Pauline Faull
Sister, mother, midwife to the dying. Born on May 30, 1936, in Derry, Northern Ireland; died on Nov. 21, 2015, in Warkworth, Ont., of a hemorrhagic stroke, aged 79.
As a six-year-old in Northern Ireland, Pauline liked to read the obituaries in the Derry Journal. On her way home from school, she would stop in at the homes in mourning, their doors marked with a black crepe bow, and kneel at the bedside where the person lay. When she thought no one was looking, she would touch the person's cheek, say a prayer, and wonder: How did he die? Was he scared? How did his family cope with the death of their loved one?
It was the spark for what would become her life's passion and purpose, as a midwife to the dying. To care for a person in their final days was a task she considered a blessing.
Pauline was like shot silk, multifaceted and iridescent. She was a daughter, a sister, a consummate mother hen. She was a bartender, a bargain hunter, a Scrabble champion. She was an advocate, a fundraiser, a rebel with a cause. She could read tea leaves. She sought hypnosis to kick an addiction to chocolate. She married the same man twice. She wrote short stories and poems and read her work on CBC Radio. She had a laugh that made you smile.
She would do anything to help those she loved. She cherished her family – her clan – and nothing delighted her more than to spend time with them. She was their cheerleader; "go for it" was her catchphrase and the guidepost by which she lived her life.
Pauline said her proudest legacy was immigrating to Canada in the late 1960s. With her two daughters and two sons, all under six years old, she left her parents and siblings, and her beloved homeland, to join her husband, Bill, in Toronto in pursuit of a better life for her family.
Pauline loved to learn, and had a brilliant mind. She went to Belfast in 1954 to study nursing and, after raising her children in Pointe-au-Baril, Ont., continued her studies in the 1980s in Albany, N.Y. There she had the opportunity to learn from her idol, psychiatrist and author Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. At 56, she earned a master's degree from York University, without having any prior degree (that was Pauline).
Most of all, she loved her life's work: caring for the dying and those grieving a loss. After studying at hospices in the United States and the U.K., she returned to Canada to found the Bayview Community Hospice out of Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto in the early 1990s.
After she decided to "retire" in Port Hope, Ont., in 2002, it was not long before she rounded up two like-minded women and co-founded the freestanding Bridge Hospice in nearby Warkworth. With the help of the community, she created a place that was much like her, filled with love, warmth and caring.
Seventy-three years after the young Derry girl read the obituaries, Pauline passed away surrounded by family and friends at her cherished Bridge Hospice. Her family is the grateful benefactors of her legacy, having been able to experience for themselves the dignity, grace and compassion of hospice care. The world is less without her, and we are more for having her in our lives.
Maureen Campbell is Pauline's sister; Alexandra Dodds is her granddaughter.