Mamie Merveilles, Our étoile polaire

Mamie Merveilles, or Nicole Marie Jauvin, is our étoile polaire.

She left us on September 28th, 2022. In Ottawa, where she took her final breath, the air was warm and gentle. The trees were glorious, and the raccoons well-fed. At that time of year, the colors are breathtaking and the wildlife playful. We had tried to prepare ourselves: we’d had 15 months to face it. And yet, Mamie Merveilles slipped away with the very same force of spirit she so often used to charm (and convince) us—suddenly, strikingly, and with a swiftness that left us reeling.

A glioblastoma, a brain tumor, is the kind of news no one ever expects. No warning signs. No known way to prevent it. One day, you faint from feeling unwell. Tests are run, and then, almost in the same breath, you’re told: you have only a few months left to live. The day before, she had been out paddling, full of life. Just the week before, she had been leading the way on a hike. Mamie Merveilles always took excellent care of herself. Having retired early, something she had gifted herself, she was shining brighter than ever. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had foreshadowed that announcement.

As always, Mamie Merveilles met the news with as much grace as humanly possible. She nestled, for a moment, in the arms of the man she loved. She took in the blow. Then, without wasting a second, she wrote to her children and to those dearest to her. A few months later, after surgery, chemo, and radiation, she even found the strength to write in The Globe and Mail: “MAID awaits me. I am a little nervous, but I am also grateful.” To send out courage and remain grateful, even when the candle was burning down to nothing, that was who Mamie Merveilles was.

Our étoile polaire was no ordinary person. Beyond being an extraordinary mother and grandmother, she was also a jurist and a leader as if from another world. With her Quebec Bar in hand, Mamie Merveilles went on to help shape the law itself, at the very heart of one of the most intricate gears of governance: the machinery of the Privy Council Office (PCO).

For a jurist, the PCO is one of the most complex places to serve. Stakeholders? Everyone. Clients? Everyone, too. Source of funding? Everyone’s money. The goal? Nothing less than maintaining peace. A daunting task, but not for Mamie Merveilles. Her intelligence, agility, diplomatic skill, enthusiasm, and tenacity, she hadn’t inherited all those qualities only to keep them to herself. She poured them into service for the greater good.

And so, Mamie Merveilles worked body and soul, resting only when it was absolutely necessary. Even with her last child, she waited to close a file before rushing from the office—the work already well under way. It wasn’t about presenteeism, it was that the soul soon arriving wasn’t the only one who needed her.

It was precisely because she was Mamie Merveilles that Nicole Marie Jauvin rose so high within the public service, serving, among other roles, as Deputy Minister and right hand to the Solicitor General of Canada. Thousands of people reported to her. Her decisions impacted millions. She didn’t get there through shortcuts, but by the simple, steady consecration of work well done, driven by a mind and a heart that always gave their very best.

And so, without hesitation and with gentleness, we rise from her legacy.