A legacy of unexpected words

Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it. Winston Churchill

In 1955 she married. They travelled to Europe for a six month honeymoon, visiting countries she'd only read of in books. She loved the food. The sights. The people. The wine.

In 1959 her son was born and depression hit. They didn't have a name for it back then. Post-partum depression. Get on with it, they told her. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. And so she struggled. Wine. Rum. Scotch. They became her support system. And life spiralled down. And down.

She wasn't able to cope. She tried. Oh how she tried. But it seemed too much for her. Felt too heavy. She loved her son. Her husband. But couldn't connect the feelings to the action of loving, of caring, of being present.

She began to disappear. In small spurts at first. But eventually, she disappeared from their lives completely. They made up stories about why she left. Where she'd gone. They wanted to understand but mostly, father and son didn't get what had happened. Where had she disappeared to?

Husband and wife divorced. Son stepped away from his mother. The pain of trying to connect became greater than their ability to love this woman who had meant so much to them, and who couldn't find the meaning in her own life.

And she kept falling.

Eventually, she slipped into a depression so deep she could not see the light. Drugs weren't working. In and out of psych wards. She struggled. And she kept falling.

Until one day, when she was 65 and the mental health bed she had occupied was closed, and she was told to go and live in the community, she said enough. She didn't have the support out there in the community. Her husband and son had long since stepped back from the constant turmoil of her life. Her sisters and brothers were far away and they too had given up hope.

She didn't know where to turn and so she turned up at the front door of the homeless shelter where I work. She didn't like it there. Didn't like the rules. The structure. The not being able to not take her drugs because she was tired of taking them. She had to comply. To conform. To fit in. She didn't like fitting in. Had never found a place where she felt she did, fit in. She wanted to throw fits. And she did. And always we kept accepting her. Supporting her. Finding ways to work with her.

She was irascible. Difficult. Ornery. She'd just as soon swear a blue streak as say Hello. She'd just as soon tell you where to go in vivid colourful language as ask 'how's your day going?'.

But still we accepted her. Treated her with dignity and respect. There was no place else for her to go where she could be herself, and so she stayed. Year after year. Seven years in total.

Sometimes, she'd disappear for a few weeks. The frontline staff knew she was on a 'jaunt'. She'd told staff many times of her propensity to 'get up and wander'. And she did. To the Greyhound Bus Depot pushing her walker in front of her. Onto a bus that would take her to where ever her money ran out. She got to know the shelter system across Canada. Got to know which one's let her have her way. Which one's had too many rules about where to sit or eat or even be. Sometimes, when she ended up in a town without a shelter, and if she had no money for a motel room, she'd convince the police to let her spend the night in jail. And always, they'd call the shelter 'back home' and she would find herself back on a bus, headed west or east or north or south, back to the shelter where she'd started out her journey.

And then, her health started to fail. Diabetes. Cancer. The daily cigarettes and alcohol and sugar laden coffees taking their toll. Her health failed and her mood became more and more irascible. Staff struggled to keep her safe as she fought against every word, every gesture of care.

Hospital visits became more and more frequent and so did the calls insisting she be returned to the shelter. We can't help her here, the hospital would say and we would insist, but that's your job. And still she would return to the shelter. Why not? It was a place with fewer rules than most institutions. It was a place where she felt she belonged and where she felt some comfort being herself.

As her days grew shorter we moved her into an apartment of her own. She didn't like it. She was lonely. Apart. Frustrated. And she settled in. Found her rythym. Found her place. And still she struggled.

I want to go to Halifax, she said. She had no family out there. No one to call on to help her. But, in one of her Greyhound Bus journeys, she'd ended up on the east coast and enjoyed the city, the smell of the ocean, the seagulls cawing.

We struggled to find a way to send her east. To help her get to where she wanted to go, but always, her mental health and physical health got in the way.

And then, we found the way and bought her a ticket, a plane ticket this time, to get to where she wanted to go. We talked about a staff to join her on the journey. We knew the airlines would never understand her difficult behaviour. We knew she needed someone to guide her on her way.

But, before she could board the plane, she fell ill for the last time and entered hospital with little hope of ever being released. And, on February 7, 2010 death came knocking and took Evelyn home to where, as she once wrote in a poem, "God watches over me in love."

I share with you a poem by this woman who passed away at age 73, leaving behind a legacy of words none of us who knew her and cared for her and accepted her as she was, expected.

Searching

Searching, floundering
days of pain
and nights of loneliness...
Am I different?
Reaching for a hand to hold
Longing for better days and
Peaceful nights

Those dear close friends
who know all about me
And still love me,
keep me from dying
And help me to keep going

My values
of love, of peace
of truth...

And their sharing and caring
keep me trying, day by day.



Farewell Evelyn. May you rest peacefully in God's loving embrace.

Nameste.