My Pepere

 As a lot of you know, my grandfather (My Pépère) passed away at the age of 95 in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, February 18th. I'm glad I got the chance to see him about a week and a half before he died, to get one more hug, one more hand squeeze and one more kiss on the cheek, and one last chance to say, " I love you, Pépère,  before he passed away. I had a feeling it was going to be one of the last times, if not the last time I would see him. We definitely were not expecting him to pass away when he did, but he is no longer suffering like he was over the last few years, and even more so lately. It still doesn't make it any easier, even when you know it's coming. 

My heart breaks for my Mémère, who is without her partner in life, someone who was by her side for 74+ years. I know what it's like to lose a spouse, although not a spouse of 74 years, and I know some of what she is going through, the pain of such a momenumental loss, the loneliness, the grief at losing your life partner, feeling like the world keeps turning even though your world stopped,, and I wish I could hold her and take on the pain of the loss for her. She is a strong and amazing woman, who cared for my Pépère for so long, even when it was too much for her in order to keep him home as long as possible. He spent his last couple months in the nursing home, where he could receive constant, round the clock care that he needed, especially with him having lost his eyesight completely from glaucoma, dealing with a host of other  chronic medical issues, as well as some sort of dementia, possibly exacerbated by the loss of his eyesight. He was completely dependent on my grandmother for even the most basic of care. What she was able to do and for so long is nothing short of amazing and shows the bond and love they shared, and their devotion to one another. My grandfather absolutely adored my grandmother, and we would all be so lucky to find someone so special and spend a lifetime together creating a beautiful life filled with beautiful memories. 

I was honored to be asked to write and read the eulogy at today's service for my grandfather. It's so hard to find the perfect words to honor someone who means so much to you, and honor them properly and in the best way possible. I truly hope that I was able to accomplish that today. It was one of the hardest and most emotional things I have done, along with doing the same for Aaron after he passed away. Trying to keep my composure while reading it was extremely difficult. I definitely broke down after, but I got through it and honored Pépère the best way I knew how. He is so loved, and to see all the people that came to pay him and our family their respects, was just beautiful, amazing and a testament to him, and the person he was, and how much light, laughter and love he brought to those around him. 

I wanted to share my eulogy for anyone who wasn't able to attend the service today, or anyone who wanted a copy or to read it again and to share the amazing man my grandfather was with all of you. He is going to be deeply missed, but his imprint on our lives will be with us always, as will all of our memories of him. He was truly one of a kind. 

Pépère's Eulogy 

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Kellie Pelletier, Rosaire’s youngest grandchild, and as he used to whisper to me, his favorite grandchild, something I KNOW was a “secret” he told to each one of us, but to me, and all of us grandchildren, he was just Pépère. When I sat down to write this, I must have written 20 drafts, as how do you say goodbye to such a great man and grandfather, to someone who has been such an integral part of your life for your entire life?  Most people don’t get to live so far into adulthood having their grandparents in their life like we did. How do you properly honor your Pépère in the best way possible, someone who helped shape and mold you into the person you are today- someone so strong, who seemed invincible to this little girl, and larger than life; someone who would do anything for his family, and someone who was always so stubborn, but happy-go-lucky, smiling, laughing- I can still hear his signature giggle, and always cracking jokes and teasing those he loved. He was always there, and always willing to drop everything if any of us needed anything, as family was everything to him, the most precious thing in the world. He meant more to me than anyone could ever know and he was my hero, my protector, a positive role model, my guardian angel here on earth, my biggest cheerleader and supporter, my place of solace and comfort, my best friend, my sunshine- as we were his, and the best grandfather a girl could ask for. No matter the day, the time, the circumstance, you could find him sitting in his rocking chair in the sun either in the living room, in the den, on the porch or in the garage, by himself, with Mémère or with whichever family member, friend or neighbor happed to stop by, and he would know just what you needed with each visit- either catching up, talking about life or just sitting side by side rocking quietly. He would always make sure to get a joke in, as he loved to see us smile and hear us laugh. Life was hard enough without happiness and laughter.

I was lucky that I got a chance to do a report on my grandparents for 8^th grade French class. I had to interview my grandparents and learn about what life was like for them growing up. I remember calling them, and having them each on the phone one at a time, asking questions about their humble beginnings. Had I not done that, I wouldn’t have learned what Pépère had endured and how it had shaped him into the man he was now, as his childhood was not something he often reminisced about. He endured so much hardship before the age of 10, and it made him want a better life for himself and his future family. I want to share some of that with you now.

