It was cold today. And mostly wet. But all I was thinking about today was Nancy.
Seven years ago, Nancy was a senior Canadian military officer, a Lieutenant-Colonel, posted to Colorado Springs in the US. While Nancy was riding her motorcycle down a highway in Nevada during a holiday, an elderly couple pulled out to pass a truck. They didn’t see her motorcycle. There was a head-on crash and an explosion. Nancy died at the scene and the elderly couple was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital. Both lived.
All of this information is in the public domain.
But there is a back story.
Nancy and I had been in love and had dated for a couple of years. Not a lot of people knew about it – our families of course, our children, but not a lot of our military colleagues. Nancy was on the last day of a solo ten-day motorcycle trip through Colorado, California, Nevada, and New Mexico when she died. She was inspired to do the solo trip because of the stories I told her about my six-month sabbatical driving through the western states and living out of my car. She wanted to feel that same freedom of being on the road alone with no set agenda.
But everyone was against the idea. Her ex-husband, a long-time rider, said it was far too dangerous to ride alone. All of her riding friends said the same. Even her work colleagues were against it, saying that a pretty, petite woman with an alluring French accent and joie de vivre, traveling alone, might attract the wrong kind of people. She shared these doubts with me several times, but I pooh-poohed them. “There is danger in everything we do,” I said. “If this is your dream, go for it. It could change your life for the better.” When she had doubts again, I encouraged her more. “You’re a safe rider. Live the life you want, not the life others say you should live.”
“You are the only one, really the only one, supporting me on this, Cheri,” she said. “Thank you.”
We know now that the naysayers were right.
When I received the news of her death, I couldn’t keep my feet and fell to my knees. It was my fault. All my fault. I had pushed her into this. If I hadn’t pushed her into this, she would still be alive. My Nancy! My poor Nancy!
For years, I suffered from guilt. And then a year ago, I found my peace with it. But here I was now, walking into her home town of Cap-Saint-Ignace, winding my way up a hill to her final resting place at the town cemetery, and having visions of myself falling to my knees at her grave, sobbing, and begging for forgiveness.
But it wasn’t like that at all. It was really quite peaceful.
There were tears, of course. To love one so deeply will always cause emotion to well up. Even after seven years, there is still the pain of loss.
Nancy rests with her mother and sister. Her father suffers horribly from guilt. He has lost his whole family, both daughters to separate vehicle collisions, and his wife to cancer. He believes God is punishing him for his sins.
I made myself comfortable and talked with Nancy about my service to our frail seniors that she so surreptitiously led me into. I talked of my daughter and friends, about this walk I’m doing. I asked her for advice on a couple of things.
Through all the drama of her death, I had forgotten how she loved to laugh, how she loved my dry sense of humour, and how it took her a little longer to process my jokes in her second language, so that after I made a joke and started talking about something else, she would suddenly burst out laughing. It was adorable. I was reminded of this because, when I spoke to Nancy today at her grave, I told some quip about something that happened on this walk, and then I started talking about something else when suddenly, I could hear Nancy’s laugh. I’d forgotten about that time delay. I laughed too and then teared up again.
We sat in silence together for a while. I whispered things to her, memories and the sort of things meant only for the ears of a lover.
I began to shiver from the cold. So, I bid Nancy farewell, kissed her picture, whispered endearments. Until next time, my love.
The night before Nancy died, we were on a phone date. It was her last night on the road and she was heading back home in the morning. She said she had had the vacation of a lifetime and that it gave her ideas of what she might want her eventual retirement to look like.
During the conversation, she talked about all the leadership training we had received during our careers in the military, expensive training, leadership training we received at public expense. I asked her, “Do you feel then that we have a moral obligation to serve our communities at the highest level of our leadership abilities when we retire, helping those who are not able to fully help themselves?” We debated it a bit. She thought we had a moral obligation, a duty to continued service to the people of our country, to our vulnerable populations, such as our seniors. I thought it would be a good idea to help out our community after retirement, but that our obligation ended with our contract with the military. It was a fun discussion, but, wow, she was pretty adamant about our moral obligation.
A couple of weeks after Nancy’s death, I received a call out of the blue from a company dealing in seniors’ care. They knew I didn’t have experience in seniors’ care, but wanted to try a new model. They wanted someone with start-up experience who didn’t have preconceived notions about how things ought to be done in seniors’ care. Would I be interested in looking at the project?
I thought back to my conversation with Nancy. Frail elderly? At a time when I was angry with seniors in general and the doctors that okayed them to drive? It would be just like her. Moral obligation? Clever girl. Thinking it was an omen, I said ‘yes’ to the project, and that’s how I ended up spending the last six years of my career managing seniors’ care facilities, teaching courses on dementia care, and volunteering with seniors.
I’ve always privately thought of this walk across Canada as having two parts. “The Pilgrimage”, from Halifax to Nancy’s final resting place, and “The Rest of the Walk”.
Today, one journey ended and the other began.
Rest well, Nancy. You are in my heart always. Always, my love.