When someone the world doesn't judge as worthy of that attention passes... Well, the only news coverage is often an obituary. But every time someone passes they leave behind those who held them to be important – every bit as significant as a pope, prime minister, pop star or pro athlete.
Joseph “Joe” MacPhee was not someone whom the world saw as important. Born in Prince Edward Island, adopted by neighbours after his mother died, he, like so many other Canadians from the Maritimes, found his future in the Canadian military – in his case, the Army. When he was twenty, a friend asked him to come along for the ride when he went to the recruiting centre. Joe did, and filled out the application for something to do. The recruiter came to him and said, “your friend is an idiot, but you have potential”. After training in Borden, he was posted to Gagetown, Halifax, and Ottawa.
He then spent time in Egypt as part of UNEF 1 – the original United Nations peacekeeping force in Egypt, sent to the Sinai and Suez as a result of Lester Pearson's Nobel-winning idea. While there, he at one point had a machine gun pointed at him by an Egyptian soldier who mistook a friend's camera for a weapon. He told his son years later that this was the one time he really feared for his life.
During his travels, Joe was fortunate enough to spend time at CFB Trenton, and went to a spaghetti supper hosted by the Young Christian Workers. There he met a young woman from Belleville, Joan Haines, who became his wife. Together they were to be posted to military bases at Petawawa, Montreal and Kingston. Along the way, they had two children, Kevin, born in 1971, and Colleen, who came along in 1973. Colleen was the normal one. Kevin, who would come to be my closest friend, while his mother was giving birth to his younger sister, celebrated her birth by turning over a bowl of soup on his head. According to reports, his father from this point may have realized his son was a little different.
Joe enjoyed spending time with his children and wife. Kevin rarely remembers his parents leaving he and Colleen with babysitters. Joe enjoyed gardening and looking after his yard, doing crosswords, and after they came back to Belleville, eating out at the Cosy Grill. After Mass on Sunday afternoons was when the family would go for drives around the area.
Joe was pushed into retirement by the military when they gave him the option of either a pension or Alert for six months, with his family spending the duration in Yellowknife. With twenty-five years service in the military, he had a full pension, and decided to move his family back to Belleville. Here, he went to work at the S&R department store downtown when it opened as head of maintenance. When the Williams family was opening the Best Western, they brought Joe in to run their maintenance and housekeeping for the new facility. This was a challenge, as the project began late but opened on time, with the result being many repairs during the first couple of years.
Joe began to display some of the early signs of dementia even around the time he retired in 1999 – small memory errors, mainly. The symptoms became unmistakeable by 2002-2003. Sometimes the signs resulted in humourous situations, such as when he asked Joan where the flashlight was as he couldn't see downstairs. She suggested that he instead turn on the lights.
But as time passed his symptoms became more and more severe. He confused Kevin, Colleen and Joan with people from his childhood in P.E.I. In 2005, he was definitively diagnosed with dementia. In 2008, he went to stay at Hastings Manor, his care having become to much for his wife and children to look after at home.
On May 22nd, 2011, Joe MacPhee passed away, with his family by his side for the last two days of his life.
He is survived by Joan, Kevin, Colleen (Perry Reid) and two grandchildren, Jesse and Sophie. On Thursday, May 26th, Funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Belleville.
Joe was 76. He will be missed by his family, and by all those of us who had the privilege of knowing him.
No comments:
Post a Comment