Christmas in Glengarry by Ronald Mackay
We buried Donald A in Maxville Cemetery just days before Christmas ’76. Ah! But his passing wasn’t simple.
He and his brother Alex farmed their hundred acres in Glengarry County. No! To say they farmed exaggerates. They subsisted. In summer, vegetables, potatoes, eggs, and any hen unwise enough to stop laying.
When first snow began to fly, they slaughtered the pig and the steer they’d been fattening since spring, pickled the pork and stored the beef in the freezer in the woodshed. They’d never wired the farmhouse for lack of cash. Ah! And they drank beer kept hidden in that same woodshed.
I know all this, because I was their closest – and their newest neighbour.
Well, in late November, ‘Come for Christmas dinner,’ I invited. I knew they’d be alone and that they enjoyed drinking my beer.
Donald A smiled. Alex scowled. But since Alex’ face seldom reflected his feelings, I knew they’d both turn up with a thirst to match their hunger.
How wrong I was!
On a cold December morning, Alex hobbled the kilometre from their place to mine.
“Donald A’s taken badly.”
I went to investigate and found Donald A on the porch, gasping for breath.
“Hotel Dieu! Now!” Gently, we laid Donald A in my car.
“You go!” said Alex. “I gotta feed the woodstove.”
The hospital was alien and 50 kilometres distant, in Cornwall. I understood Alex’ reluctance.
The emergency nurse barked. “Gimme background!”
“Donald A MacDonald. 78. Lives with his brother on the farm in Glengarry. Difficulty breathing.”
“How long?”
“Three hours.”
“Wait!” She and her team rushed Donald A inside.
An hour later, she reappeared. “You family?”
“No. Neighbour. Brother wouldn’t come.”
She knew the importance of neighbours; understood bachelor farmers’ horror of hospitals.
“Listen up! Donald A’s on life support. Sedated but suffering. His brother must come. Soon! Understand?”
I understood.
But I couldn’t persuade Alex.
“You go! I gotta feed the stove!”
So, alone, I drove back and took the elevator to the ICU on the 6th floor.
Donald A was awake, pillow pale, tubes everywhere. He raised an arm plastered with needles and drips. His eyes spoke. He knew.
Once outside his room, the nurse frowned at me. “We need his brother’s permission. Donald A’s in distress. All this? It just adds discomfort.” She gestured to the ventilator, the screens and the beeping machines.
“I will bring him!”
Gently, I told Alex.
“You go!” he insisted. “I gotta-”
“-Alex! It’s gotta be you! An’ it’s gotta be now!”
Resigned, he nodded. “But ’fore we go, I gotta feed the stove.”
“This is Hotel Dieu?” Alex gazed up at six-floors. “New York!”
As the elevator rose, he controlled his misery but failed when he saw his brother.
I left them together. Through the window, I saw Donald A’s distress reflected in Alex’ face. Old hands gripped. Brotherly eyes locked.
Outside the unit, the nurse asked gently, “Alex?”
Alex looked at his feet then at her. “No man should live like that.”
He struggled to sign the release.
In silence, we drove back to Glengarry.
“You could sleep at my place, Alex.”
“Nope! Gotta feed the stove.”
I checked on Alex daily and made simple funeral arrangements. Together, we drove to the graveyard in light snow. He cast the first fistful of earth as Donald A’s coffin vanished.
“Alex, you could sleep at my place?”
“Nope! Gotta feed the stove.”
“OK, but Christmas Eve. You and me. Right?”
On Christmas eve Alex arrived early. We sipped beer and smelled roasting goose.
Alex broke the silence. “’Twas ever just him an’ me. Left school together, we did, to help father. In October, when first snow flew, he sent us to a lumber camp in the Ottawa Valley. Well-fed and warm there. Fallers we were. Kept our blades sharp as rozers. Donald A always looked out for me.”
As we gave Christmas thanks for the food, Alex murmured unaccustomed blessings on his brother.
We finished dinner. “Sleep here tonight, Alex?”
“Nope. Christmas Eve. Donald A and me play euchre. Gotta fix, last year’s loss.”
He left. I watched him gather an armful of blocks from his woodshed, then disappear into his empty farmhouse.
Next morning, I walked over to his place. Crisp frost. Air still. Sweet smell of wood smoke. He’d begun his chores.
Finished, he drove his axe into a block, stood erect, and faced me.
“Last night? First time I ate goose. Not bad. I guess. Better though. I beat Donald A at euchre.”
Overhead we watched a gaggle of Canada geese head for open water on Loch Garry.
“Always looked up to my brother!” He waited till, out of sight, the geese landed and were silent. “Now? Now, guess I gotta live up to him.”
Alex thrust out his hand. “Happy Christmas, neighbour!”
The faintest trace of a smile.
Alex and Donald A had no tractor at all!
Foto Glengarry Pioneer Museum 
Donald A made his own axe handles from butternut
Glengarry Pipe Band.
Foto Glengarry Pioneer Museum, Ontario |
Colin White and Ronald Mackay in Glengarry, Ontario, Canada 1978
Log house like Alex' and Donald A's.
Foto Glengarry Pioneer Museum, Ontario 
Glengarry Highlander, off to the Boer War.
Foto RM |
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Schools were heated with wood stoves.
Foto Glengarry Pioneer Museum, Ontario
Foto Glengarry Pioneer Museum, Ontario
