A Different Kind of Grief

ONE DARK, FREEZING JANUARY morning four years ago, I drove to the hospital here in the city of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to say goodbye to my husband, Herb. He was being taken to the only long-term psychiatric facility in the province, some four hours away, in North Battleford. I watched as he was strapped onto a gurney for the ambulance. “I’ll miss you,” I told him. “More than you know.” I was hoping for some sign that he heard me, but he was too sedated to even speak. I gave him a kiss that I knew would have to last a long time. Then the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot, and I followed it for miles through the darkness, until I lost sight of it at a four-way stop. It felt as if I were following a hearse, my husband gone to me forever.

In the fall of 2000, I hadn’t seen any of this coming. Herb had had surgery on his shoulder, which left him unable to do chores on our small farm in rural Saskatchewan for months. The bills kept coming, so we sold our cattle and rented out the farm to neighbors. By the time Herb recovered, we’d decided not to buy into the cattle business again, and he was hired to help with the seeding on