Mirabel, Que. in mourning after mayor dies at age 46

My parents purchased their burial plots nearly forty years ago. My mother likes to pull out the story about what a great deal they got because the plots were a cemetery resale—the previous owners, then in the midst of a divorce, wanted to make their separation eternal. Years later, mom says, one of their descendants tried to reverse the deal and buy back the land. To which my father said, “Fuck him.” I always laugh at this joke, not because it’s likely embellished (my dad rarely, if ever, cursed) but because who shops for graves in their prime? In rude health? Still in their...