62 summers, and counting
In 1949, Jean-Paul Lapalme moved with his parents from Wainwright, Alta., to Earlton, Ont., 23 years old and trading a western wheat farm for an Ontario dairy one.
At 25 he met Yvette, just 21 then and a nurse at the hospital in nearby Haileybury. A date at a hockey game ensued three days later, followed by another at the movies, and that, jokes Yvette, was about all there was to do in Haileybury, and so the two were engaged that Easter and married in the fall.
Eastern farming didn’t agree with J.P. — too many cows, he says — and so he first got a job with the Ford dealership in New Liskeard, selling cars, later opening his own Chrysler dealership. He eventually got a job with Mr. Gas, buying property and opening stations in Northern Ontario. Meanwhile, they started a family: a girl, Francine, and two boys, Marc and Danny, and then, oops, another son, Joel, a decade later.
Yvette retired from nursing in 1985, and the couple moved to Orléans two years later, with J.P. finishing his career at Mr. Gas’s head office here in 2001, at 75.
Until this year, they’d spent 61 summers together, filling them as best they could with weekend activities: fishing on Lake Temiskaming and taking the kids on picnics. They travelled each summer, too, mostly driving through Canada and the U.S. They went to Hawaii and the Caribbean. Their only trip to Europe came in 1968, through a prize J.P. had won from Chrysler.
This summer is the first they’ve spent apart, although they’ve done their best to stay close.
J.P. has myositis, a degenerative muscle disease, and can no longer walk. His handshake is weak and he’s fed through a gavage, or tube, because he can’t swallow.
He was diagnosed a decade ago and knew more than a year ago that he’d soon need to move to a long-term care facility, but resisted overtures to move to any other than Elisabeth Bruyère’s Saint-Louis residence in Orléans, so that he could continue to be close to Yvette. At the same time, even before a room was available to him there, Yvette had made plans to live at Bruyère Village, an independent-living apartment complex just a four-minute wheelchair journey away. By coincidence, a room became available to J.P. just five days before Yvette moved in.
He sleeps and receives treatment at the facility, but otherwise spends as much time as possible at Yvette’s apartment. Often they’ll sit and talk with each other about what members of their family are doing — apart from the four kids, they have six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, with a fifth on the way. On other occasions, Yvette will work on a jigsaw puzzle while J.P. watches the Blue Jays on TV, or they’ll go on a picnic by the Ottawa River and watch the boats go by.
“I’ll find him jobs to do,” says Yvette, “things he can do in his wheelchair.
“Our life is not too lively now, and we used to go all the time,” she adds. “It takes a lot of adjustment.”
J.P. exercises every day, to keep as mobile as possible, and remains positive. He swears he’ll walk again someday, though Yvette has her doubts. One thing of which J.P. is certain is that he doesn’t want to live to be 101 like his father. “Whenever the bell rings,” he says, “I’ll be there.”
But for now at, least, they have each other, and the summer. “In the condition I am,” says J.P., “I’m very happy with what we’ve got. I love just sitting here, talking about the family and what happened yesterday and what’s happening today.”
See previous Days of Summer stories at ottawacitizen.com/ city