'Maybe I can let go of it all': My Oma's search for closure 45 years after her son's death

"It's gonna give me a closure to everything. It's the last piece. Maybe I can let go of it all. Maybe not, but you never know. That would be a good thing."

My 94-year-old Oma and I are about to go on a trip that she's been thinking about every day for decades: visiting one last memorial to her late son, Roger Emile Pierlet. 

Oma remembers Roger mostly as a child. The way he would prank his two older brothers, or babysit his younger sister (my mom) when Oma went to work. How he was a dedicated cadet. Then, later, how he was determined to get into the RCMP after not succeeding the first time around.

What she remembers most vividly, though, is the day he died.

It's 45 years, but it's still there. And every day you think about it.- Oma

On March 29, 1974, Oma and Opa — Amanda and Leopold Pierlet — were on a flight from their Montreal home to Vancouver, where Roger, then a 23-year-old RCMP officer, would be getting married in a week.

While Oma and Opa were in the air, Roger pulled over an erratic driver in Surrey, B.C. The passenger in the car shot Roger in the heart; he died almost instantly.

"We saw there was something not right when we got in the door of the plane ready to get out, because Luke [the eldest brother] was standing there, and an RCMP [officer] and the manager from Air Canada," Oma remembers.

"And Dad just took my hand and he said, 'Let's go down there.' And we went down, and he was gone. They told him he was killed. It was pretty bad. It still is, so. They took something away from me and they never [gave] it back. It's 45 years, but it's still there. And every day you think about it." 

Instead of attending Roger's wedding, Oma and Opa attended his funeral.

"I can see that, I can close my eyes at night and I can see his grave. And I can see the roses we put on it. There are things that are in your mind that doesn't go away. Sometimes you wish it would. But it doesn't."

'A veil came over us'

Opa died almost three years ago — two months after their 70th wedding anniversary. It's only recently that Oma has opened up to me about what it was like between them after Roger's death.

I knew the outline of my uncle's story — that he was engaged, that he'd recently gotten his scuba diving licence, how he died. But the toll his death had on my family was something I'd only guessed at for a long time.

Having grown up in Belgium during the Second World War and immigrated to Canada with nearly nothing in the 1950s, Oma and Opa knew how to support each other through difficult times. But Roger's death was different.

When the music came on, and I was gonna enjoy myself, I felt guilty. ... It was like I was dancing on top of his grave.- Oma

"We had a hard time, Opa and I," Oma tells me. "Maybe if we had talked to each other earlier but somehow or other, after they told us [Roger] was gone, we just seemed to clamp down, you know?

"I went my way and he went his way…. There was something like a veil that came over us, or a screen that came down. That was: 'Don't hurt each other.' And how could we have hurt each other? You know, if we had talked right away, maybe it would have been better. But we took our time, both of us.

"And then we stopped talking to the kids. And that was even worse. So we had to step out of that."

Lost as to how to help Oma out of her grief, Opa went to their doctor and asked for help. The prescription: get her out of the house, and with people she didn't know. So he took her square dancing.

"When the music came on, and I was gonna enjoy myself, I felt guilty ... that he was dead," Oma remembers.

"And I was gonna dance. It was like I was dancing on top of his grave. I just couldn't swallow that. That I would be dancing and he was dead. You know, it may sound stupid. But that's what it was. That's the way I felt until I reasoned to myself. But sometimes it takes a while."

From then on, Oma and Opa kept dancing: "We square danced, we line danced, we round danced, we ballroom danced. We danced anyway, in about every province in Canada."

'Goodbye, Roger'

It was a year after Opa's death that Oma asked me to take her to see the Police and Peace Officers' Memorial on Parliament Hill. I had no idea it had been weighing on her so heavily. 

"That's the only thing that they dedicated to him that I haven't seen," she told me. In 1978, she cut the ribbon to a bridge dedicated in his name in Surrey, and she's visited the library his Montreal high school named after him.

It's a warm, sunny morning in May as we arrive in Ottawa. Oma doesn't hesitate getting out of the car once we've arrived. She points her walker down a slight hill and walks in the direction of Roger's name at her slow, steady pace.

The memorial is made up of a row of more than 20 nondescript glass plates, each one attached to the iron railing right next to the sidewalk, on the east side of Parliament.

They stand just a bit taller than Oma's nearly five feet, each plate listing 30 names of fallen police and peace officers. It's an understated, unassuming tribute.

It's hard to read Oma's expression through her sunglasses. She seems determined, though, and steers her walker toward the beginning of the row of plates. It's as if she knows exactly where to look.

"Come on Roger, show yourself," she says, to the memorial.

"Here he is … oh God. Look at how many that came behind him."

Oma takes in all the names surrounding Roger's. Then she reaches out to touch her son's name, written in white, block letters.

"Roger Emile Pierlet. We lost an awful lot on him," she says, quietly.

"It's very hard. That's not what he wanted. He wanted to be working. He wanted to show off what he could do. They didn't let him. They took that away from him and from us."

Oma stops talking for a few minutes. She takes it all in. 

"So I've been to every spot. And I feel that that gives me some closure, more or less. I never will close it completely. Never ... forget about him. So. He is always in our memory. But..."

Oma trails off. We're at the memorial for 15 minutes when she tells me she's ready to go. Her duty is done.

"Goodbye, Roger. That's all what I can do for you. You're gonna be here forever."

Oma pauses for a minute, and turns to me to give me a hug. "Thanks, honey."

This story originally aired in 2019. Today, Holly's Oma is 95 years old — but COVID has meant the pair haven't seen each other for a year.

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