She wasn't rich or famous.
She didn't win awards or discover anything or know everything.
Lillian Alder was, in most ways, an ordinary woman. She loved the same man for more than 70 years, raised five happy children in a loving and honest home. She took pleasure in small things like the words to an old love song, a northern sunset, a bouquet of flowers or a story well-told.
But it was her very ordinariness that makes what she did in her final years so utterly courageous. By digging in and standing her ground, even when it tore her heart out to do so, Lillian exposed a crack in our long-term care system that is large enough to swallow an entire family.
A crack that can force a husband and wife — who were together longer than most politicians or health-care providers have been alive — to spend their dying days apart.
A crack that swallows the couple and the children who care for them, and then the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are inevitably affected by the turmoil and sadness that arises.
Lillian, an "old lady on dialysis" as she once described herself, made strangers across Ontario see the crack in the system that separates some 200 elderly couples every year. She inspired letters to the editor, talk radio discussions and speeches at Queen's Park.
And, ultimately, Lillian won. She won a reunion with Ray, her "prince," the love of her life. And she won it on her terms.
I met Lillian in November 2011 when she called to ask if I would write her story. She and Ray had been placed in separate facilities in Burlington — she in a nice, new place, he in an older, cheerless one — and saw each other only twice a week, on days when Lillian wasn't having dialysis.
They pined for each other. Ray became increasingly confused and sad without Lillian at his side. Their farewells were so painful Lillian confessed she sometimes chose not to visit Ray because the goodbye tore him apart so.
On the very day their story ran on the front page of The Spectator, Lillian was made an offer by the Community Care Access Centre. A bed was open for her in Ray's facility.
Lillian turned it down.
They deserved better, she said. Ray would come to her home. She was determined.
Six months after they were first separated, she won. Ray moved in across the hall from her. He sneaked into her room during the night, parked his wheelchair beside her bed and held her hand.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about Ray's death. He was 91 when he died on April 28 and Lillian was lying in bed next to him, holding his hand.
Lillian told me then that she was thinking of dying herself, quitting dialysis and letting go. Not because she believed she would meet Ray in heaven. When you're dead, you're dead, Lillian said. It was just that life wasn't as satisfying now that Ray wasn't in it.
We had a good long chat about it, this idea of choosing to die. I sat close to Lillian's wheelchair and we held hands. Two of her children, Ray and Dan, were in the room. As I prepared to leave, Lillian gave me a gift Ray had made for me. She hugged me and we both knew I wouldn't see her again.
"June is a nice month," she said, and I wasn't sure if that meant she would wait until July, or if she would choose June for her final exit.
On June 18, Lillian decided to stop her dialysis.
"She is not scared and is at peace with her decision," Dan told me.
In the six days after that, Lillian had lovely visits with relatives and friends. She laughed and shared stories and talked of Ray and good times.
Early Monday morning, Lillian died. She was 87.
There will be no funeral service. Like Ray, Lillian has donated her body to medical science. She joked that Ray is now a "professor" at McMaster's medical school. Lillian is to "teach" at University of Toronto.
It all seems so fitting.
Lillian in control of her life. A lovely day in June. Teaching.
Ray and Lillian have already taught us so much.
