Prayer, kids keep widow going
Blamed by family for husband’s death after his suicide Buying food and Christmas gifts proves to be a ‘struggle’
Christmas always casts a shadow on widows.
It falls on everything from family get- togethers to the dark side of the bed at the end of the day. But when Mary’s husband took his own life three years ago, he buried his family of three. The man’s parents, who live in Montreal, wasted little time in pulling the plug on the remains of his family from west Toronto.
“ They blame me for my husband’s death,” she says simply. As a result, the woman who once exalted in her extended family — having no living members on her own side — was exiled to the void.
Today, Mary folds her hands to catch a little light.
“ I pray all the time,” she says. And she keeps her children in a necessary darkness.
“ It’s very hard because . . . the kids ask questions and stuff. He committed suicide and I’m not really ready to be telling them that. I just tell them he was sick and there was no medication.
“ His family wouldn’t let us go to the funeral, so my kids didn’t have closure and neither did I.” Come Christmas, the questions are bound to ring a little louder. But poverty can be its own distraction. Her husband’s pension was too small to amount to any real help, so Mary stretches out her disability cheques over three boys, aged 17, 16 and 2. Of course, that spells sacrifice. Mary gives both bedrooms of the family’s two- bedroom apartment in west Toronto to her children, sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. She has even signed up to be part of Adopt- a- Family — a program often administered by churches, charities and organizations — but has yet to find a sponsor.
“ I struggle day to day with food . . . and getting them things they want for Christmas,” Mary says, adding, “I don’t even have a Christmas tree.” Even without a tree, there will be at least one gift on her doorstep this year. Her youngest son is getting a gift box from the Toronto Star’s Santa Claus Fund.
Since it was established in 1906, the charity has been distributing gift boxes to kids who need them, steadily expanding to include 45,000 children in Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Ajax and Pickering.
Every box contains a hat, mittens, shirt, socks, book, small toy and candy.
Mary’s youngest son got the gift last year. And although he doesn’t remember it, his mother does.
“ I was happy to see it,”
she says.
This year, the Santa
Claus Fund, in its
100th year, hopes to
raise $ 1.35 million to
buy gifts for underprivileged children in the Greater Toronto Area. If you have been touched by the Santa Claus Fund, or have a story to tell, email ccotron@thestar.ca or call 416-814- 2751.