Irish whiskey

A story about St. Patrick’s Day

Le Plateau-Mount-Royal, Montreal, QC. Photo credit: Rory Tucker

Irish whiskey

My parents and I sat together at a small table. The dining room was unusually busy. It had been taken over by the centre's staff. Tables had been moved together to create two longer versions, one for the administrative staff and one for the healthcare team. It was St. Patrick's Day in Montréal, after all. People celebrated.

My parents and I sat at one of the few lone single tables left.  It was what we did now at noon: we went to lunch together. On any regular day, we would have been the only people in the room. For some reason, the other residents never went to the dining hall; neither did their families. I wasn’t sure whether it was because other families preferred to eat in their loved one’s rooms or whether it was because the other residents didn’t get visitors. It couldn’t have been the food, it wasn’t bad. Quite good even. Soups, pastas, stews, and salads. Wholesome, basic, delicious. Like my mother used to make. 

Green shiny things

Today, unlike other days, the dining room was bustling. The tables and fireplace mantel were adorned with green shiny things. Sparkly garland strung around the room. Dangly shamrocks hung down from the ceiling like lucky snowflakes. But I didn’t feel lucky that day.

As a type of photojournal, I took pictures of everything, chronicles of my family's time at the centre. I shot photos of the cupcakes with their green icing and shamrock sprinkles. I snapped pictures of the decorations, most likely dollar store finds. I photographed the flower centrepieces and food. Instagram likes a good food pic. I captured the therapy dog’s visit. A golden retriever, she wore her best green banana for the occasion. 

Lunch that day was Irish stew. They served vegetarians like me a meatless spin-off. The main dessert was made with Guinness. At least I think it was. My memory of that day is altogether vivid and murky. 

An offer

At some point, the exuberant French-Canadian-Italian chef asked his colleagues, more as a statement than a question,"Eh, anyone want a shot of whiskey?"  

"Hell, yes!" I said as I threw my hand up like an enthusiastic school girl.

Silence.

The room, which a moment ago had been filled with loud conversation, had become fatally quiet. Two dozen faces turned to look at me. Oh, that wasn't a serious question? Could have fooled me.

I sheepishly lowered my hand knowing full well there was no recovering from my gaffe. A heat swelled inside me. My cheeks flushed. I shouldn’t have been embarrassed. That day, under those circumstances, I had every right to that whiskey.  

“No?” I said to the room. “I thought it was a great idea.” The chef smiled politely, then went back into the kitchen to continue cooking. 

My parents looked at me. My father laughed. “You really wanted that drink, eh?” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “If not today, when?”

Slowly, the crowd got over their reactions, stopped the polite chuckling, and went back to their cupcakes and conversation. 

Unexpectedly, the chef was at our table. He gripped a tray holding three shots of whiskey in tiny plastic cups. “Et voilà,” he said as he placed the shots in front of us. Shame me one minute, empathize with me the next. The guy was a saint. He had read the play perfectly.

“Thank you,” I replied, smiling and shaking my head. My cheeks burned.

“No problem,” he said, winking at me. “Enjoy.”

Sláinte

My father and I looked at each other and raised our glasses. “Cheers,” he said.

“Cheers,” I replied. My father had his shot, then I downed mine. What we were toasting, I wasn’t sure. St. Patrick's Day maybe. Hard alcohol certainly. Not to my mother's health. 

My mother didn't want hers. She was too busy complaining about her tea. Her life-long tendency towards fussing over her Earl Grey hadn’t left her. 

Her petulance was intolerable. We did everything possible to get her beloved tea right but there was no pleasing her. She ended up dissatisfied with everything we put in front of her. It took all of my patience not to get annoyed with my dying mother.  

“Mom, your tea isn’t too strong,” I tried to explain to her. “They just made it.”

“No, I can tell,” my mother insisted. “Look at the colour. And the taste isn’t right.” Except she hadn’t tried it yet. The drink was still too hot for her to take a sip. 

I exhaled so deeply I was sure the staff at the next table would turn to look at me again. Mercifully, they didn’t. 

Breathe, I coached myself. 

“Mom, it’s fiiiiine,” I said. “Here. I’ll remove the bag to stop it from steeping.” I reached over, took her mug, removed its Twinings sachet with a spoon, then passed it back to her. “There,” I said. “All better. Try it now.”

“Thank you,” my mom said. She picked up the cup with her frail hands and took a sip of her tea. “It’s too hot,” she said flatley. My jaw clenched. It took all my will to stay quiet. As if from disappointment, my mom gave up on her tea and proceeded to play with her stew.

Breathe. 

Another shot

Exasperated, I picked up my mother’s whiskey, stood up, and walked over to the far end of the room. I stopped at the table where the healthcare team sat together. The group who, up until then had been talking noisily, stopped when they noticed me standing there and looked up at me curiously. 

“Thank you for taking such good care of my mother,” I said to the nurses and orderlies as I raised the tiny cup. “Santé!” I downed the whiskey.

The team applauded and laughed. “Our pleasure!” the day nurse answered. Poor thing, they must have thought. For the second time that day, I had commanded the attention of the room. At least this time it was intentional. 

In the weeks that my mother had been at the centre the healthcare team had done what I couldn’t: they had taken exceptionally good care of her and they had done it without the slightest air of impatience. Worse: they had even done it with a palpable aire of gratitude. I had never witnessed any of them exhale in frustration at my mother’s idiosyncrasies. Rather, they seemed to enjoy attending to my mother’s needs.

“It’s an honour to be there at the end of someone’s life,” one of the nurses explained to me one day. If only I could see it that way. It took all I had to make it through St. Patrick’s Day let alone find a way to be grateful. 

I realized then what we were toasting: to endings. Should one not openly drink at their parent's palliative care centre? Oh well.

I was not ok. It was ok to show that I wasn’t ok. I was having the damn whiskey.

———

How will it all end?

We never know when it will end and we certainly can’t predict how it will happen. But thanks to impromptu offerings by near-strangers, we can make endings easier to bare.

When in doubt, shoot the damn whiskey.

A toast to endings.

Sláinte. 🍀

This story was originally published on March 17, 2021, and was edited on March 17, 2024.

———

The Mower (by Philip Larkin)

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,

Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world

Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind

While there is still time.