Farewell, Veeto

Here is Veeto and me at the St. Viateur Bagel Restaurant, our first meeting in many years, July 2005

Audrey Keyes, also known as "Veeto" and "Veeto Wendy" on Facebook, died on October 23, 2019; she was sixty-nine years old. I met Audrey in 1954 when we moved from my grandmother's flat on Girouard Avenue to Oxford Avenue; we were neighbours, both four years old, and we became friends. I'd go to her front door and ask Mrs. Keyes, "Can Audrey come out to play?" As children we had years of playing together, in her home, riding our bikes, always imagining things, always playing, always making up imaginary worlds, always "let's pretend"... I think I am a poet partly because of those years of imagination and play with Veeto. My older brother played with Veeto's older brother, Bobby. Both Veeto and Bobby were adopted, we all knew this and never thought anything of it.

                            

                                        Here we are outside of our respective front doors on Oxford Avenue, 
                                                                      where we lived in the 1950s

Veeto moved to Australia around 1968 and performed in the stage production of Hair; she loved music and she loved those years in Hair and the life-long friends she made at that time  My mother remarried and in 1963 we moved to Montclair Avenue, about a mile from Oxford, and Veeto and I lost touch until the summer of 2005. She had seen my poem "Hoolahan's Flats" in which she is mentioned and she emailed me in July 2005 about this; a few weeks later we met outside of the St. Viateur Restaurant on Monkland Avenue, I recognized her right away.

Veeto and her mom, around 2006, at Manoir Westmount

                                                                              

Veeto came to Montreal fairly regularly to visit her mother who lived at the Manoir Westmount on the corner of Landsdowne and Sherbrooke. Her mom was living a half block from where she grew up on Landsdowne; my dentist's office was located across the street from the Manoir and, had I known, I could have visited both of them when Veeto was in Montreal. Every time I visited my dentist I parked at the top of Landsdowne walked down the street passing where Mrs. Keyes grew up. Her mom was a lovely person, and when she died in 2008 I was at the funeral and met some of the other members of Veeto`s family, some visiting from Australia for this occasion. Veeto's mother, Edith Smith, died on February 28, 2008; Veeto's father, Richard J. Keyes, died on the same day, February 28, but in 1980. They are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery. Veeto spoke of walking along the hall of the Oxford Avenue flat and seeing her father praying beside the bed in the master bedroom. She said that her mother spoke of always living within sight of St. Joseph`s Oratory, even when she died in her mid-90s, at St. Mary`s Hospital, the Oratory was in sight outside of her hospital room window. I know the fifth floor on which she was a patient very well.

                                Veeto at her family monument at Cote des Neiges Cemetery, summer 2008

Veeto made a life for herself in Australia but here, in Montreal, Veeto also had a life, she had been a student at private schools, first at the Villa Maria, at the top of Monkland Avenue, a former home of three Governors General of Lower Canada; it became the home of a private girls' school in 1854. My cousin, Linda, also a student at the Villa, and who was also a neighbour and lived on Oxford Avenue, used to walk a very young Veeto to the Villa. Later, Veeto was a student at The Study, her parents spared no expense on Veeto.

Veeto visiting the Keyes' family monument at Cote des Neiges Cemetery

Veeto was born on January 15, 1950, the same day as another friend, Artie Gold, and while she never met Artie she knew Mary Brown, Artie's friend and companion for many years, who she met at a summer camp where Mary was working. Where we lived on Montclair Avenue was a half block from a residence for unwed mothers and across the street was the Salvation Army's Catherine Booth Hospital, this is where Veeto`s biological mother gave birth to Veeto. By the way, Veeto's name was given to her by her spiritual teacher, Osho, when Veeto was living in India; "Wendy" is the name Veeto's biological mother gave to her. Veeto was attached to both names.

A few years ago Veeto tried to get in touch with her biological mother; she also wanted to meet her biological mother and possibly her half-siblings and, she said, to see if any of them also sang, like her, as they walked along the street. But this lady, now elderly and living in Toronto, turned Veeto down and wouldn't meet her; it must have felt like a second rejection for Veeto. After that the discussion of finding her birth family ended.

One time, when Veeto was visiting, I took her for a long walk, through Montreal West, down the steep hill to Ville St. Pierre, and along Norman Avenue where we used to ride our bikes; it was all country back then, we both wanted to find some country in the city. We also used to buy fireworks on the main street of Ville St.Pierre; I remember blowing up Mr. and Mrs. Nuttall's tulips with fire crackers, they lived upstairs from us. Veeto remembered the names of all of our neighbours, I have forgotten most of them. We used to ride our bikes everywhere, even to the East End of the city to visit her grandmother; we were ten or eleven years old and it never occurred to us to tell anyone about these bike rides, why would anyone be interested? Truly, Veeto was the sister I always wanted but never had. But I did have Veeto.

Veeto also remembered my father's funeral in November 1956; that day she asked her mother if she could play with me and Mrs. Keyes, always loving to her daughter, said "Not today, not today." She remembered my father waiting for my mother to drive him to work at Windsor Station in downtown Montreal, he would sit on the balcony railing beside our front door; I remember him sitting there and I remember horse drawn milk wagons making their way along the street; I also remember looking up at the clouds and seeing faces that were frightening. Now, no one remembers any of this except for me, and that is why remembering is so important to me; to forget is to lose part of our inner being, part of our lives, part of our soul.

                                                                                                            The statue of Jesus behind Souvlaki George Restaurant

                                                                                corner of Coronation Avenue and Monkland Avenue

A few years ago Veeto and I were walking by Souvlaki George Restaurant and behind the restaurant is a life size statue of Jesus; we entered the backyard to get a closer look and there was a man there with whom Veeto began to talk. This man had worked in construction and so had Veeto, she had driven a large truck and worked on construction sites and even driven a taxi for ten years in Sidney, Australia; class barriers meant nothing to Veeto. This man liked Veeto right away. She treated him with respect and as an equal, even though he was a bit down-at-the-heels. That may have been the day we walked to Norman Avenue. Veeto was always an original, fearless, loving, one who celebrated life and accepted everyone she met.She had married in Australia and had two children, she had several grandchildren, she made her life in Australia; she loved people and music and people responded to her. Veeto loved life; and I ask, why is it the truly exceptional people go first?  

There is so much to say about Veeto but not enough time to say it. She was a strong woman used to hard work, but she was also well-read and knowledgeable about the world; she was highly intelligent and yet she lived, for the most part, a life of physical labour; she was adopted and embraced wholeheartedly the ancestry of her adopted Keyes family; she was named Wendy (I think of Wendy in Peter Pan), then she was named Audrey, and then she incarnated as Veeto. She was born in Canada and yet ended up making her home thousands of miles away in Australia. And this is Veeto, a completely original, caring, and loving person. The worst thing about all of this is that someone as loving and as full of life as Veeto should have left us so soon, and I know that many of us are devastated by her passing.

I send my deepest condolences to Veeto's family, to her daughter, her son, her granddaughter and other grandchildren, to her great grandchildren, and to her friends. She often spoke of her family in Australia of whom she was proud and loving. There is no turning the clock back, no recovering the torn off pages of the calendar, we've been blessed with her presence and now we must be the light in our own lives and the lives of others, just as Veeto was a light in our lives.