Going "Home"

For the past couple of years when people would ask me about what my "must-do" list for the trip was I was usually fairly vague. Probably because I really hadn't given it a tremendous amount of thought. But there was one thing that I knew I needed to do, and that was to see my "home" when we got to Montreal.

For those who don't know, both my parents have been deceased for a few years. I never gave it much thought, but when we decided that a cross-Canada tour was going to be first up on the trip, I realized that I had no idea where I was raised after being born in Montreal. It's not like I wasn't paying attention. I left when I was around three. Really - who remembers anything from when they are three anyway? My only Montreal memory is being freaked out by the crowd noise when my parents took me to a Montreal Canadians game and making them take me home early. What a jerk. And highly ironic that I have spent so much of my working life dealing with large sports & entertainment events. But I digress...

So we hit Montreal and I still have no idea where I lived. Even my Aunt Islay and Uncle Cliff were not able to solve the mystery. But a trip to La Grande Bibliotheque (aka the library) and a couple of really helpful library staff connected us to a website that yielded both the apartment that I was brought home to and the subsequent 4-plex that we would have moved to before my sister arrived on the scene.

We did the drive-by of both places this afternoon. It's not like I was excited to see either. The earth didn't move, I didn't become overwhelmed with emotion, and I had no flashbacks to mysterious happenings. It's more like being able to fill in a gap so that when I now think of Montreal I have a better context for where I started out. It's not just all about a Habs game anymore.