A KNOCK ON THE DOOR, written & edited by Caitlin Hicks, from a true story told by Lise Langlois
Notes: We were doing a lot of theatre in the late nineties and I had begun gathering stories from ‘old timers’ for a show I later called The Life We Lived. We knew this crackerjack musician named Len, who got around quite handily on crutches, had wispy red hair and a robust personality. He could sing and play guitar and was often part of a rotating ‘band’ of musicians who played at The Roberts Creek Hall in the Nineties. He had been in a car accident and told us he was paralyzed ‘from the tits down’. It was the day his life changed irrevocably, as his car tottered over a cliff and he was trapped, suspended in pain between life and oblivion. Miraculously, the car balanced there until hours later, when he was rescued. Instead of living in a wheelchair, Len got around on crutches.
Len said, his tale of woe might be interesting, but his partner Lise, had this really amazing story with unexpected and weird elements. He wouldn’t say anything further about it. So Lise and I met. She wanted her story told. I worked with her to listen, to take down her words, to edit them together, get the continuity, make it understandable and presentable so that it could be told again to people who had never heard it before. Lise was excited to hear it told. Since it begins with a knock on the door, I named it simply, from that. As part of an early show called STORIES FOR A WINTER SOLSTICE, I performed A Knock on the Door at The Gumboot Café in a Christmas show. Lise is French Canadian, and so I exaggerated her ‘accent’ to put the character of Eva into that persona. It allowed me freedom to express what was required to tell the story as well as I could.
I was thrilled to be the medium for expressing this story. Lise had invited her other daughter to see the show; she invited Jackie and Steven (mentioned early in the story); they were the two people who had seen Lise’s small daughter the night before she disappeared. It seemed to me that the story had come full circle.
But there was more.
I had been in the audience at The Sunshine Coast Arts Centre when Susan Crean read the prologue to her book, In the Name of the Fathers. Here, Crean described the scene of a woman stealing her child from a pram in a park in Toronto, a scene she had personally witnessed. Crean began her discussion of her book with this incident to show the irony of a mother being accused of stealing her own child. It turned out that the woman who kidnapped her own daughter was Lise; the child, Rachel who went missing that January morning of this story.
Lise had heard of Susan Crean, and her book, but neither of them had met. Someone put me in touch with Susan and I arranged for them to ride up to Pender Harbor together prior to the performance of Lise’s story at a show I was performing at The Sundowner Inn that night. After the performance, we posed for a photograph together. I still have the photograph my refrigerator.
In the photo: Maggie Guzzi, me, Lise Langlois, Susan Crean.
And then, this Christmas Eve, I heard that Lise had just died. This is her story. I tell it here to honour her.
Remembering Lise Langlois.
Post Script:
“We left Hawaii in early 2016, both of us blaming the chemical drift from the experimental, undeclared herbicides that are mixed with glyphosate and sprayed on gmo crops that are all over the island. In fact the whole state has sold its soul to take the money for the leased land, especially Kameamea; schools who own large fields and lease them to chemical companies like Dow, Syngenta and Pioneer (all on kauai) for gmo crops. Every crop you see, except taro, are gmo crops. The info on this is available through the documentary ’Seed’.
“A month ago, after more scans, a “mass” was discovered in her chest that entered her rib cage and bones. It was an aggressive cancer.
“I had the most wonderful partner for almost 12 years. I am so grateful for time with Lise. She was very special. When I met her I told her “we have to get married, I have a lot to learn from you”…she didn’t hesitate as we knew right away on our first date that both our heart chakras were wide open and receptive to each other’s love.
“Blessed be. I hope I haven’t been too wordy. Aloha, David”
