This is not a usual blog posting but a way of sharing why we’re back in Victoria instead of doing the Bash north towards San Diego.... My mom, Olive, passed away peacefully on Saturday, March 19.
Jim and I left La Paz last Tuesday morning, March 15 and had a great day motoring and fishing on route to Los Muertos, arriving near 7:00 pm while watching the pink tinge of sunset glowing to the west. As we turned off the engine we heard a ringing noise from the InReach satellite device. I received two text messages about my mom, who had been taken to hospital and it wasn’t looking good. Jim and I motored through the night to Puerto Los Cabos Marina where we moored Falcon VII and booked urgent flights home that evening.
We flew into Sidney at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, rented a car and headed for Victoria where we spent nearly an hour with Mom til 1:00 a.m. She was happy, relatively lucid, knew exactly who we were and even made little jokes about Jim snoozing at the end of the bed. When we told her it was time for her to sleep and for us to go she took our hands in hers, looked up at us with a steady gaze and told us how proud she was of us for living our dream. It doesn’t get much better than that!
At 9:15 p.m. Saturday evening, March 19, 2016 my Mom, Olive Lydia Lawson, gently drifted off. I had the honour of being with her for the last two hours of her life. I held her hand and told her how much we all loved her but it was ok if she wanted to go towards the white light. I like to think she heard me and was at peace. She had held on long enough to see Jim and me, my sisters (blood, step and chosen), Cousin Jan, our son, Brendan and niece, Taralee and her partner Davey.
Olive, or Brixie to her closest friends and family, was born August 27, 1925 in Jeffrey, Alberta. In 1928 Olive’s parents, Joe and Ivy Baker, moved their young family west to become pioneers in Metchosin where Joe started a successful egg producing chicken farm. After Ivy’s death from TB, Joe married Margaret, who was a feisty but devoted step mother.The youngest of three, Olive, along with her older siblings Eric and Daisy started their daily routine gathering eggs before walking to the one room school house in Metchosin and later driving the long, winding highway to town to attend Victoria High School. After graduation the country girl transformed into a young city woman who made a living delivering groceries before applying to the Jubilee Hospital to be a switchboard operator, a job she loved. That's her with the dark (auburn) hair below.
She married Yvo Patrick Vesey in 1948, had my sister, Maureen in 1951 and me in 1954.
During the 60’s she was also an active Mom, often driving Maureen to synchronized swimming in Colwood or Esquimalt or picking me up from the Y. She was widowed at 45, raising two teenage girls with a firm but loving hand. In the mid 60’s she was promoted to Manager of Switchboard and Information at the Jubilee Hospital, Memorial Pavilion and Eric Martin Institute where her greatest accomplishment was overseeing the enormous task of transitioning from the old fashioned cord boards to the first modern switchboard system for the three hospitals.
Mom and long term friend, Art Lawson, started dating when she was 48. A few years later they married and had 25 wonderful years together. Mom retired from the hospital in 1978 and never looked back, taking up golf, ballroom dancing, canoeing, world travelling and camping instead.
Her continued enthusiasm for life and love for her family were evident in everything she did. She was always happy, whether it was weeding the garden or playing crib with anyone who would challenge her. She rowed her lap straight cedar row boat from Gonzales Bay to Clover Point until she was 82, often accompanied by ‘her’ seal, nicknamed Smarty Arty.
Over the 60 years she resided at Gonzales Beach she took daily walks from one end of the beach to the other, wearing her old black gumboots and happily petting every dog she walked by. She was content outdoors in her waterfront garden, fishing from their motor boat and even walking the Galloping Goose Trail until well in her 80’s. Below is one of our wedding pictures from 1992.
Mom had a generous spirit and taught Maureen and me the importance of volunteering and helping those less fortunate. She was a regular Red Cross blood donor, an annual door to door canvasser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and weekly volunteer at Fairfield Activity Centre New Horizons for many years. She knitted everything from fair isle sweaters to patterned afghans, played with her grandchildren as often as she could, whipped up enormous pots of homemade soup at the drop of a hat, and always had a space at her dining table for one more person. Never one to sit idle, she remained active when she moved to Amica Douglas House and never missed a beat until five days before her death.
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| Mom on her 90th birthday, August 27, 2015. |
For those of you in Victoria….A celebration of life will be held on Sunday, April 3, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. Location: Fairfield Activity Centre New Horizons, 380 Cook Street. Flowers are gratefully declined; donations in Olive’s memory may be made to either the Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC or the Alzheimer’s Society of BC, Victoria.
We anticipate returning to Mexico before mid April where we will resume our adventure cruising north of Victoria. Until then….
Peace
Tricia and Jim Bowen
S/V Falcon VII
email: tandjbowen13@gmail.com
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