We are mortal but some hold to their beliefs.
Sunday, November 19, 2000
'He knew Michel was waiting'
Former wife says Trudeau looked forward to meeting his late son in death
By CP
ALMONTE, Ont. -- Pierre Trudeau was ready to die in September, even
refusing the water that might have helped him live a little longer.
To drink, his former wife Margaret Trudeau recalled Friday, would have
delayed a reunion with their son Michel, who died in a 1998 avalanche.
"The last thing I was able to put in his mouth was an ice chip - and then
there was no more once he understood that the water would keep him alive,"
she said. "He was ready and he was just waiting."
Trudeau died on Sept. 28, three weeks short of his 81st birthday, of
complications from prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease.
Trudeau reflected on her former husband's final days while walking through
the Philip K. Wood Gallery in Almonte, Ont. - a town southwest of Ottawa.
The walls of the gallery were lined with pictures of the former prime
minister - part of an exhibition which Trudeau wanted to tour privately
before it opened yesterday.
The exhibition, by photographer Rod MacIvor, captures Trudeau in his younger
years.
His former wife managed a smile as she walked past some of the photographs,
weeping as she walked by others.
She said Trudeau was a religious man and not only accepted death, but
welcomed it without a fight.
He believed in resurrection, she said, and was certain Michel was waiting
for him.
"It became a very, very happy death," she said. "When his energy arrived
into the golden light, he knew Michel would be the first to reach him and
then his mother would come and his father would come."
Trudeau spent his last days talking about his imminent death and told his
ex-wife to have faith. They divorced in 1984.
"He said, 'Wait till the third day after I die, Margaret, and you'll see,' "
she said. "And then on the third day, on the Hill before the funeral, peace
came to me because I knew that father and son were reunited."
"I got the message," she said.
As she talked about her husband Friday, Trudeau recalled how, even in death,
the man who led Canada for 15 years seemed to be in control of his fate.
"It's a terrible death," she said. "Fortunately, Pierre died before it had
gotten to a stage where he needed any pain relief. He died naturally, of
course. There was no intervention."
One of the last things Trudeau asked to hear was Barbra Streisand singing
about how "the luckiest people in the world are people who love people." The
words brought tears to his eyes and "those were the words that let him
pass," she said.
"Pierre, to me, was a gift from God to all of us," she said. "He was gifted
with intelligence, with a deep, deep, deep heart, with a deep love of
nature, with a deep love of family and a deep love of Canada and Canadians -
all Canadians, every one of them."
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John Cottingham
