischievous imps facing her. Me hiding behind Papi, giggling, and him trying to look contrite and failing miserably. We still laugh about it today.

Papi instilled a love of gardening in me (not just my passion for dark chocolate). He was always pottering and grubbing around. At one stage he even had 2 veggie patches. I remember picking ripe strawberries, and eating freshly picked home grown lettuce, scraping tomato seeds onto newspaper to seed the following year, pouring over garden catalogues checking which seeds to buy next. When I told him I had started growing my own veggies he was so proud and happy.

The gardener and his veggie patch.

I have so many amazing memories of him. Us curled up in front of the TV watching Question pour un Champion, going to the beach, visiting the family farm (there is a picture of us and the rabbits), waltzing through the corridors (me on his feet to be able to reach up), or us just in his study, me reading and him doing his crossword puzzles.

On Sundays he would go to the bakery to get deserts for lunch. He always got me a Religieuse (Nun: two choux pastries filled with pastry cream and stacked on top of each other with icing) and made sure I would get the Mother Superior (the biggest and fattest one).

Him and my gran would laugh when I refused to eat bread with my cheese (after all, if you eat bread there is no space left for the cheese). As I grew older, he instilled a love of good wine, and always made sure that there were a few bottles of Muscadel sur lie ready for me.

Peas in a pod

Papi and my dad were thick as thieves. Papi always ensured that the bicycle was ready for when my dad came to visit. Dad would hop on and cycle around the beautiful countryside and come back with lovely charcoal sketches and watercolours, many of which are hanging around the house. It was on such a trip that I accompanied my dad and I had my accident. If my grandfather hadn’t insisted that his surgeon operate on me, I may not have the full use of my left hand. The surgeon had been dragged from his holiday as a result of a huge car pileup. He had just come out of a 10 hour operation when my grandfather saw him and begged that he do the operation. Such a man was Papi, that the surgeon, as exhausted as he was, agreed.

Papi was my grandmother’s second husband. They knew each other from the days when Papi and my mom’s dad were posted in Africa. They were both in the military police and both families kept in touch from then on. The year Papi Francois (my mom’s dad) died of a stroke, Papi’s wife died of bone cancer. A few years after that, Papi courted my grandmother and they settled happily together. They have been together for 37 years. I think both of them were very lucky to have each other in their old age. They loved each other and Papi spoiled my gran and treated her like a queen. Today I’m wearing a ring he bought for her at the Carlton Centre 35 years ago.

Papi with the medals he earned during WWII.

He told my mom when her and my dad went to visit in September, a few days before his stroke, that the times he spent with us were amongst the happiest times of his life. I think he knew something was going to happen and he hung on as long as he could, so he could see my folks one last time.

He collapsed in my mother’s arms while they were doing grocery shopping.

The stroke left him paralysed and unable to communicate. A husk of the great man he was.

I am utterly gutted at his death, but I am glad that he is not suffering any more. That he doesn’t have to survive my gran. Mamie has declined into gentle senility and the only person she recognises is my mom. At least she will not have the grief of losing a man she loved so much.

That was my grandfather. Kind. Generous. Loving. Funny. Courageous. With a zest for life. He touched everybody whose lives he crossed. He was larger than life and my hero. I miss him terribly.

Je t’aime Papi. I raise my glass in your honour and memory!