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<\/p>\nLucy came to us through a friend of a friend. We needed someone to care for Maeve, our newborn baby, and Lucy needed work. She had cared for her mother who had recently died of cancer. Lucy was in her early 50s, her English was sparse, our Portuguese non-existent. I bought us an English\/Portuguese dictionary, and at some point we discovered a mutual pidgin French. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lucy had many job descriptions. In her family, Lucy was the unmarried sister; the slave who cared for dying parents, difficult nephews, gave solace to her sister and never spoke of the evils of her brother-in-law. They all lived in a house a few blocks from us. To our family, Lucy began as caregiver, morphed into Nanny\/Housekeeper and ended as Honorary Mother\/Grandmother. She sounds like a saint and we later found out, she may well be.<\/p>\n
The largesse of Tony, the Brother-in-Law, provided Lucy with a small apartment in the family home. In exchange, Lucy lived a kind of Cinderella existence \u2013 only without the support of the mice. Her sister, Clotilde, did what she could for Lucy \u2013 but Clotilde had many burdens including her husband, three sons, and their interactions with The Law. When Lucy first came into our lives, Tony was up on a contempt of court charge. He\u2019d put a third story onto his house without permits. He was ordered to remove the third story, didn\u2019t, and didn\u2019t show up for his court dates. I don\u2019t know what happened officially, but eventually the third story was taken down. <\/p>\n
Tony had a disposal business. He had trucks, bins and a property in Mississauga. He drove a Mercedes and used Grecian formula. He took two of his sons out of school at 14 to work in the business. What can I say?<\/p>\n
But back to Lucy. She is about five feet tall. In some photos, Lucy\u2019s face bears a strong resemblance to the Queen. Like the Queen, Lucy doesn\u2019t indulge bad behavior. When the corner store was out of Portuguese bread, the owner suggested Lucy buy an Italian loaf, put it in a Portuguese bag and tell us it was Portuguese. We wouldn\u2019t know the difference. Lucy walked out of the store and never went back. And she used strong, very strong, language when she told us the story. \u201cHe speaks cheap Portuguese.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucy had spent time in \u2018Lisboa\u2019. She knew her English wasn\u2019t great, but her Portuguese was expensive. By this time Lucy and Maeve had bonded into one unit, and Lucy would only speak to Maeve in Portuguese because she didn\u2019t want her little girl growing up with a bad English accent.<\/p>\n
When Maeve was three, the Vale of Tears descended. Lucy\u2019s doctor ordered her to find a job easier on her varicose veins damaged legs. And so Lucy left our employ. But not our life. Maeve often spent weekends with her. They remained a unit. And Lucy got a job packing in a dress factory.<\/p>\n
Life edged on. Lucy, the unmarried sister, was no longer needed to look after the three nephews, so the evil Tony evicted her. Clotilde could do nothing. The nephews did nothing. But\u2026another family member had a house that needed a landlady. And so Lucy moved into the relative\u2019s house, also in our neighborhood.<\/p>\n
More time passes. We all drop in on each other, Maeve continues to grow and Christmas & birthdays become the main contact time. Except it\u2019s Christmas and Lucy doesn\u2019t answer her phone. I go over to her house. No sign of life. Maeve goes over. Also no sign. We both go over and pound on her door. Clotilde answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s Lucy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s married.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucy married??? No way. Lucy had a healthy distain for men based on what she\u2019d seen in her home and neighborhood. And she was 67 years old for God\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n
Then out of the kitchen came Lucy. <\/p>\n
\u201cLucy, you\u2019re not married.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am. I\u2019m married and I live in Victoria.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here to visit. Meet my husband. Virgeel Leema.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLima, like the bean,\u201d the diminutive man said.<\/p>\n
Virgil is lovely. Lucy is blooming. And they look like two of the happiest gnomes you\u2019ve ever seen. What a lovely Christmas surprise. But there was more. A few nights later, the happy couple come for dinner. Maeve and I drag Lucy away to show her mementos of her adopted daughter\u2019s accomplishments. And Virgil tells Jon the Real Story of Lucy\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Lucy and Virgil are first cousins. They fell in love when they were 15 or 16 but of course, with the first cousin thing, they couldn\u2019t marry each other. Eventually Virgil married another woman, they moved to Victoria, B.C. and had children. Lucy became a Nun and went to work in Angola. When her mother became ill, her religious order released her from her vows and Lucy came to Canada. The \u201crelative\u2019s\u201d house she lived in was in fact Virgil\u2019s house \u2013 an investment he\u2019d made. <\/p>\n
A year ago, Virgil\u2019s wife died. Well, being so old, there\u2019s no chance that the first cousins would have children. And so they married \u2013 at last. And are living happily ever after. Virgil had a successful business so they have house, a back yard full of fig trees, a boat and they live near the ocean in Victoria. <\/p>\n
Lucy. A nun? In Angola? A teenager embroiled in forbidden love?<\/p>\n
Our Lucy. What a wonderful story.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/barbara-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
An acquaintance of mine was an investigator with the Ministry of the Environment. He had run the investigation into the evil Tony\u2019s disposal company. At one point there had been a high-speed chase — the wrong way up a one-way street with speed bumps. My friend, in a ministry car, pursued a disposal truck being driven by one of the nephews. He was caught when the truck didn\u2019t clear a speed bump. Disposal truck became huge teeter-totter.<\/p>\n
Then the Ministry found Tony had trucked hazardous waste to his Mississauga property. So many times that the Mississauga house was full and the land was covered not with fig trees, but with hazardous waste. Everywhere. Eventually, Tony went to jail. <\/p>\n
But first \u2013 Toronto police planted a camera opposite one of Tony\u2019s disposal trucks foolishly parked in the lot of a sleazy Parkdale variety store. It was a night of activity at that truck. When the footage was shown in court, it appeared that yes, the truck was illegally parked, but it was providing something a guy could lean back on while being serviced by a Parkdale hooker. Must have been an interesting few minutes in that courtroom.<\/p>\n
Tony lost everything \u2013 including Clotilde. It came out Tony had a girlfriend. Now Clotilde lives in Lucy\u2019s husband, Virgil\u2019s, Toronto \u201cinvestment\u201d house, and every year Clotilde shows up with a homemade cake for Maeve\u2019s birthday. Sent by Lucy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lucy came to us through a friend of a friend. We needed someone to care for Maeve, our newborn baby, and Lucy needed work. She had cared for her mother who had recently died of cancer. Lucy was in her early 50s, her English was sparse, our Portuguese non-existent. I bought us an English\/Portuguese dictionary, […]<\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}