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FACTS & ARGUMENTS

Counting your blessings is easy, but figuring out where the time went is trickier, Pamela Kent writes

Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

My husband, Gord, and I recently celebrated our 65th wedding anniversary. Perhaps celebrated is a bit of an overstatement. I went up to the hospital to visit him and I brought along some Cornish pasties and butter tarts that I had just made. He ate them in his hospital bed, dropping the crumbs into the plastic container I brought them in. No table with a white-linen cloth and fine bone china to mark this occasion.

Gord was recovering from a nasty tumble that damaged his arthritic knees. At 89, with a transplanted heart, implanted almost 21 years ago, he realizes that he is lucky to still be alive and we are lucky to still be together. Two opposites, who have to make sure we both get out and vote in order to cancel the other's ballot: Our marriage has never been dull.

Even Gord's marriage proposal was unusual. It had a condition in it: "I'd like to marry you if you'd like to live in Canada."

Until that moment, I had never considered leaving England, my native land. We had survived six years of war – the horrors of the Blitz, the V1 and V2 rocket attacks and food rationing.

There is nothing that stirs the patriotic juices of a country like a righteous war. Now, all that was over. And this young man was asking me to leave my family and friends and move to a country I knew little about, except that it was very cold in the winter and grew a lot of wheat. After thinking it over for a day or so, I accepted Gord's proposal. In 1950, the aim of most young women was to find a suitable man, get married and have children – in that order, too.

We were married in March, 1952, and set sail on the Queen Mary for New York in July. I was 2 1/2 months pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, seasickness and homesickness. Food we hadn't seen in years was set before us and I was too sick to eat it.

Gord chose New York rather than Montreal as our arrival point in the New World, because we would be hitchhiking our way to Edmonton. With one tenth of the population – and one would suspect, one tenth the number of cars – he reasoned that our journey would be speedier going through the States. Gord's assumption proved correct. We reached Edmonton in nine days, never travelling after dark, except for the last day. We got a ride with an American soldier, on a weekend pass, who was visiting his Canadian girlfriend. He drove so fast that I fell off the back seat twice. No seat belts in cars in those days.

Edmonton in 1952 was a town of 50,000 people. It looked like a frontier town I had seen on too many cowboy movies. Gord, with his spirit of adventure, loved everything about our new home. Coming from a busy metropolis on the outskirts of London, I was not impressed. But even I had to admit that the people were very friendly.

We had the usual ups and downs of marriage, but in 1959, when I was 28 years old, I had a brush with death. I was stricken with a brain hemorrhage and the first doctor we saw told Gord my condition was inoperable and to take me home and make me comfortable for the time I had left. But another brilliant neurosurgeon took my case, devising a new instrument to reach the affected area of my brain.

This experience led me to conclude that, in medical matters at least, one should always get a second opinion. And over our long life together, I can't help but wonder why it is that we both should have survived for so long. Neither of us has contributed greatly to humanity, as would be fitting, since we have both been granted extra years of life. In fact, I like to boast, tongue firmly in cheek, that my greatest contribution to humanity is the fact that I never learned to drive, thereby saving countless lives.

We two immigrants from war-torn Britain have, however, contributed to the population of this marvellous country we have called home for more than 60 years. We now have two great-great-grandchildren to add to our four great-grandchildren, 11 grandchildren and four children. At least we have obeyed the Biblical command to be fruitful and multiply.

But, in spite of searching thoroughly, stretching the truth wherever possible, I have come to the conclusion that there is no reason or rhyme for our longevity. To be sure, we watch our diets and dine out rarely. Our alcohol consumption has decreased substantially over the years. I have a glass of sherry diluted with milk most nights and Gord drinks a bottle of beer now and then. Until recently, we exercised regularly, but so did many others whose lives have been cut short for one reason or another. And so I just accept our good fortune and give thanks.

Perhaps one or more of our descendants will be a brilliant inventor, or make a scientific or medical discovery that will prove of enormous benefit to humankind. Or perhaps, they will just be good citizens – and that will surely be enough.

Pamela Kent lives in Aldergrove, B.C.