We never got to mourn our friend: A tribute to Dr. Robbie Mahood on the third anniversary of his death on December 26, 2021
We were living far away from Canada when we learned of the death of our good friend Robbie Mahood on December 26, 2021.
We never had the opportunity to mourn his passing and so we mourn him today.
Robbie was a renowned social activist, as his obituary will amply attest.
He was also a delightfully funny creature, whom one simply loved to tease.
For Robbie, being earnest was of vital importance, and he defended his opinions passionately and cogently, all the while respecting the views of others.
Because he was so earnest, I always felt like poking and tickling him. He reminded me of the Pilsbury Doughboy and of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.
Our favourite Robbie story revolves around Indian food. Soon after our first encounter, we invited him to Ali’s, our go-to Indian restaurant in the Montreal district of Pointe-Saint-Charles.
Robbie informed us that he steadfastly refused to eat Indian food in Montreal because it was vastly inferior to the Indian fare readily available in Saskatoon.
So I began to extol the delights of our eatery, in a lengthy cascade of superlatives, peppered with comments about how nowhere in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, or any other Prairie province, could anyone find Indian food as delectable as Ali’s.
When I came up for air, Robbie asked my wife, “Is Ali’s restaurant really that good?”
She chuckled and replied, “Ah, Robbie, it’s just banter.”
“Oh, is that what it is?” mused Robbie.
We were involved with Robbie in various progressive causes, and we would assiduously attend the film and lecture evenings that he organized in the Côte des Neiges area of Montreal.
Robbie was hopelessly inept with new technology, so he brought in a youth brigade headed by his partner’s son Diego to tame the machinery needed for the events.
Robbie was also a generous and consummate host. One frigid evening in late November 2017, he invited us to a birthday dinner celebration at his home in Côte des Neiges. Robbie had a wonderfully comical personal rhetoric, a singular way of expressing himself in both English and French. When we asked him what we could bring to the dinner, he issued a strict dictum: “No theatrics please.”
Robbie was proud of being a pink/red diaper baby, a scion of prairie progressives.
At his home, he showed off photos of his youthful adventures in Cuba, decked out in a beret, and when my wife expressed less than total enthusiasm for that revolutionary cause, having grown up in Communist Czechoslovakia and fled after the Warsaw Pact invasion of her country in 1968, Robbie showed immense understanding and compassion and presented her with a memoir about the brutal life in post-war Stalinist Czechoslovakia:
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia – Wikipedia
Our last contacts with Robbie encapsulate how we want to honour him today.
In the fall of 2021, Robbie was experiencing unspeakable suffering as he fought a last losing battle with cancer.
Yet he still took the time to contact us at regular intervals, knowing that my wife was trapped in a bubble of searing agony, though nowhere nearly as acute as his own.
We learned of Robbie’s passing when we were far afield, having fled Canada at the end of October 2021.*
He was a kind, gentle man and we miss him dearly.
Your friend,
Robert
Robert McBryde – robertmcbrydeauthor.com
*My wife Anne and I fled to Dijon, France on October 30, 2021.
Anne suffers from trigeminal neuralgia, an affliction often known as the “suicide disease.”
Why Trigeminal Neuralgia Is Considered The “Suicide Disease” | Arizona Pain
Even mild stimulation of the face – such as putting on a face covering- can trigger a jolt of excruciating pain that can persist for weeks or months. The intensity of the pain can be physically and mentally disabling.
The medical exemption from mask wearing that she was issued early in the post March 2020 era was never respected and she was screamed at and barred from the public sphere, essentially under house arrest. We finally felt compelled to leave our country. The arbitrary ferocity of this treatment has left our entire family severely traumatized.
So happy to read this. One of my last visits with Robbie was with you and Anne in attendance at a Japanese restaurant. I remember it as a terrific evening. Bernadette
Hi Bernadette,
Thanks so much for reading my piece on Robbie.
I remember that evening very well.
I had been run over by a cyclist only a few days before.
We send much love to you and your family from Toulouse!