In memory of Barney Ross
Written by Rosalie Bird
Oh how we miss him! He left a hole in all our hearts when he graduated last month.
I had companioned him since he first came to the Pavilion in April 2019. He’d arrived from a facility in Nelson at the point when he was needing a higher level of care. Never much of a talker and certainly not a whiner was our Barney boy. To be stricken as he was at 60, to be permanently confined to a reclining Geri chair with only slight capacity to move? I asked him early on (when he told me that he’d lived a healthy, active life with no smoking and little drinking) how he felt about the apparent “unfairness” of finding himself in this condition? He did a sort of facial shrug and said “Well, I could have died.” His was a quiet, sweet presence. It was evident that staff had a soft spot for him and he was my friend. We all loved him. I visited him weekly. Never much of a conversationalist; we still managed to become familiar with each other’s stories. I know the make and colour of every car he’d ever owned (how much he paid and sold it for). And he always showed interest in my kids and our lives.
His capacity to speak deteriorated as his condition worsened. Still it was fun to see him light up when teased by his care team. And he loved music. There are songs I will always associate with him. Close to the end when he’d been unresponsive for days, I noticed his toes wiggling along to a Johnny Cash hymn!
He was sent away for medical procedures for a month, hard on him and unsuccessful. We were jubilant when he came back to us even as we knew his departure was not far off. For the time remaining no king could have received more competent or more loving palliative care. I sat with him often through the night. Three who loved him, two staff members and I were present for his final breaths. It was a departure steeped in love.
Travel on, Barney. I hope we meet again somewhere sometime. I learned so much from you.