Where Did They Go?

Did you hear the news? What news? Betsy’s dead. Poor Betsy….Who??? You know…Betsy, down the street.

I remember them when they were such a vibrant couple in our neighboruhood.  Every time I was walking Puppy Jakita, I passed their home and Bob was always outside….perfecting the lawn in the summer, spring and fall… tweaking dead flower petals, cutting the lawn…I swore he got on his hand and knees, and with a pair of scissors, cut the lawn…because each blade was the same exact length… and that grass was such a shade of vibrant green.

In the winter, Bob would be out there too, blowing snow…then using different shovels to sculpt the snow to perfection on the path to their front steps as well as on their two driveways….one for Betsy’s car and one for Bob’s…same model…same year…same colour. Yes, they had a garage… but what if some oil leaked… No the garage was Bob’s Man Den…he wasn’t sharing it with a car… Still, he was so friendly like…taking time to lean on his shovel and have a chat…pat Jakita…golly, he would even chat up the homeless, that wandered up and down our streets to get to the Food Bank, at the big church on the corner…and not everyone is kind to them…you know…

Meanwhile, Betsy was in their home….so perfect…just a scrubbing and a polishing, vacuuming…not a cobweb or a spec of dirt in their home. I called her Martha Stewart…to her face…behind her back…I even got a stepping stone to put in my garden that said…’not Martha’s garden’……No siree! She would be busy in her head planning the next family get together, jotting down what she had to pick up at various stores and mapping the route to ensure she went the most cost effective way so as not to waste gas…do you believe how much it costs these days? One can hardly afford a car these days …and the insurance premiums we have to pay…don’t get me started…as Betsy would say…

And not only her home sparkled and shone…so did Betsy. She would never leave her house without her clothes, hair and makeup absolutely perfect…not like me…sometimes I look like a model on the runway…sometimes I look like that bag lady I see in the donut shop across the way. And let’s talk about her hair…always same length, same style, same colour…with a little help from her friends, I’m thinking… obviously…Bob’s hair also always looks same length, impeccably styled with just a hint of a few grey strands. They were a gorgeous couple.

Still, even they had their troubles over the years…like sudden family deaths, a granddaughter with brittle diabetes, Betsy fighting cancer…and then all those home invasions. Unfortunately for Betsy and Bob their house was positioned in such a fashion, that neighbor hood watch couldn’t see any door or windows that the burglars utilized to gain entry. I told them…I did …put a sign up warning any home invaders all the valuables had already been stolen…the expensive jewelry, electronics, small appliances (well, you know, home invaders can’t just walk out the front door with a state of art refrigerator and not be seen…if they tried to walk it up the street, we nosy neighbours would ask…where you taking Bob and Betsy’s fridge).

Then the real troubles began.  We all have were trying to find something, walk into the next room…and say darnation…what did I come in here for?  Still this was way worse.  First it was little, easy to explain, lapses of memory, confusion over what he was doing, where he was going… which evolved to Betsy entering the kitchen, and say…hey Bob…and he would look at her and say…who are you again?

Sometimes Betsy would wake up  in the night and find Bob missing from there bed. The first time she was frantic…then it became routine. She’d find him sitting on the front steps in his pajamas and slippers…in the brutal winter… his homeless friends were sitting there with him…high on crack…(Not Bob), passing a beer around…friendly like. Yes, they used the food food bank but had money for crack and beer…. Funny that…Betsy had no way out…She had to tell her adult children…and that discussion about ‘what to do with Father’ had to be hammered out.

Then, overnight it seemed, Bob became physically ill and was taken to the hospital by ambulance …and he never returned, no, he never returned…never to cut his lawn or shovel his snow again…whatever all it was, it went stunningly fast and next thing you know we were all comforting Betsy and attending Bob’s funeral….and now you tell me… ten months later…Betsy is dead. What happened??

What happened…the stress of the last few years…having to be a 24/7 caretaker…well, her cancer returned, aggressive and unrelenting, and Betsy chose…no treatment…been there…done that…given the T-Shirt at the Cancer Walkathon to raise funds to help heal other patients. Betsy went out with style and grace, not losing a strand of her perfectly coiffured hair… Betsy did it her way….

We miss you Bob. We miss you Betsy…They don’t make them like they used to anymore.