It is with sadness I read about the passing in the last several months of such extraordinary women who were true "pillars of the community" - Gladys Patey, Dulcie Penney and Ethel Penney.
I remember them all so well as they were contemporaries of my mom. They truly gave so much to the community.
Not just to the town sports days, but for events at Grenfell School (does anyone remember Miss Layman having all of the mother's make our school choir gowns from bleached flour sacks?!) and their contributions to Community Club, which met Thursday nights - the only night I think my Mom ever went out and Dad babysat (sort of).
One thing I remember is when they made Easter baskets for all of the patients in the hospital. I felt so privileged when I was allowed to help with that task.
The last time I took my mom to St. Anthony there was Ethel beaming at us from the United Church choir loft.
I know that Alzheimer's has affected so many. My mother suffered from dementia and I wrote this after we moved her into a secure care facility in September 2005. She passed away in 2006.
I packed up my mother's life today
In boxes of cardboard
And plastic containers.
A Baby Book,
A High School Yearbook, 1937
Three quarters of the boys buried in Europe.
Her writing beside the photos
"Killed RCAF"
Wedding photos and old letters
Christmas cards and old address books
And childish mementos of
My sister, my brother, and me.
How can a life be so reduced
That was so fully spent
By a woman so organized
So seemingly in control
Of herself, us, our family,
Our house, her life?
Then came sudden death.
Grief, Shock, Despair.
Losing a life.
Making a new Life.
Eleven rooms become two.
Then one.
"I crossed the bridge over the river"
She said, "but your father wasn't there"'
We punch in the code
1234*, my sister, my brother and I
For us to get out,
And we leave her there,
Locked in
Waiting for our father
To come and get her.
Paddy (Thomas) Simpson
