The Perfect Canadian

Reflections on the Life of Marion Lee

Alexander Hudson
Sep 5, 2018 · 4 min read

My grandmother, Marion Louise (Dorey) Lee passed away on Monday, 13 August 2018 at the age of 86.

She lived, in many ways, an unremarkable life. She was born in Berwick, Nova Scotia in 1932, lived most of her life in the nearby village of Morden, Nova Scotia, and spent her last years back in Berwick. I don’t really know what she dreamed of for her life when she was young, but I know she experienced disappointments as well as many unexpected joys. She worked as a telephone operator, and then as a nurse at a long-term care facility. She was married to my grandfather Harold Lee from 1955 until his death in 2004, and raised two daughters. She was a grandmother to seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. She was the sort of grandmother that people write about in children’s books: generous, selfless, patient, loving and gentle. She was unfailing in her support for her grandchildren’s various interests, travels, and educational and vocational pursuits. She was a kind and generous friend and neighbour, and a faithful and active member of her church.

I was reflecting on the lessons I have learned from her life, and there were many. Some were quotidian and mundane — like the value of washing the dishes right after dinner. In that vein were practical skills, like how to make bread, and how to cook traditional Nova Scotian foods. Some were spiritual, like her commitment to spending time reading the Bible and praying.

I have lived most of the last fifteen years outside of Canada, and as I thought about my grandmother’s life, I was struck by what a perfect Nova Scotian and Canadian she was. Not in a cultural sense, but rather as a person who embodied the virtues of Nova Scotians that I tell people about when they ask about the place where I was born. Along with my grandfather, she was active in everything that went on in her community for as long as she was physically able. As a child, I never thought much about this — it was just their way of life. Now, with the experiences of my own life to compare with hers, it is striking to me that it never seemed to be any trouble to my grandmother to drive a few dozen kilometres to visit a friend or neighbour in a care home or hospital, to cook for (and clean up after) a community supper or breakfast, to run the card party at the community hall, or to scrutinise election returns on behalf of her political party. These were all things that she seemed to do with joy — as if it was a privilege for her to have the opportunity to serve others. It ran in the family too, as she and her twin sister Marjorie Keddy were recognised as Volunteers of the Year by the province of Nova Scotia in 2015. Many in her village live the same way, and in my grandmother’s later years neighbours cut firewood for her, plowed snow from her driveway, drove many kilometres to and from the airport to help her visit family, took her to church every Sunday, and visited her in the places where she had visited others.

I very much doubt that she would have ever thought of herself as a patriot. But her life demonstrated how true patriotism grows out of love for family. As the British politician Edmund Burke once wrote: “to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind.” Hers was a beautiful kind of patriotism, one devoid of the ugliness of jingoism, and instead flowing from a love for family, for community, and thence for country.

Certainly, as Prime Minister Trudeau has said, “A Canadian, is a Canadian, is a Canadian.” But I would argue some are more Canadian than others. That has nothing to do with ethnicity, religion, or how long one’s family has been in this country, but rather has to do with how we live our lives as members of the communities that make up this great land. My grandmother was more Canadian than I have been, and I think more Canadian than most.

My grandmother’s death doesn’t leave a hole in the province or the country the way it leaves a painful hole in our family, but if we all lived as she did, our communities would be stronger, safer, happier, and more prosperous.