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Let them cherish your memories.

To Grampy’s grandchildren,

Driving along St. Peter’s Road toward downtown Charlottetown, you can spot a red maple and a new gravestone in the Roman Catholic Cemetery. The maple means Canada, of course, but also endurance. The gravestone is turned away from the busy road; all the gravestones are turned away from the hustle and bustle. And yet only one has a surname on its back. Your grandfather, who planted the tree, is communicating through these symbols. Turn briefly from your day-to-day and visit the site. Rest with him. Admire the sapling.

Ensure his name endures; it is your name, too.

***

Ralph’s 80th birthday celebration in late autumn was among his last good days. It was a big party in Arnprior, Ontario, surrounded by both sons’ families. You were there. Do you remember the trivia game about his life? It briefly brought back summer.

That winter would be difficult, he later confided.

“I told him that I feel awful,” he said near the end, recounting a recent conversation with his doctor. “I know you do,” the doctor said. “You can give it to me straight. Do I have two years?” The doctor didn’t say anything. “Do I have a year?” Nothing. “Do I have six months?” said Grampy, always a fact-seeker who refused to be deluded. “He looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘You’re getting closer.’” Even a glass of Bailey’s was inadvisable, Grampy said, then chucklingly added, “But I can have lobster for breakfast!” Forever the salesman steeped in negotiation. No fear, bitterness or even regret could be seen from him during those final weeks. “I’ve had a good life. At least I think I’ve had a good life.” He mentioned how a priest paid a visit a few days later to praise the ‘good works’ he had accomplished. “Not that I need to hear that, but it’s good to hear,” he said.

As a practicing Catholic, he was rewarded with courage and grace over his final days.

***

Your Grampy kept an oyster shucker in the car.

During long winter drives with Mémé from PEI to Florida, he would find it in the glove compartment while parked at a restaurant or store. Who has a better oyster than PEI: New England, Chesapeake Bay, Virginia? None of them, naturally. Even oysters in Ireland are hopelessly inferior, he learned firsthand. The survey lacked scientific rigour due to Grampy’s extreme bias toward his beloved PEI. That was exactly the point; it reinforced his bias. During chitchats with strangers - and there were many - he always mentioned The Island and, if given half a chance, he would also name the best oysters on the Atlantic coast.

It is difficult to overstate his affection for The Island. Aside from stints in Toronto and Moncton soon after marriage, your Mémé and Grampy always lived on The Island. The many people from Elmsdale who drove ‘down east’ (to borrow an Island saying) to attend the service prove the close connections he kept with cousins and others. The boyhood memories of living on a farm lasted a lifetime and occupied a bucolic space in his heart.

A surprising amount of the funeral service itself harkened back to those days ‘up west.’ During the funeral, an old Irish tune was mournfully sung by a lone woman at the side of the altar: “Low lie the fields of Athenry/ Where once we watched the free birds fly/ our love was on the wing/ we had dreams and songs to sing”. Your grandfather’s chosen song came from a place he protected well.

It was Charlottetown where they raised your father and uncle, and where they chose to retire. Similar to many of his generation, duty was taken seriously. Twice a week, for example, he would awaken at 5 a.m. to drive a son to hockey practice in the minus 25 Celsius darkness. The sons, too, were duty-bound; or learn of the voice, the burrowing eyes and even a loud fist on the kitchen table. The point rarely required repeating.

Few contributed more to the city during his post-work life. The thousands of volunteer hours he dedicated to the Knights of Columbus, to the recipients of the organization’s goodwill, stood out when the funeral home’s grand room quietly filled with Knights. At the pre-wake, dozens of men sang the raw words of Amazing Grace in powerful unison. The sound of a choir unusually near seemed to press against the walls, to push into heads and squeeze out tears.

Few among us will be as deserving of such a gesture.

Over 350 people lined up for an hour or more during the wake to say goodbye to your Grampy. The current mayor, the member of parliament and other dignitaries stood alongside many good-hearted yet colourful souls. He carried on well with all sorts. This was a remarkable person being laid to rest.

***

He would surely approve another word on oysters. It was in the hospice room with only a few more days before the pain would be over. Pangs that caught him by surprise while attempting to smile, laugh or maintain a stoic demeanour would soon stop. The internal bombing would end.

In walked a couple of family members, one holding a bag of oysters. A certain levity spread with the briny smell of sea settling over the bed. Purchased at Grampy’s favourite grocery store, Gallant’s Clover Farm in South Rustico, the oysters arrived with no shucker. Every attempt was made to obtain the specialty tool before arriving at hospice - a friend’s home, stores, but none seemed to have one. All were surprised to learn that finding an oyster shucker on PEI was difficult. Saying little as others worked through the dilemma was your grandmother. She doesn’t care for oysters anyway. Finally, she spoke up.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ralph keeps one in the car. I’ll go get it!”

Relief and laughter erupted. The couple’s shucker secret was revealed. They were pried open and all held one up on a half shell. Grampy, too, albeit his was in a shot glass. He slurped it down and raised a thin fist in the air.

