‘This is his right isn't it?’
Willows bids resident dignified farewell
Thursday, October 26, 2006 -- Natalie Miller
Bob Beattie was a man with a troubled past who spent his final years of life in a nursing home with no biological family.

According to those who came to know him, the staff at Willows Estate in Aurora, he was a man who was misunderstood. Growing up in the High Park area of Toronto, Bob suffered from mental illness. He wound up incarcerated, institutionalized and ultimately admitted to long-term care in July of 2000.

He was a man fascinated by German history who used his ‘spy glasses’, a magnifying glass, to pour over his books. He was a man haunted by the voices in his head. For the six years he resided at the long-term care home, staff got to know Bob. Clinical care co-ordinator Sheila Cheesman often chatted with him as her weekend shifts came to an end.

Bob died Oct. 13 in hospital. He was 74.

A client of the public guardian, there was no family to see to his burial. Willows Estates’ managers made the decision to provide Bob with a dignified sendoff, arranging a funeral for him Tuesday.

“Bob had nobody,” says Sheila.

“There was nobody to speak up for him. I spoke up. (We wanted) to bury him the proper way.”

At a cemetery in Aurora, a group of staff members, a resident and a mental health worker gathered to say their final respects to Bob.

Sheila delivered the eulogy.

“A few of you didn't know Bob very well, but you're not alone, we really didn't either although we cared for him daily since July 2000,” she said.

“Bob was frequently misunderstood, and people only saw the outward actions that he made, when reacting to the voices that tormented him for years. People were understandably nervous to approach him, to sit and chat, something that he loved to do on a quiet afternoon. He was never shy or inhibited in what to discuss, and would often throw in a humorous statement in our weekend conversations.”

Bob was an only child. Sheila says he spoke fondly of his mother, and his father was an engineer for the City of Toronto and worked long hours.

“He was an intelligent man, who developed a passion for the German language and culture. He was so involved with the German language that he taught himself to speak, read and write it fluently.”

Bob grew up in a time when his illness was not well understood when there was little to offer in treatment other than medications, Sheila says.

As a young man, he worked for short periods in various jobs, but this soon ended, when his illness directed him to act them out, which resulted in his incarceration, she says. He drifted in the correctional or psychiatric system for his remaining years. As the medical system evolved and institution doors closed, the aging psychiatric patients were sent into long-term care. “Bob, too old for the psychiatric facilities, arrived on our doorstep as a young man in an elderly environment. I can only think that this environment further confused his ill mind, and further isolated him from others who didn't understand his illness.”

However, Sheila says twice he commented that at Willows, he was finally "home".
“You know what?” she says. “We’re his family.”

Sheila says when Bob died management met and made the decision to take care of Bob’s funeral arrangements.

“This is his right isn't it?” said Sheila in the eulogy.

“This is what a eulogy is really all about. People who care -- who come to say a few words. Some would think we'd lost it; after all don't we separate patients from nurses? Don't we keep our distance and keep it professional? Well in acute care maybe that is so, but in long-term care we become an extended family. And that couldn't be truer than with Bob.”