With her trademark upbeat and humorous spirit, 89-year-old Dorrie made quite the announcement during her tour of the Roozen Family Hospice Centre: “I’m not leaving, I’m coming here!”
After falling in her bathroom a month later and becoming too ill for her best friend Eleanor to keep looking after her, Dorrie counted herself lucky that she could move into the hospice when the time came that she really needed to.
Dorrie grew up in Canmore, where her dad was a Park Ranger. “I was around horses more than people,” she said. Dorrie remembers seeing a horse yawning and leaning into its mouth to count its teeth, which resulted in the horse biting her and breaking her jaw. Even at the tender age of three, she knew it was an accident and that the horse didn’t mean to do it. Her deep love of horses never left her.
As she grew older, Dorrie dreamed of becoming an air hostess. At that time, it was also a requirement to be a nurse, so she joined the Air Force for three years as the next best thing. Later, she went on to work for IBM and met her husband Peter in the late 1950s, marrying in Reno. Through the marriage, her stepdaughter Maureen also joined the family.
After settling in Edmonton following their marriage, Dorrie’s husband’s construction work often took him away from home. Despite missing him, she always made the most of things. When Peter suffered a brain aneurism in 1993, Dorrie moved into a senior’s apartment in Edmonton’s west end, while her husband spent his last five years in hospital.
Living alone for 21 years, Dorrie’s independence was a testament to her resilience. She admitted, “At 89, it’s kind of hard asking for help.” She described the hospice staff as so kind and said that nothing is ever troublesome. “I’m more pampered here than I’ve ever been. We’re looked after and entertained, and the cooks are the best. We’re family, and this is home.” Her gratitude towards the hospice staff was palpable, underscoring the positive impact of their care on the final days of her life.
Dorrie’s decision to make a financial gift to the Roozen Family Hospice Centre meant a lot to her. Wanting others to receive the same great care as she has, she said with tears in her eyes: “After being here, what else could I do?”
Dorrie was quick to point out that the hospice didn’t miss a thing for comfort, such as the size of the bathroom, the ability for the bed to expand from single to double (she liked the double), and that there were no confines — she could have hot chocolate at five in the morning if she wanted to. “People come here to be comforted, and that’s exactly what they do here: take care of every need.”
Looking back on her 89 years, Dorrie said: “Life’s been very, very good to me — and this is the best of all.”