An energetic team of volunteers filled the back room of a Montreal church, dumping large plastic bags onto long wooden tables covered with second-hand sweaters and warm jackets.
The group was led by Kristen Goodall. She pointed out how everything should be sorted – hats and gloves here, kids stuff there. The walls were lined with categorized items from a growing collection of dog clothes, toothbrushes, and even winter gear.
She called on neighbors to bring “everything you would want to wear if you lived on the sidewalk in February.” Once everything is sorted, the clothes will be sent to shelters and used by people living on the streets.
Kristen Goodall poses with a group of volunteers outside the Wesley United Church in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grace neighborhood on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2022 (Luca Caruso-Moro, CTV News),
Goodall organized the collection in time of mourning for many people in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal. Around the corner from the church, at the busy intersection of Wilson and Sherbrooke, a tree is decorated with flowers and photos of Sean Abbott.
Abbott, who has spent much of his life homeless, was loved. He was known to many as “the king of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce”, and for reasons that remain unclear, he died suddenly at the end of September. He was 38 years old.
‘THESE GIFTS’
“You all gave me back something I had lost. You gave me back my happiness, my sense of worth, you gave me back my smile, and so rare, the feeling of warmth.
These are, in a sense, Abbott’s last words.
Her mother, Marie Abbott, read them aloud at a popular vigil in a neighborhood park on a recent Saturday, surrounded by neighbors, family and friends.
About 100 people had gathered near the flower beds in Parc Girouard that night – people of all ages, many of whom had stories to share about Abbott.
She had written the short speech herself on a small piece of paper, which she held during the evening memorial. She said the words came to her as if Sean was telling her what to say.
“These gifts, my soul to pursue, my journey to eternity.”
News of his death spread quickly through the neighborhood. For many at the vigil, Abbott had been a constant presence.
NDG residents gathered at Girouard Park on Sept. 24, 2022 just days after Sean Abbott passed away in a vigil to honor his memory (Luca Caruso-Moro, CTV News).
Since his family moved to the area four years ago, he had stuck to the intersection of Sherbrooke and Wilson. Most of the time he sat outside the Dollarama there, keeping his post next to a sidewalk tree or sleeping in an alcove next to the nearby post office.
Locals said Abbott was magnetic. He was extremely social and kind, neighbors said, and rarely forgot anyone’s name. Smiling, waving and checking in: it was Sean.
“You would sometimes see a line of people waiting to chat with him,” said Saskia Thibodeau.
Thibodeau lives near the intersection of Abbott’s house and spoke to him almost daily. They became close friends – close enough that she knew his shoe size. Her brother and her husband could and did wear the same pair. Abbott has borrowed a few clothes over the years.
Some of these items could have been in the package Thibodeau returned to Abbott’s mother after his death. She and a friend went to her post office bed to pick it up and brought it to Mary’s door, a few blocks away.
After years of knowing Abbott, this was the first time she had met his mother, and it was during this visit that Marie learned that her son was so widely loved.
Marie didn’t have easy access to the internet and hadn’t seen the flood of personal stories that neighbors had shared online after her son’s death. Local channels on social media were inundated with kind words.
“We showed him,” Thibodeau said. “She was so upset.”
Of course, Marie was not totally in the dark about Sean’s relationships. She lives in a small apartment, but Sean often stayed there, especially to escape the rain. During his stays, he tells his mother about the people he meets, the friends he finds.
Marie said these friends needed to understand how much they meant to Sean who for years had been looking for community.
BECOMING ‘FOGHORN’
“He was a good boy,” said Marie, who said Sean was “shy and shy” as a child, and curious about the world around him.
“We used to sit on the grass near a tree in the summer,” says Marie. “I would say, ‘Touch the tree. Look how complex it is. He would, she said.
Before Sean’s father died, they lived together in a downtown apartment. Marie says the building was rough and it was not uncommon to see police roaming the hallways.
“It’s amazing how they can fit so many cops in one black van,” she said. “It’s like a clown car.”
