Alzheimer’s diagnosis can’t stop love
The odds were against them ever meeting. He was a Royal Dutch naval officer stationed at the Valkenburg air base in Holland. The year was 1955 and he was on assignment as a radio operator on a Lockheed Neptune, an anti-submarine warfare aircraft that flew patrols over the North Sea.
She lived some 30 kilometres south in the Hague, a city on the western coast.
One fall evening when a young Geurt VandenDool hopped on his bicycle and rode to the Hague, with the prospects of visiting a girl, his sister’s friend. “She didn’t know I was coming,” says Geurt. On this day, an 83-year-old Geurt is sitting next to his wife Irma, 80, on the sofa of their St. Catharines home. Irma is not the girl he set out to see that evening some 60 years ago.
And the story of how his journey took a detour and their paths intersected still makes the couple giggle like teenagers in love.
As Geurt was riding into the city he passed a fair. There were rides. Bright lights. He considered continuing on to see the girl but thought the fair a more promising option.
“Maybe I should stop there instead because the girl doesn’t know I’m coming anyways,” he reasoned.
He met up with another navy guy, and looking all debonair in his blue uniform, they approached two girls. One of them was Irma. Geurt was drawn to her “beautiful curly hair,” he says with a wink.
Irma’s initial assessment: “Oh, wow,” she says, laughing.
He was 20; she was 17.
It was a chance encounter that lasted a lifetime, although Geurt, a man with a deep Christian faith, calls it providence.
Indeed, their love, faith and a shared passion for life has carried them through the years. They had only each other when they crossed the Atlantic in 1958 and headed for Montreal, then Calgary. On one cold, snowy day in January 1965, they piled their family into a Volkswagen and headed to Niagara. And together, in 1976, bought a small jewellery store and grew it into VandenDool Jewellers. Geurt was a watchmaker. Irma, the bookkeeper.
And then, three years ago, Irma was diagnosed with dementia, likely Alzheimer’s disease.
The world they knew was gone. Or so they thought.
Geurt was scared. “Yeah,” he says after a pause to hold back his emotions. “In some ways.
“There is no cure at the moment. That is the scary part. What will happen, thinking ahead?
“Most of the time we don’t think ahead.”
The VandenDools want to help others. Irma is on an advisory committee of The Alzheimer Society of Niagara Region, offering the organization a patient perspective. She shares her experiences with people new to its programs as a peer mentor.
Their openness and enthusiasm to share a very personal part of their lives is in contrast to many Canadians. While awareness of dementia has increased, stigma and negative attitudes continue to persist, says Terry McDougall, director of fund development for the local Alzheimer Society.
In fact, one in four people with dementia hide or conceal their diagnosis because of stigma, she says.
In Canada, there are more than half a million people living with dementia. That number is expected to double, reaching close to one million people in 15 years.
In Niagara, about 10,000 people live with dementia, says McDougall.
Even when a diagnosis of dementia is confirmed, they are reluctant to seek help and go to many extremes to keep it private. The sensitivity is so profound that the Alzheimer Society has changed its name to “private” when it comes up on phone screens. And awhile back, in an attempt to reach out to people who were hesitant to be seen entering the society’s Ontario Street building, they created Brain Wave Cafes where people in need of information can connect in public spaces like libraries, churches and community centres.
Every January, Alzheimer societies across Canada host information events.
“Life goes on after a diagnosis,” says McDougall. “It doesn’t mean you can’t live well with dementia. “Life is not over.”
The society has just hired a second person to be the first point of contact for people newly diagnosed or needing guidance to programs and services. This will allow the society to do more outreach to physicians and connect clients to help faster, says McDougall.
The first time Geurt said the word dementia, he was driving home from a ski trip with his son some three years ago.
“He asked me, ‘Dad, have you noticed anything with mom? In her speech? Memory?”
Indeed, he had. Truth is, Geurt had wondered the same. There were times when she seemed unable to express herself; at a loss for words. But he wasn’t sure.
“I probability didn’t recognize it or I didn’t want to recognize it,” he says. “It was a bit of a relief that we could at least talk about it.”
At first, Irma didn’t want anything to do with dementia or the Alzheimer Society’s programs.
“I didn’t want to go,” she says. “I said, ‘no way’.
These days, they focus on Irma’s abilities. She doesn’t drive anymore, reads a bit slower, and has trouble with spelling and writing skills. They adapt in many ways. Geurt has posted a list of common food items inside a kitchen cupboard door.
Their sons, Brian and Mark, now own and operate the jewellery store. But you’ll still find Geurt there twice a week.
The couple recently went a long-overdue honeymoon cruise. A month after they were married in 1958, they left for Canada on a small freighter that crossed the Atlantic with a handful of other passengers.
A passenger ship might have been a more luxurious choice, but back then men slept in accommodations on the upper decks and women on the lower, even if they were married.
The newlyweds didn’t like that idea. So, they opted for a freighter and stayed in a room with two bunk beds. The Atlantic was stormy; they were among the few who didn’t get sea sick. “It was dancing all over the place,” says Geurt.
From Montreal, they boarded a train to Calgary with a suitcase and two wooden storage containers en route.
So last November, they boarded a proper passenger ship in Copenhagen, Denmark and travelled across the Atlantic to Miami.
They have learned to live with purpose. In the moment. And not dwell on the what ifs of the future.
“We’re not going to worry about whether it will happen again,” he says. “It’s just an example of how life does not stop.
“Life’s good. It’s just a little different than it used to be.”