Cause for Applause
Encouragement and support formed the basis of this special relationship
Iwould like to introduce you to Carol Mclelland. Carol started out as my employer, then became my friend, and eventually we were as close as sisters.
Carol was involved in a severe car crash on a beautiful September day in 2011. As she was waiting for oncoming traffic to pass before turning onto her driveway, she was rear-ended by a distracted driver. After the accident, she was left in a quadriplegic state.
Carol spent many months in convalescence and rehabilitation. She was sent to stay at the Peace Villa, a residential care centre in Fort St. John, B.C., until her then-future husband Neal took her home to their new house, which was built to accommodate her needs.
A couple of years later in 2014, I decided to move back to Fort St. John after being away for nine years. I had previously worked at the Peace Lutheran Care Home in Fort St. John for 15 years. I was trained as a certified nurse’s assistant and worked in the Santa Maria Senior Citizens Home in Regina for six years.
When I returned to the city, I phoned my friend Susan to let her know that I had moved back. About a week later, Susan called and asked if I was looking for work at the Peace Villa.
My reply was “No” because I no longer wanted to work in a large care facility where I could not spend the amount of time with my individual patients that I thought they deserved.
Susan then persuaded me into meeting Carol for an interview. By the time we left the meeting, I was already committed to start working for her within a week.
Start of a Friendship
I have always enjoyed doing things for others. With Carol, it took a short while to catch on to a routine and figure out how she liked things done. We got along great and it didn’t take long before she and I became close friends.
Whenever I noticed that Carol needed something, I tried to get it for her. As that first winter with Carol approached, I hated watching her go out in the cold with only a small afghan covering her legs. For Christmas, I made her a bunting bag with vibrant colours and prints that matched her personality. She was overjoyed when she received my gift and wore it whenever she was out and about.
Carol was always positive and upbeat in spite of her disabilities. She was always looking on the
bright side of things. She loved flowers, which she bought each spring from Walker’s Greenhouse just down the road. She also enjoyed feeding the creatures that visited her bird feeders. There were birds of all kinds, from blue jays and chickadees to redpolls and her favourites—european ring-necked grey doves. She would often sit and watch them and their antics.
Rise to a Challenge
After working with Carol for a few months, we had a conversation about our parents and their talents. At that stage of her life, Carol was convinced she would never be able to do any of the crafty things she had done previously. I disagreed.
I had learned how to paint just some months before by watching the television show, Beautiful Freestyle Oil Painting, where artist Ed Martyniuk gave lessons. I was hooked and I talked Carol into trying it, too.
I bought Carol a few different paint brushes and we pushed them into a make-shift, splinttype apparatus, which was placed between her thumb and forefinger, through the palm of her hand and over the back, and attached with Velcro; the device allowed Carol to feed herself and now, to paint. The paint brush was pushed up into the slot made to hold it, from the side of her hand, between the little finger and the heel of her hand.
The first six paintings she did were on pieces of cardboard. One day her husband Neal brought her his bedside lamp and asked her to paint on it for him. It took a few days for her to decide what she would put on it, opting for scenes from some of their camping trips, which she copied from photos. She found that painting people was too difficult, so she stuck to scenery. Neal, the other caregivers and I continued to encourage Carol along the way.
Each picture she completed was better than the one before. She painted several for her son, Brett, at which point she decided to include a signature print of a red fox at the bottom corner of her paintings. She also had some stickers printed with her name that were stuck on the back of her canvases.
I know she felt good about her new hobby. She would not have continued to paint and give them to all her best friends and family from across Canada and the U.S., if she didn’t.
For the annual Christmas parties for the Spinal Cord
Injury Peer Group she attended regularly, she would always bring along some of her paintings and was often asked to paint one for someone who had not received one of her pieces yet. Carol would get busy and produce one for whoever asked and always refused payment. People suggested that she sell them, but her response was that she didn’t want painting to become something that she had to do. It would take the joy out of it.
Carol turned out to be the kind of person I could talk to about almost anything. She gave me a different outlook on many things in life. Most of all she gave me friendship and sometimes a shoulder to cry on when things were not going well for me. I learned about the birds that came to her feeders and she was always looking up topics on her ipad about different people and places we might want to talk about.
Carol passed away peacefully on October 10, 2018. Her friends from the peer group had a “Celebration of Life” for her, where some of her paintings were put on display. Some people commented that the painting of the cattails looked like a photograph. I assured them that it was, in fact, a painting she had done.
For all of us who knew her, Carol will always be remembered as the lady who started to say, “Yes, I can.”
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