 Pépère was born and raised in Auburn, the youngest of three boys. They grew up extremely poor, as he grew up in the midst of the Great Depression. His mother stayed home to raise the family and take care of the home, while his father worked in the shoe shops and mills in Lewiston/Auburn to support the family. When he was only 5 years old, his family lost their home for the first time in the Great Fire of New Auburn in 1933. The fire, which started at a car repair shop, quickly spread to all of New Auburn destroying many homes and business, leaving Pépère and his family, as well as thousands of other people, homeless. Just three years later, they lost their home again in the Great Flood of 1936. Many homes, apartment buildings and businesses in downtown Lewiston/Auburn, that were situated along the low-lying areas along the Androscoggin River, particularly in Little Canada and New Auburn were evacuated when the flood began. The water was over 2 stories high in Little Canada and New Auburn alone, washing away many homes, businesses and even some of the bridges connecting the two communities. It took over a week for the waters to recede and it brought so much uncertainty while people waited to see if their homes survived. Unfortunately, the Poisson family once again lost their place of residence for the 2^nd time in 3 years. It seemed like bad luck was following them, and it made it difficult for them to get ahead and provide a better life for the three boys.

When Pépère was old enough to start working, he also started working in the mills and the shoe shops, as his father had, but quickly learned it was not the kind of job he enjoyed doing, nor one he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He also knew it wouldn’t guarantee that he would be able to break the cycle of poverty that he grew up in, so he knew he needed to find another way to support his family. He got lucky and someone gave him an opportunity to learn a new trade, upholstery. Pépère jumped on the opportunity and started apprenticing, learning the skills he needed to be successful, not knowing how much he would enjoy it and excel at it, and that one day, he would open his very own successful business. At night, he would try to earn extra money by taking on his own small upholstery jobs on the side, before gaining enough confidence, growing his skills, and mastering his trade enough to eventually strike out on his own. In 1955, he felt like he was finally ready and he opened his own shop, Poisson’s Upholstery on Pierce Street in Lewiston. His dedication, hard work and eye for detail made him one of the most sought after upholsterers in the area, as his work was impeccable, he was reliable, and he produced quality pieces. As a kid I used to love to watch him at his craft, first on Pierce Street, and then later in the basement of my grandparents’ home, after he retired in 1993, where he only took on small and special clients or did projects for himself- well really for Mémère, whenever she had the whim to change up the colors of the chairs and couches, his family or his friends. You could tell that he loved what he did, that it was a passion for him to take on furniture that was run-down, frayed, torn, worn out and ready to be thrown out and completely stripping the piece down to the bare frame, and rebuilding it from scratch, starting with new foam, new cushions, new fabric, new hardware, really, new everything, but the frame, turning it into a master piece. He never once measured the upholstery fabric to make sure it fit the chair or couch he was covering. He could somehow always eyeball it and get it exactly right, fitting perfectly every time, with hardly any extra fabric left over as waste or scraps. He would then put a handful of upholstery tacks into his mouth and spit them out off his tongue one at a time, hammering them in. Every bit, every single detail of the couch or chair was carefully and painstakingly refinished and made to look brand new. Each item he refurbished was a labor of love and a representation of him. His work and work ethic spoke for themselves and he was widely sought after for that reason.

What I didn’t realize at the time, was that I was learning a life lesson, that life could be brutal and that we won’t make it out unscathed, but no matter what happens, we could always start over from scratch and remake ourselves into something we were proud of, a better version of ourselves, with a little love, nurturing, patience, strength and hard work.

Pépère met Mémère at a local dance shortly after she and a couple of her sisters moved to Lewiston from her family farm in Guerette in Northern Maine, to make a better life for themselves, seeking work at the mills. Rumor has it that he knew that she was the one for him almost right away, but that she took a little convincing to know that he was the one for her and the person she wanted to create a life and a family with. Looking back on it now, it looks like he was right and that they were each others great loves of their lives, as they would have been married for 74 years on June 25^th. Less than 4 years later, my mother was born, and 5 years after that, my Aunt Nancy, the next two greatest loves of his life after my grandmother.

Pépère loved Mémère with all his heart and absolutely adored her. They were inseparable. They loved to travel together with my Uncle Clifford and Aunt Cecile, and they always sent us post cards or bought us souvenirs from wherever their latest bus trip took them. It was always a goal for me to find someone who loved me like Pépère loved Mémère, and I did for a short while. Life wasn’t always easy, but they navigated the unpredictability of life- the highs, lows, heartbreak, loss, and hardship always together, as they could face and endure whatever was thrown their way, as long as they were together. They certainly set an example for all of us.  

