“WOMEN HELPING WOMEN”

Since 1987 the Peninsula Newcomers Club has been welcoming women who have recently moved to the Saanich Peninsula.  Their motto is “women helping women.” (It seems the ladies' men are left to fend for themselves, although they do get to share in the occasional dinner out, for example.) The club organizes activities to appeal to the chefs, the thinkers, the readers, the hikers, the adventurers and the artists in their midst.

Nonetheless, the emphasis of the club remains on the NEW.  After five years (or optionally after four) a club member is expected to be fully integrated in the community and must graduate in June. In this manner the club ensures that the membership and the executive are continually changing and re-charging.

Every second Thursday, from September to June, the full club contingent of seventy plus ladies lunch at Haro’s Restaurant in the Sidney Pier Hotel. The Sidney Pier itself is completely visible from the picture windows in the seaside dining room. While the ladies are enjoying their dessert, they are treated to an after luncheon speaker who talks on a subject deemed to be of interest to the members, which is why Ron was invited to last Thursday’s lunch. (Ron’s sister-in-law, Barbara Osaka is a home care nurse, and her sister, Pat Montgomery is a member of the club. Having both read The Defiant Mind, the sisters agreed that inviting Ron to address the Newcomers Club would be a very good idea.)

The event was unique for Ron in a couple of ways: It was the first time he had ever been an “after-dinner” speaker. In the early months and years after his stroke Ron found eating out disorienting. The clattering of plates and cutlery, the noise of different and simultaneous conversations, the hustle and bustle of waiters – all of the general hubbub in a restaurant which most of us take for granted and unconsciously tune out, can be overwhelming for a stroke survivor who has yet to re-learn this skill.

It was also the first time Ron had ever addressed an all female gathering.  Perhaps this is why he began his talk by recalling the moment when his stroke finally hit with massive force in the waiting room in the Emergency Department of the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital on November 19, 2012. After sliding off his chair onto the floor as his orb exploded, he was whisked into a treatment room where “the next thing I knew my clothes were being removed. Shoes and socks first. I didn’t have to lift a thing. My rear end and legs were raised, my pants came off. My torso sat up, my arms rose above my head and my shirt slipped off.  . . . ‘Aren’t you a lucky man,’ the head nurse said, you’ve got five women undressing you.”

After Ron’s talk was finished we decided to avoid the traffic on the Pat Bay Highway, the rush hour on the Callwood Crawl and the climb over the Malahat by taking a short cruise. We opted for the quiet, scenic drive to Brentwood Bay and arrived at the ferry dock just as the MV Klitsa approached. Then we remained on the ferry dock while the Klitsa unloaded and loaded and sped on its way. The vessel holds nineteen cars and we were the twenty-second in line. Knowing that the Klitsa would return in an hour or so, we rolled down the car windows part way, inhaled the salt air, listened to the cries of the sea gulls, watched the sunshine sparkle on the waves, the pleasure craft roll at anchor on the swells and savoured a little island time.