A Tribute

(Real names and some details are changed to protect privacy)

I click the “Join meeting“ button.

“Hi! How are you!“

Tom comes into focus in a t-shirt with sun streaming into the room behind him. He’s always somewhere new. I think we’ve met on at least three continents to talk about this website. He’s a dedicated volunteer.

“Good, thanks! You?“ As usual, I’m at my desk in my kitchen when we meet. It’s pouring rain on the wet coast. I haven’t seen the sun in days.

“I’m good! Tired. We got in late. It’s a nice place – the ocean is just out there,“ Tom grins his boyish grin and points his thumb toward the sliding glass door open beside him.

Then Jeanine pops onto the screen. “Hi, Tom. Hi, Mela.“ I glimpse one of her dogs in her office doorway. The frame is ornate with early twentieth-century wood moulding typical in the houses of her East Van neighbourhood.

“Hi, Jeanine!“ Tom and I cancel out each other’s audio as we speak at the same time.

***

In late fall 2020, a couple years before I met Tom and Jeanine, I left Vancouver Island for the Lower Mainland. I lived alone and didn’t have much family, and the pandemic had been hard on my mental health. I needed more land around me, more possibilities, more time with my old Vancouver friends. Little did I know one of them would be dead in a few months.

My dear friend Leon, who had offered to be my brother when my father passed away, died early in the summer of 2021 from a stroke. He was the fourth to die in a year when I lost six friends. That was hard year after hard year.

In 2022 I slid around on my hardwood floors in my socks making nostalgic playlists on Spotify and writing a blog about something I invented called de-preciousing. It’s a gentle and cathartic process for removing sentiment and nostalgia from keepsakes so you can thrift or recycle them. My goal was to open up a little space for connecting with living people.

***

Living people….Some of the new, living people in my life are in this Zoom meeting. We’re a small team and we have successfully launched a website to showcase work by a group of queer elders called QUIRK-E. Today we’re working through the process of adding new posts to the site. We are going to publish members’ current and past writing, art and videos. I used to be a technical writer so I’m making us a user guide.

***

The steps to accomplish something are not always clear but we all know if you want to meet people you have to “get out there.“ It was early in 2023 on a dark, wet Friday night when I girded myself for an RFS (room full of strangers) and headed out to a 55+ event hosted by QMUNITY: a free Latin dance class. I cannot dance, like, at all … but I told myself it would be fun. About ten people showed up and five of them all seemed to know each other. As we chatted before the class began, I asked, “How do you all know each other?“

“We’re quirky,“ said one of them and they all chuckled. I smiled uncertainly.

“We’re part of a group called QUIRK-E“ explained my future fellow web team member, Jeanine. “Queer Imaging and Riting Kollective for Elders. Writing with an ’R,’“ she clarified. “Collective with a ’K.’“ Later that weekend I submitted an application to join their group. To my delight, it was accepted a few weeks later.

I found my place in the Kollective on the web team. QUIRK-Es are part of a unique and important cohort of queers whose legacies are our civil rights today. After launching the new site we started publishing the work of members.

Born mostly in the 1940s, they are lifelong activists, veterans of social change that saw LGBTQIA+ people overcome being designated as crazy, illegal, and ineligible for marriage, to being protected under the human rights code. One of them is even an Officer of the Order of Canada! She received this honour after leading a constitutional challenge that resulted in Canada changing its immigration laws to include same-sex partners as members of family. A few of these wisened heroes are my new friends, too. I feel lucky to know them, humbled by their accomplishments and proud to help share their stories with the world.

***

Next on the agenda for the QUIRK-E web team is to discuss submissions. We have received two celebrating the lives of loved ones who have passed away.

“There are already a lot of posts in the ’Memoir’ category,“ observes Jeanine. “Maybe we should make a new category called ’Tributes’?“ Tom and I agree and I add “make Tribute category“ to my website todo list. Then, we start discussing what to do about all the annoying spam we get from the website contact form.

***

After becoming part of the QUIRK-E web team, I also joined our memoir writing group. The first piece I wrote came out of me like a scream. It was about grief. In a handful of years, I lost nine friends and family to random mortalities. I had professional support but the opportunity to creatively express my response to so much loss helped me heal by being seen. Two members of the Memoir group took the time to provide deeply thoughtful feedback on my first draft. Those conversations were creatively supportive and emotionally intimate as they shared their own experiences with loss. Once my piece was published, several people wrote me kind emails. QUIRK-E has taught me we should never let anyone grieve alone.

***

“Well thanks, everyone,“ says Tom. He wants to get in a swim before lunch.

“Be sure to check out that café,“ Jeanine reminds me. We meet there sometimes when she is in my neighbourhood for errands. “The new owners are amazing!“ I tell her I will. We wave and end the meeting. Before I forget, I log into the website and make the new Tribute category.

Mela Brown writes plays, poetry, short stories and over the years worked as a technical writer and journalist. You can find her most recent work at paganda.ca.