One week before The Tribune’s first production night, I found myself in Toronto in a black dress, black shoes, and sparkles on my eyelids. I was at the funeral of Fabienne de Cartier, a former News Editor.
We dedicated Volume 45 to Fabienne, an unforgettable force of nature who shaped our paper in countless ways, so it is only fitting that our final special issue return to the theme of memory.
Journalism, at its core, is an act of remembering. On a team with constant turnover, what we publish becomes the only thing that tangibly endures. The archive outlives us and holds what might otherwise be forgotten. It is a great privilege to preserve memory in this way.
But memory is imperfect. In our newsroom, we try to document events faithfully, but the paper you hold will always be an incomplete record. There is never enough space for everything that we know matters. Stories are constantly pushed online, paragraphs cut, and photos sacrificed so more words can fit. But however incomplete it may be, the act of preserving something is always tremendously important, because when the future comes, and someone inevitably asks what students saw and what they stood for, they will find the answers in our pages.
My favourite, most terrible memory is of our first production night. I didn’t remember that we needed permission to stay in our office past midnight, so after getting kicked out with several more pages to complete, we snuck into the Ferrier computer lab to finish the issue. I asked Zoe, one of our design editors, to redraw Fabienne’s portrait about ten times until it was finally perfect—at 5:00 a.m. That’s when I realized that we had taken so long, our paper would be distributed a day late. I felt like I had disappointed everyone.
But the next day, I saw Fabienne’s face across campus, on every stand, and it didn’t feel like disappointment anymore. It was the most rewarding moment of my four years at McGill, and that sense of pride and care carried me through the 26 issues that followed.
Even if “nobody reads student papers” (which, of course, isn’t true, because I read them), I am overwhelmed with pride at Volume 45, because while I cannot promise perfection in our pages, I can promise honesty, thought, and real, genuine care.
I leave with a sense of comfort that this promise will be kept in the future. I am certain that Mairin, our incoming Editor-in-Chief, will transform the paper in ways I cannot imagine. I am so grateful to be leaving it in the most competent and gentle hands.
To the unforgettable Tribune community: each of you has shaped me in ways I will carry long after our final publication. My years of writing fail me when I try to put my gratitude into words, but I hope you can feel it. I am truly in awe of all of you.
Thank you for letting me be part of your memory, and for being a beautiful part of mine.
— Yusur Al-Sharqi, Editor-in-Chief