The Whistleblowers

For as far back as I can remember, my grandparents could converse by whistling. That wasn’t, of course, their only mode of communication—there were words spoken aloud, letters, songs, gestures, meaningful looks and, presumably, arguments out of my earshot. But it’s the whistles, typically used to signal to each other from someplace just out of sight, that stood out. Sometimes sharp, other times like a bird’s song or a lyrical instrument, their whistling was impossible to ignore.

A United Church minister and a kindergarten teacher, my grandparents—Don and Mimi Gillies—were married in their hometown of Hamilton, raised their four kids in Toronto and eventually retired to Muskoka. They were together for more than 60 years, until their deaths, just 18 months apart, in 2018 and 2020. No one other than them seems to know how or when the whistling began, just that it persisted until the end.

My grandparents whistled to one another in grocery stores, at the mall and at the doctor’s office, in parking garages, outdoors and at home. A quick phoooweet from one and the other would appear, summoned by love, loyalty and habit.

One of them might be in the cereal aisle and notice that the other was gone, distracted by a box of cookies (Mimi) or a conversation with an acquaintance (Papa Donnie). The whistle would be employed, and soon they were reunited, plucking their favourite box of cereal off the shelf.

Now I adore my own husband and I’d love for us to have a sound, but I cannot whistle. I’ve tried and failed enough times to know that it’s just not going to happen. So we’ll need to find a different way of making noise. I’m not sure when such things become requisite, but I’d like to be ready.

Occasionally we test things out. I’ll jokingly caw-caw! at him from another room, our two kids falling over with laughter at the ridiculousness of my chosen sound. It works, but it’s far too embarrassing to stick. If my husband ever role-played a crow sound in public, I’d pretend not to know him, which defeats the purpose. No, it has to be something quick, distinct, effective and at least somewhat charming—and it shouldn’t summon a murder of birds.

Did you know that you can make a rush of air sound alternately loving, annoyed and urgent with a simple change of volume and pitch? My grandparents did, and they used it to communicate in a crystal-clear language that was entirely their own.

No one else in the family whistled to them—it was their thing.

Every couple has a kind of shorthand, of course, including my husband and me. Communicating through coded looks and phrases allows us to navigate difficult topics with kids underfoot. And we can always tell when the other person is annoyed: endearments are dispensed with in favour of first names. But none of these methods work unless we’re in the same room. We have no whistle. The search continues.

Except maybe it’s not a search after all. It seems to me that the things that stick in life usually come about organically. The sound likely won’t emerge from careful conversation or planning; it will just happen. It will work once, so then it will be used again and again until it becomes our thing. It may be a whistle or a word or a series of staccato handclaps—how many ways can you make a random noise in public without looking like an absolute fool? Or maybe it will be a tiny pitch pipe, if that’s not cheating. I haven’t landed on my answer, but with every elderly couple I see in the grocery store, I am more and more sure that it’s out there.

Looking at my husband, I wonder if our sound will emerge at a certain age—in our 50s or 60s, perhaps—or after a marriage milestone. Happy silver anniversary! Here are some flowers and a card and, also, you have a special sound effect now. Enjoy!

I may not know the secret to a 60-year marriage, and I definitely can’t whistle, but I like to think our time will come. Years from now, I’ll lose track of my husband in some big-box store on a Sunday afternoon and I’ll call out to him in a new way, my grey hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights. He’ll hear me and wander toward the potted plants, arriving just in time to insist that we don’t need any more foliage in the house. I’ll buy a fern anyway, because he’ll be wrong, but we will have a sound! Finally! This vision is all I’ve ever wanted, and even in the abstract, I’m filled with love.