Catherine and Will

 Catherine and Will

He was only nineteen when he came back to Vancouver, the physical wounds from Vietnam would heal quickly but he was damaged, some would say he was broken, though he didn’t know at the time. He was suffering from delayed PTSD, a strange term that they wouldn’t conjure up for another ten years. But what it meant for him was that there was a gap in time, a gap he tried to fill with events he couldn’t remember. As far as he knew, there was no war for him, just selling shoes in town and painting abstract images back at his cottage in Point Roberts, Washington. All of a sudden, the west coast didn’t feel like home anymore, home was back in Toronto where he was born. He was lost, so much so that even when he went back east, he felt he didn’t belong.

As often happens with lost souls, a stranger comes along and, somehow, they help the kid find a new path. That’s what happened to Will. He had nothing and this friend he didn’t know took him in and made him feel welcome, he gave him a place to sleep and a reason to live.

Not too long after, his new friend, Paul was his name, gave him something else, a gift he would treasure for the rest of his life. He introduced Will to Catherine, a nursing student who lived a few floors below. They began to date, nothing serious at first but they had a lot of fun together. Their first date he took her to the Dairy Queen for the cheapest hamburger in town. When she had time off, they went walking in Serena Gundy Park on the bridal paths. He told stories and she listened, he played guitar and sang and she listened. But as things got a little more serious Will got nervous and walked away. It was a silly ting to do and Catherine knew it so she followed him and said what was on her mind. She liked very much and they had fun together. Whatever happens, she said they should stay friends. So, they did. They watched the moon landing together, went to parties and just hung out together.

There was one movie Catherine said she had always wanted to see, but it was always on during the late show. Which one, he asked, and she told him it was an old one, Arsenic and Old Lace. He’d seen it before but if she wanted to watch it then they’d stay up for it. After about five minutes Catherine fell asleep. It became a thing with her, the late show, the late-late show, it didn’t matter what hour it was on, they would give it a shot and she’d always drop of asleep and miss Teddy Roosevelt race down the stairs shouting CHARGE!

They broke-up once, not because of Arsenic and Old Lace, but neither of them could remember why. It was amicable enough. As a matter of fact, Catherine’s roommate Cyndy was getting married and, before they broke up, Will had promised he would take her to the wedding. They got back together for the big day, dressed up and drove to Peterborough. They looked like the perfect couple and it was decided by all that they were the next to get married.

As it happened, they were.

Catherine had graduated and was working at a hospital in Toronto, Will applied for a job in radio in Lindsay. The only setback was that he had to be a married man. So, Catherine obligingly showed up with Will for the interview wearing his ring held tightly in her folded hand so the man couldn’t see that the ring was too big for her. Since they were ‘already’ married, he could only get one day of to make it official.

It was a small wedding held in Sarnia where her parents lived, just family. Will’s best man was his brother Phil and a month before Will was Phil’s best man. The wedding had a rocky start, Catherine’s uncle was supposed to pick up the bride and her father and bring them to the church and was going to be the official photographer. The uncle forgot them and dropped his camera. Even after the minister suggested Will was free to go, he stuck it out, in it for the long haul, he thought, and Catherine finally arrived, back lit by the sun shining through the stained-glass window and the tardy uncle snapped a few pictures. None of that drama mattered to Catherine and Will, the point was that they were together forever.

Not without their ups and downs though. Actually, it was more like those rollercoasters they build nowadays that twist and loop and drop straight down then climb straight back up again. They moved from Lindsay to Toronto and into the upscale radio market and a larger selection of hospitals for Catherine to work in. They had a child, a little boy they named Glenn. He came along the day they moved from their apartment to a house near the hospital where she worked. As Catherine worked all three shifts, Will spent a lot of time looking after Glenn. He did the best he could but it was difficult and there were times when he must have frightened the little guy. Money was tight but they were doing alright that way, but Will was having problems. They bought a small semidetached house in what they used to call an incubator community, filled with young families just like them. They found friends there and settled in.

The house was cramped and they, actually it was Will who decided to renovate. At the same time, he turned their basement into a wood working shop and began to make furniture. He got commissions and Catherine helped with the finishing, they filled orders and he kept busy. What held them together was that it was a team effort, often peppered with interesting stories of what not to do. They had another child, a daughter this time, and named her Katy. She and Glenn were very different personalities, while Glenn was tentative, Katy was gregarious. Catherine was working all the time and exhausted but she was the glue holding the family together. Eventually the renovations were finished on the day they sold the house. They moved on excitedly into a bigger home and predictably, larger problems.

