Patrick Jamieson, Victoria, BC

Carl was an acquaintance through church circles, and I used to bump into at the par three golf course. In the last decade he wanted to join our golf foursome when someone couldn’t make it, he was always on his own.
We lived in the same building, and had this acquaintanceship, which for Carl meant I was thereafter responsible for keeping him posted on things. It was a trait that was characteristic. If I failed he was quite annoyed and greeted me with accusatory comments when next we met. I found this somewhat amusing, others didn’t. A close friend of mine in the building was hounded for months by accusations by Carl that she was making excessive noise overhead, while she insisted she kept very quiet after hours. He would pound on her door to noisily complain. It really got to her.

CARL’S DIFFICULTIES

It was the first I heard of Carl’s difficulties with honouring boundaries with women in the building and in voluntary positions he had undertaken post retirement. Although he was a different sort of Catholic than our monthly home liturgy group, he started attending.

It took him quite a while to figure out our alternative dynamics despite explicit instructions. For instance, we would spend the first hour checking in with no or little cross talk, but Carl thought this meant little cliche sermonettes, just the sort of thing most of the group were trying to get away from, so I often played the moderator role of reminding him of the protocol. As usual this form of corrective did not endear him to my style.

Eventually he was prepared to share appropriately, and it was about a difficult volunteer situation where a fellow volunteer, a woman, felt he was crossing boundaries verbally. Carl could never see or admit that he had done anything wrong in this or a few other similar situations; both in the building where we lived or as a volunteer with other health care institutions.

Carl worked 40 years as a nurse, had never married, was a loner except from what I could see, for a few similarly eccentric traditional Catholic pals.

So, I was somewhat taken aback when he asked me to serve as his executor. He also, in the same breath, said he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and decided on MAiD. Apparently he qualified for assisted suicide and had taken it without hesitation upon it being proferred. While I have grave reservations about the whole MAiD program, I wanted to help him, I realized later on, until someone better suited came along. I had recently done this work for both my parents, so knew it wasn’t onerous.

OVERALL SITUATION

Anyway I met a number of times with him, taking close notes if only to get a sense of the overall situation, including how closely tied he was to the euthanasia idea. He had scribbled his will on a napkin sort of thing, boldly announcing he knew it was legal. I showed him the will costing two grand I had done for myself but he took no interest in that. I was able to connect him with a mutual acquaintance who got him funeral arrangements for half the usual cost.

The credit union had grave misgivings about the will, so I was able to get him a lawyer to at least notarize it. We went there together. When we waited together while they looked it all over, I hauled out the moral reasoning I was very familiar with, against the use of MAiD, or even its existence.

Looking back later, I could sense this was the beginning of the end of my tenure in any executor role, even though the lawyer listed me as executor in the new will they drew up for him at a cost of $1100. He phoned me one noon hour to say I was being removed as executor.

REMOVED AS EXECUTOR

Being removed as an executor is a legal process and I wasn’t sure he knew what that required. But my part of the circus seemed about done, the checklist included finding him funeral arrangements, getting a proper will, and a number of visits to his credit union.

Happily I had introduced him to someone who wanted to cozy him along. None of us were quite sure he really was going to go through with the MAiD business as he was a very pious if not devout Catholic, as the expression goes.

Carl did go through with his fatal infusion at the Royal Jubilee Hospital on Feb. 17, Shrove Tuesday. He had gone to confession the night before, and there were two priests and several medical types in attendance at the end. The two who had volunteered to be there at the end were more less kept in the outer chamber.

I concurred with a trusted observer who asserted that he was on the autistic spectrum, was a chronic depressive, suffered from OCD and ADHD, so in my estimation was probably incapable psychologically of choosing MAiD, even as liberally as it is being currently shaped.

During his last ten days he was very joyous and beaming to quote one source. He was given hospitality at the Friary he blessed with 30,000 dollars.

Carl Blais Rest In Peace.