Pierre Mousseau

Transcript

Right now. Pierre, myself. It was a cool Saturday morning in May of 2021. Where to the outside world everything looked normal. But on the inside mine was falling apart. I had just finished my morning coffee. I got up. I grabbed my car keys. I made my way to the garage door. And as I gently opened it from a distance, I heard my wife say "When will you be back?" I bowed my head and under my breath I whispered "I'm not coming back."

Five months prior to that my 20-year-old son Parker died. Five months since I last held him. Five months where COVID restrictions would not allow me to see him the way a parent should. Five months. Five months where I had to make the decision that no parent should ever have to make. And remove him off life support. And although the doctors told me that there was nothing left they could do, in my heart in my heart it felt like I had just killed my own son.

I want you to think about this for a moment. I want you to visualize yourself in a hospital room with your child and you have to pull the plug. Could you? Could you pull the plug? And as the nurses were removing the wires and the machines, Parker was surrounded by family and he got this burst of energy. And with that infectious smile and those big brown eyes of his, he looked at me and he said, "Dad, look. Dad, I'm getting better.

I'm coming home." And while I fought back the tears, I had to put a smile on my face and lie to him and say, "Yes, son. You are." That Saturday morning, I got into my Mustang with the top down, the cool air and the empty roads. And as I made my way out into the country up north on Innisfil Lake Road, out in the distance I saw it. A big maple tree. Oh, it was solid and it was massive and it was unmoving.

And I said to myself, "That's it. My pain ends today." I dropped her into fourth gear, fifth gear, faster into sixth, 150 km an hour and that tree got real close, real fast. And that's when I saw him. Not in the middle of the road, but in my mind. It was Parker. With that big heart of his that oozed love, my wife, my family, my friends, my employees, all these people that cared about me, loved me and counted on me. And without even realizing it, the car had slowed to a crawl.

And there I was, broken down into tears on the side of the road. Now, I know. Listen, that is not what Ford had in mind when he built that car. I mean, that car is built for speed, not for tears, right? At that moment is when I realized that breakthrough isn't this big flashy moment or this clap of thunder. It's quiet, it's silent, it's a moment on the side of the road. Break through his presence. Everyone here tonight knows what it's like to be busy but not be here.

We're thinking about yesterday. We're worrying about tomorrow. We're scrolling through our lives without living it. I used to come home from work and be there but not really be there. But since Parker died, I don't live that way anymore. I stopped living everywhere else and I started living in the now. Losing Parker didn't just break my heart. It woke me up. It made me a better father, a better human being, a better husband. Not because the pain was a gift but because presence was.

Tonight, I am not going to ask you to change your lives or to fix everything. No, no, no. I'm going to ask you all something much harder. Are you here? Not thinking about work, not having a conversation with a friend while your mind is drifting off somewhere else, but are you here? It's time. It's time to pull the plug. Pull the plug on distractions. Pull the plug on the missing moments with the most important people in your lives. Because right here, right now, is your life.

And that, folks, that is all any of us really has. Thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.