Gary was born at 2 am on a cold February morning in 1963. He was four weeks premature, an 8 month baby, and it was a difficult birth. He weighed only 4lbs and was kept incubated for two weeks. The doctor told me I was very fortunate that he survived. No one at that time suspected that my son had a death sentence hanging over him. The difficulty of his birth had no bearing whatsoever on the fact that he had inherited the Muscular Dystrophy Gene.
When he came home to the bosom of his family he simply blossomed. He was a beautiful little boy with rosy cheeks, blond curls and a sunny disposition. Before he was a year old his wonderful sense of fun was apparent. He laughed at everything.
He walked when he was a year old and started to develop what we laughingly referred to as soccer legs. Sturdy little legs with big calves. Little did we or any of his doctors suspect that this was a sign of things to come.
As the first years passed he seemed as normal as apple pie. He ate, he slept, he laughed, he cried, he walked and talked and grew. I also started to notice that he fell down a lot. We thought he was going to be a bit of a klutz when he grew up but didn't worry.
At three he was falling down a lot and I put it down to the fact that we lived in a tenement in Glasgow with no green space for him to run around in. That's when the seed of emigration was planted. Canada was going to change everything.
When we arrived in B.C. in 1967 Gary had just turned four. We rented a house with a large back yard in a child friendly neighborhood and waited for the transformation to begin. It didn't take long. Not only was he still falling down, but he couldn't climb like the other children his age. It was then I knew something was seriously wrong. I made the rounds of doctors who told me I was imagining things until I found a wonderful woman, Dr. Barbara Moss, who listened to my fears. She arranged for us to see a specialist who pronounced the sentence.
Fifteen years was the life expectancy for my darling child. There was no treatment and no cure. He would be confined to a wheelchair by around eight or nine years old and would eventually die from respiratory complications. At the time eleven years seemed like eternity, certainly enough time for a cure to be found, but how quickly the time passed. Gary died on October 23, 1980 and part of me died with him.
My husband went into denial and I put on a hair shirt. In my mind I needed to be punished for allowing this terrible thing to happen to my child so I set out to destroy my marriage. I didn't think I deserved to be happy. I wasn't consciously aware of doing this,
but looking back I can tell by my self destructive behaviour at that time. I was bitter and angry and took my anger out out on the one closest. I couldn't take it out on my son. I got my wish when my husband and I split up in 1977. We were good people and neither one of us deserved what happened to our family.
I tried to make sure my son was surrounded by friends. Our door was always open and the house filled with kids. I had a swimming pool put in for Gary and his friends. His life was short but filled with love. I am so grateful that I was chosen to be the mother of this wondeful child. I am who I am because of Gary.
Gary died in hospital. He needed to get a flu shot each winter to ward of pneumonia and had his shot that morning. I was bringing him home the next day. I visited with my son until 30 mins before he died totally unaware that it would be my last visit.
As I drove the short distance from the hospital to my home I couldn't shake a terrible feeling of forboding that hung over me. It was 9.30pm and very dark when I got to the house but I didn't turn on a light. I lay in the dark waiting. I didn't really know what I was waiting for but I knew something was going to happen. At 10pm the doctor called to say my darling son had passed away. It stayed dark for many years.
People grieve in many different ways, I tried them all. Alcohol, relationships - some very destructive, wallowing in self pity, and running away from reality. I tried to find solace in reading the Bible, nothing helped but time. I ran home to Scotland hoping my mother could make it all better but that didn't work. She could only watch helplessly and offer love and advice but had nothing for the pain.
When I returned to Canada I was given a wonderful job opportunity working with people who were dealing with a different kind of loss, the loss of their jobs and in a lot of cases their self esteem. It was a life saver for me. It took years before I could even mention Gary's name without tears, but dealing with the pain of others helped me through.
I started writing about my job and the people I met and then graduated to writing about my own feelings. Since Gary was the writer who had his work printed in the school Anthology I began to believe that he had somehow passed his gift on to me when he left. That thought comforted me.
I truly believe that everything good and bad happens for a reason and that we are the sum total of our life experiences.
June Wilson
