My wife, my best friend and a devoted employee- a husband’s perspective.
She came to Vancouver, Canada at the age of 17 from Cape Town, South Africa. She started as a waitress and then made her way to an office as a receptionist. Thirty-seven (yes 37) years later she had ascended to a management position in a large Japanese based conglomerate… without ever completing high-school. Her boss considered her to be ‘family.’ An avid reader, she could polish off a novel on a weekend. Loved sports although she said in her final days that she thinks the Canucks are cursed and will never win the Cup… but that she’ll still be a fan anyways.
In my mind, her greatest accomplishment was helping me to become a better person. She passively taught me how to be kind and live with grace. The strength that others perceive in me was a function of her sorting out and helping me to make sense of my childhood struggles. After all, she did work in logistics and sorting out problems was her specialty.
She was my rock.
She was an extremely strong individual who overcame a number of fears in her life such as asparagus, raw oysters, and white Burgundy… all of which she ended up loving. She never did get over her fear of heights despite several attempts by me to convince her otherwise. She consistently overcame adversity in the form of health problems, which included: 8 concussions and 6 surgical procedures. Then she faced the emperor of all maladies which before taking her life, robbed her first of her right kidney, secondly her mobility and thirdly her taste and smell. This was especially cruel for a person who defined her autonomy and the enjoyment of food and drink as basic tenets of a quality life.
Despite the pain and trauma of a spinal fracture which was miraculously repaired by the Spine Team at Vancouver General Hospital, failing to respond to immunotherapy, enduring radiotherapy and at that point being given 1-2 months to live, she chose to take the standard therapy for kidney cancer because she “wanted more time with me.” Fortunately, she had a good response and we got 8 more. We are thankful to her entire care team at BC Cancer and Vancouver Coastal Health for their support and guidance.
Like the independent woman she was, she wanted to die at home… no hospital for her! As her primary caregiver for over 2 years, it was not an easy task physically, psychologically nor emotionally, but the fact that we were holding hands and staring into each others eyes as she drew her final breaths and her soul moved on made all the sacrifices worth it.
Good-bye my love… you will be missed dearly.
-Steve