GREATLY MISSED

A PLACE TO MEET

“God can bring great beauty out of complete devastation.”
​Olga Michael

SUE'S HOME

This is the hardest blog I’ve ever written. Sue’s presence everywhere, my grieving emotions, my pondering over the what-ifs, my knowing that Sue has still not been found, and my understanding that there are a few, who are criticizing how I cared for Sue while she was struggling with dementia. 

​I’m certain that for the most part, Sue was very grateful for how I cared for her and loved her. 

DOMINIC AND SUE

Because, in the midst of Sue’s dementia battle I did what I could to keep her life and my life above the dark frightening waves that living with dementia brings and which sometimes threatened our union. 

​And each time that our relationship had to be re-adjusted to the complexities of the disease there was, usually, an emotional price to pay. Sue was not one to give in easily. I’m pretty sure she knew that I was trying to help, but her pride and strong independence would not allow her to easily accept that she was losing more and more of her memory. So, it took a little while for things to calm down after most re-adjustments. It was our love for each other that kept us chugging along.

RELAXING

One a Sunday afternoon, I met a fella in a Baddeck parking lot. He asked me if I was okay. 

I said, “I’m hanging in, but it’s tough.”

It was as if he’d been sent to give me a message. 
   
​He told me that I should not let anybody put me down. He said that I had given Sue freedom and dignity and that she had been a happy person and had had a good life. He said that he’d often talked to Sue and that even though she usually told him the same story, he loved hearing it each and every time.

He brought tears to my eyes.

​This kind fella was an engineer who worked on the Cabot Trail.

SUE AND BUSTER ON COUCH

I remember Sue returning home after walking the dog and often telling me that she had been talking to her friends. Many of them were working on the Cabot Trail. I didn’t realize just how many people she talked with and how many of these people now miss her.

LITTLE SHRINE ON SUE'S TABLE

I knew what the fella meant when he said, “don’t let people put me down.”

ENJOYING NATIONAL PARK

I have this little game I play when I’m driving in Cape Breton. You see I pay for satellite radio. The problem is, it only works part of the time. So, if for example, I’m driving from my house to Margaree, the radio goes off and on. It’s off almost half the time. It loses its signal. So, when I’m listening to a song and the radio goes dead, I try to keep singing the song in my head and when the radio comes back on, I like to find out if I’m still in synch with the song.

SUE HIKING IN THE FOREST

What I’m saying is that Cape Breton isn’t wired to the hilt. Heck, we’ve only had cell phone coverage for a few years and I there are dead zones all over the place. The mountain forests are thick and criss-crossed by lumber roads which are mostly over-grown and things are hard to see from the air and cell phones often don’t work on the highlands. 

SUE ENJOYING WINTER

Things here, aren’t like many other places and that’s why we loved Cape Breton. We enjoyed the casualness and genuine-ness of the people and its sense of freedom and down-to-earthiness. 

​We loved its beautiful wild places. The freedom that blows in the wind. The power of the river. In winter the landscape crammed with stunning snow sculptures. The weather’s amazing shows. 

​I’d worry about a flood and she’d tell me not to fret. Sue wasn’t hog-tied to worry and tight-assed security although she could be very organized. She did, however, have one fear that she would often talk about. The fear of ending up in an institution and losing her freedom. 

ENJOYING WINTER

So, even though I’m sad as hell that she isn’t here, I’m happy that she escaped the hell that so many have to go through and that she died in a wild place, surrounded by her beloved forest. 

SUE AND BUSTER

Our relationship began in a profoundly spiritual and nature-related way and the ending was just as unique and powerful. Both happened in the forest.

So she didn’t end up like one of my friends. Incontinent, under constant watch and asking to be killed.

​That is the silver lining amongst the sorrowful knowledge that I’ll never see her again. Yes, she had a dignified death. Yes, she escaped a bullet. Now I have to deal with her absence. Deal with the thick sadness.

SUE WEARING BUG HAT

I have so much respect for Sue. She was strong-willed, high-spirited, powerful, dignified, brilliant and indomitable. Even when she had dementia. 

