Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More by Brian Peckford Page A

your office, Mr. Peck,” Rosy inquired.
    “Never mind, Rosy. I don’t think he will be back anytime soon.”

    THREE MORE SUMMERS OF my temporary social work followed,
     engendering many intense experiences.
    I was posted to Mary’s Harbour on the Labrador Coast, a small community in the
     bottom of St. Lewis Bay, named after the river that flowed into the harbour. I
     boarded with the Coish family, a truly wonderful experience, with the
     father/husband, Bert, my hired captain with his twenty-seven-foot boat, as we
     plied the coastal communities as part of my job. His wife, a remarkable woman in
     her own right, kept a small retail store and oversaw the upbringing of seven
     children.
    I was informed by a young woman last year that her great-grandmother had passed
     away. Memories of that wonderful ladycame rushing to the fore,
     prompting me to write a little tribute to be read at the funeral.
A TRIBUTE
    EVA COISH. MRS. COISH , that’s how I knew
     her.
    Life is so strange since only a few weeks ago I began an effort (I am writing a
     book on my life) to track down some of the people who formed part of my memories
     from early school through my university years. I inquired of my brother whether
     he remembered telling me about meeting “one of the Coish boys” I knew when I was
     in Mary’s Harbour years ago.
    And then last evening arriving home I retrieved a phone message from Charmaine
     telling me of the passing of her great-grandmother, Eva Coish!
    I said in my book The Past in the Present that my time on the Labrador
     Coast was “magnificent” and I meant it, for I met and lived with people like
     Mrs. Coish and Bert. It was always Mrs. Coish to me, the confident matriarch
     overseeing her family, always in control.
    I arrived in Mary’s Harbour in April in Bert’s boat. He had come to pick me up
     in Fox Harbour where I had been sort of marooned because of a four-day
     nor’easter and ice.
    But from the moment I crossed the threshold of the Coish household, I became
     one of them, ah, but not before, however, appropriate questioning (ha!) by the
     missus.
    What do I remember most about Mrs. Coish?
    The meals—unbelievable—and being really the oldest “son” I had to always clean
     the plate.
    She tricked me once. She put on this great supper with all the trimmings:
     vegetables and meat and gravy and as I was busy gulping down the food, she posed
     the question: “Do you know what meat you are eating?” Of course, I mumbled that
     it was meat, perhaps moose, rabbit, etc., trying to come up with the right
     answer. And with a laugh she said, “No, you’re wrong—it’s porcupine.” It took me
     a while to get over that. But I came to love it.
    Her diplomacy—yes she had some of that when it was necessary. A
     young RCMP officer who was then stationed in Battle Harbour was invited for
     dinner, and the missus put on quite the scoff! However, unknown to us at the
     time, our young Prairie officer was having a hard time adjusting to this strange
     place. He apparently had asked for the water jug on a couple of occasions and no
     one heard him. When finally he received it, he flipped. He cleared the table in
     one gigantic thrust of the arm, and water and food scattered across the room.
     Like a UN diplomat, the steady hand of the missus brought peace to what
     otherwise would have been an ugly incident as the rest of us were ready for a
     more physical response.
    Her authority—she tended over us all and never missed a beat, and most
     particularly she was a good adviser on the goings-on. Once she had to console me
     after I was tricked into providing assistance to an ineligible elderly gentleman
     who saw it as his goal to embarrass this young gaffer from the island whom he
     was sure was disguised as a welfare officer. And she had warned me and I still
     got taken.
    In another time and place she would have been the president or manager of some
     big operation. As it was, she influenced us all