***

Before weekly phone calls with your parents, he carefully conjured questions unique to each of you. He wanted to know where you had gone and what you had accomplished since the last conversation. Lacking your presence, he needed to know about your present life. Following your journey meant everything to him. Continuing to follow, Grampy now loves you into eternity.

Hand-typed by: Full Sail Copywriting

April 2025

journalism

Arnprior family gives thanks

By Derek Dunn

Arnprior Chronicle-Guide

His toes couldn’t even touch the ground when Pierce Koch learned to ride a bike. At three he was riding from Mom to Dad and back again. They’d give a little push and off he went. Then, later, he was off to Claybank Park — close to the family home — on other bikes or a golf cart or anything else with wheels. Hunting and fishing, swimming, snowmobiling: Pierce was the ultimate Valley lad. He always wanted to be outside.

So it was basically a typical day May 25 when he and a buddy took dirt bikes from his uncle’s in Arnprior, along the Algonquin Trail, to Betty’s Chips for a supper. They’ve been doing it for years, along with stopping at the pit near Malloch Road Cemetery to rip around.

“He hit a jump and must have misread the speed,” said Stephen, his father, during a family gathering two days before the 15-year-old’s funeral. “There was no collision. There was no alcohol. He died of a severe brain injury.”

Pierce wasn’t the most talkative kid, his mother Jacqueline said, but he had plenty of friends from St. John XXIII and St. Joseph’s schools, from soccer, baseball and Packers’ hockey. He and best friend Nolan Grant have been inseparable since junior kindergarten. Some 15 friends were at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) where he hung on for two days.

“He was a social kid. Everybody really liked him,” Jacqueline said. “He was more of a listener.”

Many say Pierce — a big strapping boy with “sausages for fingers” according to his granddad, Johnny — always stood up to bullies. He would never stand by to watch someone get picked on. And the girls were taking note, too.

“He had as many girl- and boy-friends,” said his uncle Travis.

The family, including older sister Kiera, want to express their gratitude to folks in Arnprior and surrounding areas. From a hockey coach crying on his grandparents’ doorstep, to food and food and more food — “I wish we had a wedding for all the sandwiches,” Travis said — to teachers to paramedics and OPP Const. Mark Cranford, they say thank you.

“We can’t thank everyone enough. And CHEO too. They were out of this world,” Stephen said. “I can’t express how much gratitude we have.”

A Go Fund Me campaign has raised about $45,000 from more than 460 donors. The goal was $25,000 to help defray costs.

There will be a funeral on June 4 at 7 p.m. Following the service, it is expected many will line the road out of town as a procession of vehicles takes Pierce’s ashes home to White Lake.

“Pierce lived more in 15 years than a lot do in a lifetime,” Poppa Johnny said.

June 3, 2021

journalism

No place like home

By Derek Dunn

Canadian Living magazine

Beauty fades. I struggle with that aphorism, as I believe most Prince Edward Islanders do - at least we islanders living away. I wince a little every time someone says, “So you’re from P.E.I.? It’s beautiful there.”

Yes, it is, I think. And, in my mind, I see the red, red cliffs of my childhood bleeding into the Northumberland Strait. The island’s sandstone is melting into the sea, one metre per year. I see it every summer when I drive down from Ontario. Ten years ago federal scientists made charts showing the island severed into three. I picture the eventual archipelago as even more beautiful than the original. Must be a self-preservation thing.

Mount Carmel is where my grandfather, Pépé, converted a chicken coop into a cottage overlooking the water. Originally white with red trim, as if an evicted chicken won the contract to redesign it, the little cottage is now perked up with green paint. The weather-beaten front lawn, sometimes fertilized with lobster shells, has a history of giving up its real estate, sliding downward little by little, like a face that is aging.

My island is not the rolling green hills you see in advertisements but a Kandahar-ish place in the Acadian region. The point of land between Egmont Bay and Bedeque Bay, known as Evangeline, is my ancestral land, dating back more than 250 years. With windswept bog lands and deep skies, it is almost inhospitable. How did they manage way back when? Obstinancy, I suppose. Mount Carmel is where my ancestors vowed to hold ground after Le Grand Dérangement.

As a boy I spend summers there, away from the tethering structures of Charlottetown. At the end of a long drive “up west,” the car would turn down the red clay road now named for my grandmother and, from the backseat, I would read the names carved into driftwood: The Bernards, The Cormiers, and my mother’s family - The Gallants.

I remember running from the car into the open arms of Mémé, my grandmother. She was such a strong woman, a mother’s mother. Mémé and Pépé raised five daughters and a son. Our family, friends and neighbour had great feasts. After hours spent playing in the water and walking along the shore looking for crabs and starfish and coloured glass, my cousins and I would return - salty and sun-kissed - to picnic tables with French biscuits, rapure, salads and lobster. Gay, daylong parties gave way to clear, Coll nights, cards and tea, all under the firm yet kindly control of my grandmother. Now she is gone, buried beside the church on top of the hill in Mount Carmel.

Maybe I should go back for good - the dead shamefully outnumber the living in that beautiful place. Then I hear the terrible aphorism and am reminded that anything worth loving fades away.

August 2009