My dear Daddy suffered his first heart attack at age 40. It resulted in a surgery for a double bypass, and I recommitted my faith in God as I prayed for his recovery. The doctors were happy with the surgery and told us it should allow him at least ten more years. Well, they were wrong. He had twenty-five! :)

His extra years weren't trouble free, however. He suffered chest pain and many migraine headaches, which severely limited his ability to work and do strenuous things. The cold Winnipeg winters were especially hard on him. For relief from the migraines, he created a pulley contraption where he put a neck brace on, and then stretched his head upwards with the pulley to help with the pain. 

When my mother retired from nursing at age sixty-five (they were both the same age), they discussed possibilities of moving to Arizona during the winters for relief from our cold winters. Sadly, it was not so happen. His condition worsened and he was scheduled immediately for a quadruple bypass surgery.

The night before the surgery, I wasn't allowed to see him, as it would upset him to say good-bye to me. My mother gave him our love. Following the surgery, Dad never came out of the anaesthetic. His blood failed to coagulate, and he "drowned" internally.

My sister June had flown in to Winnipeg to be there when he woke up, but instead we ended up planning a funeral.

Helen Goertzen lost the love of her life, just as she had retired. She and John had never been able to afford to buy a house in Winnipeg. June and I set to work with garage sales to clear out her rented home and help her to move to an apartment. Luckily, we found one that was just a couple of blocks from our church, so that she could walk there on Sundays.

John had always been her driver, and she never needed to learn to drive. After her move, I became her driver for weekly grocery trips, doctors appointments and lunches at restaurants. For the first year I called her on the phone every day to make sure she was alright.

The devastating loss of my father and her new isolation in her own apartment was the beginning of the end for my mom. Her dementia happened so very gradually, things changed and my mother was never the same.

The first hint came when she fell in love again. There was a single man in our church named Dan. He had never married, and my mother focussed all of her attention on him when she went to church. Her third floor apartment was on the corner of the building overlooking the street, and she had a view of the cars that parked in front of the new homes being built there. She would watch particularly for one car that parked regularly on the street with the headlights on. She was positive that it was Dan, sitting in the car and watching her window.

She talked a lot about him sitting in his car watching her, and I found it difficult to believe, but she insisted.

The second hint was her belief that someone was stealing things from her apartment, which I will talk about in the next blog.