Will kept his inner struggle to himself as much as possible but there were some things that he couldn’t hide. He developed a terrible temper; even little things would set him off and he began to have nightmares, always about the same thing. He was never abusive but he was frightening. Then the nightmares began to happen during the day, while he was awake. He would go into a sort of trance as these terrible images of war played havoc with his mind. He became seriously depressed and thought of suicide all the time.

Catherine had no help during this period, Will was practically useless and while she was working day and night, he spent their money on tools to build his furniture, never making enough to compensate for the expenditures. If ever there was a time to jump ship this was it, but she didn’t, she hung in there and kept the family going. He had friends at the radio station, but he couldn’t share what was going on in his mind. Those friends he worked with were almost all American draft dodgers and deserters who, he assumed, would not understand why he, a Canadian, would have gone to fight in such a ridiculous war. The more he was controlled by the waking dreams the closer he came to understanding what they were about, and eventually the memory of the war began to come back to him, not all of it but enough for him to dwell on constantly. He was ashamed. Ashamed of what he had done and that he had survived when people he cared about hadn’t. He never told any of them about the war.

Catherine had no idea what was going on with him. She had doubts that she would be able to put up with it much longer, and one would have to wonder why she did. Her reason for staying was that she loved him and, as much as he was able, he loved her. Will had moved up in the radio station and had his own two hour show in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day at home. To fill the time, he built furniture in his garage workshop. It was inevitable that his condition would show up in his performance on air and he lost his job just before Christmas. Times became very difficult for all of them. Will tried to find other work in radio but it was impossible to ignore what had happened and other companies closed their doors to him. Turning inward, Will began to express himself in sculpture and began to create some wonderful pieces. They weren’t selling, but they showed well and he was becoming a prolific artist.

It soon became clear to them both that the city was just too rich for them. All Catherine was doing was working and there was no joy in the house. On a trip to the reference library to do some research, Will stumbled upon a book about Vietnam wives and, quite serendipitously, it fell open to a page that described how the wives of the veterans were suffering the effects of PTSD right along with their husbands. It was a revelation to Will, something that he had never considered before and it began to change him. It became that thing that seemed to ground him and allow them to work as a team once again. Their children were having problems too, Glenn was struggling at school and Katy was having a difficult time with her friends. They decided that they would break away from the life they had and try something completely different.

It was difficult to be sure but not as hard as their friends and family would have thought. They sold everything and left Canada for Europe. The first couple of months they travelled through Ireland, England, Belgium and France. Then tired and needing to stop for a while they landed on the Costa Del Sol, found a house to rent up in the foothills and settled in. Catherine became their teacher, working from a correspondence course from the Board of Ed back home and Will set up a rough studio, a sandbag perched on a bar stool under and olive tree in the back yard. There he began to carve sculptures in stone. Whenever the kids were caught up with work and everybody needed a break, they would head down to the beach for a day in the sun, of off into the foothill following a mountain stream. There were always people to visit, expats they met on the beach and in the town on the coast.

After a while, they felt the need to return to Canada, but not to what had been before. This time they wanted to keep the spirit of what they had learned about each other alive. They found a property in the country and built a house together. If there is ever a test of a marriage it has to be going through a renovation without divorce. Well, that goes double for building a house in the country. Living for years in a construction site and still more years waiting for the finish work to be done, waiting until they could afford the furniture, hosting art shows in their home, it was all a test. Will finally found medication that could ease the pain of memory and depression, Catherine retired from nursing then became a substitute teacher and discovered that teaching made her tremendously happy. Will tried teaching as well though his temperament wasn’t suited to dealing with teenagers.

What made their marriage work was that they had two things going for them. Right from the start they were friends first then lovers. That remained true throughout their fifty-plus years together. As they grew old together, watched their children grow up and have their children, there was always love and friendship. The home they built together was the home for the whole family and drew them all together. It was Catherine who became the grandmother she always dreamed of becoming and gave their home its warmth, and Will, the old grump, gave it the toys he made for the grandkids, along with the humor, silliness and structure. On their own, Will and Catherine’s friendship helped to give them the fun times and despite all the hardship there were many fun times. And friendship helped them weather all the storms that came their way. It was their unending love made their life together whole and bright.