Woman recalls heavy toll of explosion on late husband
This love emerged from war.
Betty ( nee Fisher) Arsenault first met Maurice Costello while she was working as a nurse in the then Charlottetown Hospital in the early 1950s.
Costello was in poor shape, still enduring the effects of being blown out of a Canadian motor torpedo boat as a 19- year- old sailor and into the English Channel on July 2, 1944, during the Second World War.
He was in hospital in Charlottetown for a couple of months under the attentive eye of Arsenault.
He was transferred to a hospital in Halifax. When he returned to Charlottetown about one month later, he started to date Arsenault.
The pair married in 1953 in Montreal, where Costello worked for a short time in a paint factory.
The couple returned to Charlottetown the following year. Costello worked for Canada Post for about 10 years, but the ongoing physical damage from his violent wartime plunge into the water brought his job to a halt.
His balance, recalls Arsenault, was terrible. Headaches were constant.
Costello never wanted to talk about the explosion. Not to Arsenault. Not to the couple’s four children.
Costello simply told Arsenault on one occasion that he and his comrades were blown up and that he spent a couple of hours in the water holding on to “a log or something.’’
While Costello provided her few details of the terror he endured, she saw the full damage that the explosion played out throughout her husband’s life, which ended in 1992 at the age of 68.
Costello was always in pain. He was hounded by headaches. He would be in and out of the hospital.
“It was a life sentence… there are worse things than death,” says Arsenault. “It affected him physically and mentally, too. He must have been awful scared.”
Fortunately for Costello, she says, he had very strong faith. He prayed a great deal.
He would wake up in the morning saying a few prayers, consistently offering his thanks. She once asked Costello why he was so thankful when he had been left to suffer so much.
“He would say ‘ because I am here.’’’
Costello found joy in music, in singing, in playing cards. Mostly, though, he seemed to draw on the love and companionship of his wife.
“He just wanted me 24 hours a day,” says Arsenault.
“He was very kind, thoughtful and loving – but not patient.’’
Arsenault, who remarried four years after her husband died, believes Costello always tried his best to bury his horrific war experience. Perhaps that would explain why he appeared to treat Remembrance Day just like any other day. He steered clear of the public ceremonies.
As for Arsenault, she usually goes to a service on Remembrance Day. And what does she think about on this special occasion? “Him,’’ she says. “He was a wonderful man, really.’’