It’s hard to believe that 5 years have flown by since that day.

It feels like it happened only yesterday.

I can still hear my Father-in-law’s faint voice calling out for help, then my niece running up the stairs calling our names and my husband flying out of bed and down those stairs in one quick swoop. It all seemed to happen so fast and yet so slow all at the same time.

Dave picked his mom up off the floor in their bedroom in our home and carried her to her bed. She struggled for air and while looking into his eyes, he knew she was fighting to stay. He held her tight and finally said the words, “It’s OK Mom, you can go!” and with that she breathed her final breath.

I took charge of calling people, first to pray and then to tell them of the news. In my foggy haze of ultimate sadness — when I called my parents, at around 5am their time, I had forgotten to tell my Mom, “Happy Birthday”. What a way to greet her on her special day…

It was sudden but we all knew it was coming, we knew something was coming. She had been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and dragged an oxygen tank around with her. Her doctors had her over medicated and a misdiagnosis decades ago left her heart in a weakened state.

She had had a major heart attack and there was nothing the paramedics could do. She left us early in the morning on Friday, October 7th, 2005, Thanksgiving Weekend. She was 70 years of age.

This picture was taken on her birthday, a few months before she died.

Dorothy Joyce was an amazing Mom and Grandmother. She knit, she sewed, she canned, she coloured with the kids, she baked, she cooked for anyone who came by. She was loved by all and I do mean ALL!