​She was my hero. She was my battling partner who I watched every day with amazement. Deep to my core was my sense that she needed and deserved her freedom to live the way she wanted to live until dementia became too much for both of us. My seeing her as a poor suffering soul who needed my constant, care-giver’s attention wasn’t the way I could operate and it would have caused Sue much dismay and anxiety. 

​Sue was my greatest supporter. She was always encouraging me and she is one of the main reasons I have a novel coming out soon. She is still part of it. Coincidentally, the novel will be called, 'DEAD AND NOT DEAD'. Isn't that strange?

ROAD SUE LOVED TO WALK

Sue was almost impossible to defeat. She overcame severe rheumatoid arthritis, lived with constant nerve pain in her hands and valiantly fought the battle against dementia. 

DOMINIC

She still read the paper, kept a little journal, passionately discussed the news, walked the dog three or four times a day, did the dishes, the laundry, swept, watered the flowers, started many of the fires in the wood stove, checked my blogs over for grammar errors and many other chores that showed me that she hadn’t fully signed her mind over to dementia.

SUE AND LIBBY

She loved going for drives. So did Buster and I. We’d often go to North Sydney where we had a routine. I’d go into Walmart and Sue would walk Buster around the whole mall. When I’d walk out of Walmart I’d often see Sue and Buster waiting for me or they would be sitting in the truck. We’d then go to Tim Hortons. She’d use the washroom and then would take Buster for a walk while I went in to buy us Iced Caps. I’d come out holding our drinks and she would often be talking to folks who were sitting at the picnic tables.

SUE, JENNIFER & BUSTER

It gave me much joy to see Sue happy in the now. Walking her dog. Walking tall and straight and proud and joyfully. Her mostly unlined face shining with happiness.
​

LOVED WALKING HER DOG. I LOVED WATCHING HER WALK THE DOG

And so, I went backwards and forwards and sideways to allow her to keep her sense of dignity and to live a joyful life in the present. 

FACE IN TREE

Some people may question this, but I saw her the morning after she’d disappeared. It wasn’t an hallucination. At first I thought I was looking at a hunter or a searcher. The figure was walking along the tree line. It then disappeared by the trail-head. The trail where the searcher found her glove. I remember the figure stopping and looking at me. That’s when I realized I was looking at Sue. No tracks in the fresh snow, but it was Sue. Her final good-bye. So amazing that she would leave me with this powerful memory. 

SUE AND DOMINIC

Although I believe that the last while, what with my truck hitting a deer, the huge flood, having to evacuate our trailer because of the flood, her fearful emotions at seeing the bridge near our place having been destroyed by the river and our landscape changed by the flood waters which roared over our property, I’m pretty sure that the sad loss of Buster was the main event that changed the course of our lives.
​

BRIDGE THAT RIVER DESTROYED

When Buster died from bone cancer, myself and others thought it was essential that we get another dog. That way Sue would have a dog to walk and the dog would be company when I was away from home. So, our friends and I searched all over to find a suitable dog. Not easy.

I MISS BUSTER TOO

We found one, but maybe it would have been better if I’d picked a smaller one. Dominic, although only twenty pounds and ten pounds lighter than Buster, is young and strong and not always easy to manage and he is a passionate car and truck chaser.

BUT HE'S SO CUTE

DOMINIC ENJOYING FALL COLOURS

Also, Dominic immediately bonded to me. That was a problem. 

​Anyway, I believe that it’s possible that Dominic pulled Sue onto a lane that goes into the mountains and then later on he broke his leash. All sad water under a fading mystical bridge.

SUE IN BLUE HAT

So, presently, I live with the fear, sorrow, guilt and claustrophobia that comes with grieving. The loss of purpose and routine. Not having Sue to talk with. Not having Sue to help as we both fought her dementia battle. Not having Sue and Dominic to go for drives with. Not having Sue trying to subdue my uncontrollable hair.
​

FROM ON HIGH

However, I know she is still in my life, but in a different way. 

As a friend said, “Over time, she will become tender in your heart.”

​I often feel her presence and know that she wishes me, her family and her friends well.