Pépère was tough, but fair, brutally honest and stubborn to a fault sometimes, and he only wanted the best lives for his daughters. Most people could never live up to his impossibly high standards and the expectation of the life he hoped their future spouses were going to provide for his daughters, and a lot of men didn’t even bother trying to impress Pépère, or follow his strict rules and curfew for dating his daughters. He had such a reputation that my father ended up standing my mother up on their first date, because he was terrified of my grandfather. My grandfather was NOT impressed by that, and I’m sure neither was my mother, but somehow, my father got up the courage to take my mother on an actual date. Thank goodness my grandfather and mother gave him another chance, because otherwise this story would have ended much differently. When my father finally worked up the courage to propose to my mother, he went to ask my grandfather for permission to marry her. My dad says he went to Pépère’s upholstery shop on Pierce Street, and afterwards my dad said it was dead silent while my grandfather rolled the roll of fabric he was going to be using for whatever project he was working on that day, back and forth, over and over again, across his fabric cutting table, until he finally said quietly, “I guess so.” You would never know now that my grandfather was so tough on my father or that he had any reservations at all about him with the bond, love and respect the two of them shared over the years.

Eventually, after finally agreeing to let his daughters marry the men they loved, he got the greatest gift in the form of four grandchildren. His grandchildren, were the apple of his eye, well we like to think we were, and we had him wrapped around our little fingers. Whenever a new grandchild was born, he would come over to the house just to rock us for as long as possible. My grandfather never had a bigger smile than he did whenever he was just holding or rocking his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It looked like you had just handed him the entire world, but I imagine to him, we all WERE his entire world. As we got older, he loved to spoil us all. He would get down on the floor with us and play with our toys or play games with us. He was basically like a big kid himself, always smiling, laughing, cracking a joke, pulling our noses off our face, tugging on our ears, playing small pranks, being goofy to make us laugh, and he was always mischievous, always up to something. As we started growing up there were lots of Saturday night sleepovers, that included French Mass at Holy Cross Church, bean suppers, eating thin, perfectly charred on the grill, potato slices off the end of Pépère’s paring knife, as a snack while he was grilling hamburgers, making and eating cucumber sandwiches, listening to Lawrence Welk in the background on the TV, watching candle pin bowling, old cartoons, Jeopardy, and Wheel of Fortune, while eating ice cream, cookies or his famous homemade buttered popcorn- he always made it air popped with real melted butter poured over it in layers, so you could saturate every kernel, or watching my grandparents play card games with family and friends. There were bike rides and walks around the neighborhood, playing in the sprinkler, eating his prized cucumbers and tomatoes out of the garden, playing hide and seek, and sitting in the sun rocking away eating popsicles, while he would say that we were living “The Life of Reilly,” meaning life was good.

He most looked forward to Christmas and summer family Lobster Feeds, or anytime the entire family got together. He would always say the only thing he wanted for Christmas, other than Chocolate Covered Cherries, was having his entire family all together, first just his daughters, their spouses and the grandkids, and eventually our spouses and significant others and his great-grandchildren. We would play pool on his pool table down in the basement, play some tough and very competitive games of Skat, check out his new model planes he was building, listen to and sing along to his collection of records downstairs while playing pool, have wrapping paper fights, with the target being whomever was not paying attention and making sure to save the bows on your presents to add the to collection of bows on Pépère’s head, especially the really fancy bows. It was a almost like a contest to see how many bows we could get to stick on his head every year. Sometimes there would be so many bows, we would have to stick them to the front and back of his shirt as well.

Pépère might not have realized it, but he helped create and nurture my love of music. I loved to listen to the Big Band Music of Lawrence Welk, the many records he had downstairs, or him singing “You Are My Sunshine” to us or the slightly off key “Happy Birthday” he sang to us in person, or over the phone, every single birthday, without fail, but what I loved most and the best present he ever gave me outside of his time, was the piano they had downstairs that my Mom had learned to play on as a child. Playing piano opened up a whole new world for me. It gave me an outlet, a way to express myself and a way to connect with people. It gave me a passion, something I loved, something he likely also experienced playing clarinet and saxophone. He came to every concert and recital, and even to listen to me play piano with the St. Joseph’s Church choir on Christmas. He was always our biggest supporter and was always so proud of us all, bragging about whatever little thing we were doing to whichever neighbor, family member or friend happened to stop by. I will always share a love of and passion for music with him, and I will always be grateful for that gift he brought into my life.

Helen Keller once said, “What we have once enjoyed deeply, we can never lose. All that we love deeply, becomes a part of us.” Pépère’s love and influence have shaped my life in so many ways, ways that even I don’t realize, and I know my work ethic comes from him. He was always harder on himself than anyone else, yet wanted to make sure we always showed ourselves patience and grace. I am thankful to have had him in my life for so long, and to have so many deep, treasured memories to hold on to, as well as so much happiness and love. I’m thankful for all the hugs, kisses, hand squeezes, high fives, laughter, chats, and times rocking in a chair next to him feeling the warmth of the sun. He truly was one of a kind, and I’m grateful that he was my grandfather. Pépère, I know you are finally and truly, “All Set” now, and you are watching over us all to make sure we are, too. I love you, Pépère.