When Sean grew up, Marie said he should do everything possible to avoid conflicts with neighbors. As he got older, he decided to avoid the building and downtown Montreal altogether.
“Sometimes he slept in the forest,” Marie said. She says Abbott found a group of other people living outside among the trees covering Mount Royal. It was in these woods that he received the nickname “Foghorn”.
At least, that’s what Marie suspects. Some of his friends have other guesses – it’s possible he picked the name while on a pro wrestling stint south of the border.
Eventually, the family had to move. She says the landlord wanted to raise the rent out of reach. Marie found a small apartment in NDG, and Sean moved to Sherbrooke. He brought the nickname with him.
A Sean Abbott painting created by artist Sam Stein, who works out of a studio near Sherbrooke and Wilson. He says he was just getting to know Abbott at the time of his death and was struck by the number of people who spoke at his vigil. He delivered a short poem that night, which read, “Love is a loss and life is short / Goodnight Sean, you’ll live forever / Through us” (Image courtesy of Sam Stein)
UP AND DOWN AT THE SAME TIME
“He wanted to win. He wanted fame,” said Michelle Jette, who described herself as “technically” Sean’s neighbor. She hosted the candlelight vigil, where Marie gave her speech.
“But it was ripped from him.”
Jette lives near where Sean had set up shop in front of the dollar store. When she moved to the area three years ago, the two exchanged words when she was out shopping. One thing led to another, the two became close friends.
Sean told him stories of violence in his past, drug addiction, and the one time he got “fucked” in his attempts to build a career in professional wrestling.
“He would look at himself and say, ‘Where did I go wrong? ‘” she said. “He felt like he was on top of the world and at the bottom at the same time.”
“They called him ‘The King of NDG’, but sometimes he didn’t feel like a king. That’s for sure.”
Sean’s hunger for pro wrestling was bottomless. He and Marie spent hours watching it on TV together. Most of the few images Sean has posted online of himself feature a pose with a bulky WWE belt. Characters like Paul Heyman and Chris Jericho were household names for Sean. Marie, on the other hand, was not one to care about details.
“He was giving me play-by-play commentary as they wrestled. My head would start to tilt over there and fall asleep,” she said with a laugh.
Almost everyone who spoke to CTV News about Abbott recounted treasured memories with him — episodes of kindness and compassion. For Mary, there are moments of tenderness, imagination and forgiveness. The two didn’t always get along, but had ways of working through disagreements in a way only they could share.
“I still talk to him, you know. I say, ‘if you come back now. I’ll buy you a nice supper. And if there was wrestling, “Oh, we’ll watch wrestling tonight.”
Residents laid flowers, photos and maps under a tree at the intersection of Sean Abbott’s house during a daytime vigil on Sept. 25, 2022 (Luca Caruso-Moro, CTV News)
LAST WORDS
The afternoon after the candlelight vigil, NDG residents once again gathered on Sherbrooke to lay offerings to the tree which, after years of lying nearby, had lovingly become Sean’s tree.
The base and trunk were covered in flowers and little notes of people saying goodbye to the “champion”, as one note said, or “rockstar”. Marie was there, and people lined up to meet her and pay their respects.
“You have to be as strong as an oak tree and not bend like an accordion.”
It’s something he said to Stephanie Dale, who was also at the tree that day. This is where she first met him in the summer of 2020. Soon talking to Sean was regular. “I can say he brought joy to a lot of people’s lives,” Dale said. “I could tell he really cared about everyone.”
Weeks after the vigil, the tree is still decorated with gifts and flowers. Even as the neighborhood adjusts to life without Sean, locals say, his memory is very much alive there.
“It was actually one of the last conversations I had with him,” said Saskia Thibodeau, who brought Marie the bundle of clothes. “He was making comparisons between himself and his tree.”
“He was saying the one thing they didn’t have in common was that he had no roots,” she said.
“And then he thought about it a bit more and said, ‘but I guess you could say I have roots in NDG’.”
EDITOR’S NOTE – The main clothing drive in memory of Abbott ended at 5 p.m. Sunday, but people who would like to donate clothing can still email [email protected] to arrange a pickup.
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