you will be missed.
Our thought and prayers are with the Davis family
Share a memory of Freddy
It was a weekend of gain and loss. On this chilly May Saturday night, we sat in my buddy Dave's shed in St. George's in anticipation of the new toys arriving. The Harley in the back of the pickup and the boat towed behind.
Ron, Dave's father, had picked up what the b'ys had bought on eBay. "Jeff, you're here to welcome two new additions to the family and say goodbye to one," said Wayne, his familiar grin cutting across his face, cheeks bulging. I smiled slowly. It was nice to see Wayne's grin return, as trampled as it was.
It was a hard week, harder than anything should have to be. But times have never been easy here - either at eking out a living or watching friends leave in search of work, witnessing a town whither and die.
The people of this tiny town nestled in St. George's Bay are the finest people I've ever met - kind, warm, funny, and strong.
On May 6, they steeled themselves to bid farewell to Freddy Davis. On April 30, he'd been out in a tiny boat (so tiny it would fit in the pan of a pickup), when it capsized - not a lifejacket in sight, not one to be had. Infuriating, but not surprising. Nationally, this province has the most drowning deaths per capita.
Freddy was far from a stupid man, but on this night, for some reason, he was as dumb as a post and it cost him, and us, dearly. Just hours after it happened, the search began. "Just find him and bring him home," I said to Dave when he called me with the news. I was in the Halifax airport waiting for a flight to St. John's. I walked through the airport aimlessly. It was so surreal - like being trapped in a shopping mall - everything there to make one happy, but nothing capable of it. Hundreds of people everywhere - never alone, but feeling as lonely as one possibly could. Little sleep would come until Freddy was taken from the sea and brought home. Two days later, they found him and brought him home. They laid him out in the green and white Catholic church that dominates the town's centre. A true patriot, he adored his island home - he was in love with Newfoundland and she with him. But more than this island, he loved St. George's, its people. You can take the boy out of the bay, but you can't take the bay out of the boy.
This place, this island, is now a far lesser place; it will laugh a lot less and weep a lot more. A sense of humor few could match, Freddy always had a barb to send my way. When he thought I couldn't understand him, he'd speak in "mainlander." Like he was flicking a switch, he'd begin talking like so many of those pompous twits who stumble off flights from up along. Freddy would throw his head back and laugh this wild, twisted laugh. He was a dear friend, a dear soul.
Before the funeral, we gathered by the gas station like we had so many times before, but those were happier times. "I'm not going in that church. I can't do it, won't do it," said one of the b'ys, who stands as big as a church and just as immovable. It was a common refrain that day, uttered by many. Nothing could have been more mournful than what happened in the church on that May day - there are no words. The priest tried to draw parallels between Freddy's life and Jesus - "they both died at 33," he said from the pulpit.
I caught myself before laughing out loud - Freddy was beside me in the pew, elbowing me in the side and rolling his eyes. As the b'ys carried Freddy out of the church, Dave cranked the AC-DC on his truck stereo and then lit up the tires - two of Freddy's favorite things: screeching and smoking tires with AC-DC cranked so loud your teeth rattled.
After the formalities at the graveyard, with a cold wind blowing, we all gathered around Freddy's grey-metal coffin. Somebody said something, but for the life of me I can't recall what.
Just feet away, lay the body of another dear friend who had drowned some years ago - Joey. Two lost souls together. As each person left, they tapped Freddy's coffin or knelt and kissed the cold metal. Each of us then walked up the hill where everyone gathered to remember and hoist a few.
Out in the boats, we played for hours in the waters of Bay St. George - all the while thinking about how much Freddy would have loved Wayne's new boat and that gleaming Harley now sitting in Dave's backyard. Having the time of our lives and forgetting for a few moments the soul we had just lost, we still hadn't learned - not a lifejacket in sight, not one to be had.
Jeff Ducharme
Jeff Ducharme is The Independent's senior writer. jeff.ducharme@theindependent.ca