Rose's Cantina

While the birds were flying south and folks were getting their last tans yesterday, I was taking a drive in the country with Jennette to one of her favorite spots - the funeral home and cemetery -- to visit her dad, mum and Roger. Capital Gardens actually could be mistaken for a golf course, with its rolling greens; it's not until you get up close that you see all the benches and memorials topped by real and imitation shrubbery depending on which plan each resident picked for their final resting place. It's a nice spot for a picnic, not at all creepy like the cemeteries of yore. It's like a park that you're planted in. We took this ride to finalize Jennette's funeral, which she actually started paying for after Roger died more than three years ago. She wanted to check her balance, and add on a few smaller details so that when her time eventually comes, she's off to the races. I was with her way back when, meeting with Randy, the cemetery sales g...

A few weeks back, Jennette sat in the exam chair at the Ottawa Hospital, surrounded by the usual suspects, a group of hunky doctors with sad eyes. They were there to deliver the bad news -- her mouth cancer had returned with a vengeance. The tumor, they told her, was now the size of a baby's foot and rested in the exact location where doctor's had cut out a chunk of her lower mouth two years ago. It was news we had both been expecting, ever since she told me that the shape of her jaw was actually changing, and that she had developed a painful sore on the bottom of her chin. Still, it felt like the docs were serving her a warmed-over shit sandwich without even a pickle. I took her out for coffee, and we talked around the subject. She was both shaken and stirred. "Okay, so what's on your bucket list?" I asked her as I sipped an over-priced chai tea. She shot me a look, the same one she used to give Roger when he'd eaten all the peanut butter cookies. ...