Day at Home

I stayed at home today.
Waking up this morning I thought maybe I'd caught the Norwalk Flu, I was so out of sorts. Joy and I hadn't been able to wash our hands after we were gathering Willy's things and the director had told us the sickness there had been the Norwalk Flu.
Thought we could find a dispenser with that stuff in it in the bank - there was none. As I said, she tried to buy some at the Loonie store and I asked for some in the Ladies store all to no avail. What has happened when we had them all over the place?
So Joy, being a nurse was concerned we might have symptoms.
However, after getting breakfast and tidying up I was all right and started getting phone calls from my children - some I hadn't heard their voice for a while so it was really good.


I was so happy to know that Brenda will be with me at the funeral home. I've realized the value of having someone with you when you have a difficult job to do. She also said she'd drive me to Abbotsford to put the story of Willy's life in the newspaper which surprised me because I didn't know our local paper has an office in Abbotsford now.


My friend "dropped in" for a visit - it was so nice to talk with her.
I'm going to type what I'm putting in the paper so the ones who can't get our paper will read it.


IN MEMORY OF WILLY SMITH - THE BICYCLE MAN.
Do you remember an older man on a bike who appeared wherever you looked?
"We saw him in Maple Ridge!"
"We saw him with his bike in a line-up to get on the ferry to Nanaimo!"
That man was Willy Smith and when he was over eighty years old he cycled to Kamloops and back from Mission. He slept on a garbage bag in the bush on the way there because he didn't believe in spending money on a motel.
He loved being in nature, picking up discarded bottles on the way.
In the mornings he had coffee at MacDonalds where people told him they admired him for being active and he was a role model for them.


Willy arrived in Canada in 1947 and worked in construction on oil and logging sites. He was the hardest worker known and never out of work a day (until he found he was giving too much to the Government income tax so took time off to go to Mexico.)


He came from Denmark and had never married (one story was he had to climb out of the bathroom window of a widow's house who had asked him in for dinner.)
At age sixty-nine he met Doris Paterson - a Mission artist and writer who was sixty-five and had ten children!! She was divorced and opposite to Willy in every way. They fell in love and were together for twenty-four years, officially marrying in the year 2001.


Doris wrote a small book "Willy and Me" about how they compromised in their togetherness and the book was published by Portage and Main Press of Winnipeg. Two sequel books were combined with this and titled "The artist and the Bicycle man."


After his ninetieth birthday he was taken to E.C.U. because of Parkinson's disease - kicking and raging against being confined to Pleasantview.


Willy died when he was ninety-three years old. He passed away on February 11th 2014, leaving his wife Doris, brother Vagn/Ellen and his nieces in Sweden.
His family will be ever grateful for the loving care he received at Pleasantview.


Doris received this e-mail from a friend:-
"I never really knew Willy but feel I did get to know and understand a bit about him through your stories and books. You are an excellent story-teller and give characters life. through this, you have given Willy a place in everyone's memory which could possibly last forever. No one could ask for a more profound legacy to leave behind than by what you have given Willy through your writings. By the same token, Willy has been a great influence on you since he became part of your life and has given you some wonderful and funny memories.
I think you were both very lucky to have had each other. I am both sad and relieved by the news. I would say he was a man of conviction and knew at the end, life in a care home was not what he wanted and just let go. Good for Willy!"
Books are available at Mission Arts Council Gallery - Catherwood St. off Lougheed, Mission B.C.