11/07/2025
Remembering Grandma Mavis
Grandma Mavis was a very special customer of mine. In October 2022, I repaired a Westminster Chime mantel clock for her. She told me it was a keepsake left to her by her older brother, who had passed away more than ten years earlier. When she brought the clock home, it started running off-time because the table wasn’t level, and her hands shook too much for her to adjust it herself. She asked if I could come by her house to help.
The following Sunday morning, I visited her and brought along a box of fresh grapes as a small gift. It only took me about two minutes to fix the clock. She invited me to sit and have tea with her. She said she loved tea and always kept more than 30 different kinds in her house. She opened her tea cabinet for me and asked which one I preferred. I admitted I didn’t know much about tea and that any type was fine. So she cheerfully offered to make me a “special blend” of all her favourites.
She lived in a small house with her cat. The place was small, but very tidy and elegant, with a lovely living-room view of the front yard. While we drank tea, she proudly showed me her Sony cassette player that she had bought in 1980 - still working perfectly. She lifted up her beautiful white cat and said, “This is my roommate.” On the living-room wall, she had portraits of all the dogs and cats she had owned, arranged in the exact order she had raised them.
She told me she was originally from England and had moved to Canada in the late 1960s. She was 87 at the time. She still had one older sister back in England, along with a niece. Every week, she phoned them to chat. Her sister had dementia, but she could still recognize Mavis’s voice instantly, remember her name, and recall only the stories from their younger days. So each phone call turned into reminiscing about old memories from decades ago.
She had once worked as a telephone switchboard operator. When I heard that, I told her I was also in telecommunications, joking that we were “in the same field.” I called her “Grandmom” because her small figure and slightly stooped back reminded me of my own grandmother. We ended up talking for nearly two hours.
Before I left, she told me to bring my wife over someday so she could teach her English, proudly saying her accent was “proper.”
After that, every few weeks she would go to the mall with her neighbour and stop by my shop to visit her “grandson”—that’s what she called me. One time she didn’t come for several weeks, so I called to check in. She said she had caught a cold and didn’t want to risk passing it on to anyone, so she stayed home.
When Christmas came, she told me she would be spending it alone. In Canada, Christmas is like our Lunar New Year. I asked if my family could come and celebrate with her, and she happily agreed. The day before Christmas, she phoned to ask how many of us would be coming so she could prepare, and how many cars we’d be taking so she could arrange parking.
Christmas Eve 2022 at her home was wonderful. She asked everyone’s preferences so she could make each person a different tea. She said she had read many books about zodiac signs, so she asked for each person’s sign, guessed their personalities, and checked if she was right - my daughters loved it. The little living room was tidy and classy, with warm yellow lights reflecting onto the snowy yard outside. It felt incredibly cozy.
After that, every few weeks she dropped by to see me, or I called her to check in. One time, almost four weeks passed with no sign of her. I called, but no one answered. A week later, she returned my call and told me she had just suffered her third stroke and had spent a month in the hospital. She was back home but getting the house renovated and ready to sell so she could move into a seniors’ residence with full medical support and meals provided. I wanted to visit, but she asked me to wait until after she moved.
In early July 2023, she came to my shop, gave me her new address and phone number, and told me the food at her new place was delicious - she loved it - and it was very close to my store, just over one kilometre away. She said she could now take the bus to visit her “grandson” more often. We talked for over 10 minutes before she hugged me goodbye.
But near the end of July 2023, her former neighbour came in to replace a watch battery and told me that Mavis had suffered her fourth stroke and had passed away two weeks earlier. That meant she left only a week after hugging me goodbye.
I was shocked. It felt like losing a family member. That same day, I called the number she had given me, hoping she would answer, hoping somehow the news was wrong. The phone rang, but no one picked up. I continued calling weekly for several weeks until finally, the automated message said the number was no longer in service.
That’s when I knew she had truly “gone.”
This little story of mine also reflects the warmth of Manitobans - just like the slogan “Friendly Manitoba” printed on every licence plate.
Today marks three years since I first met Grandma Mavis.
I miss her dearly.
