People know who I am and what I’ve been through and seem to feel comfortable telling me their problems. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I often find myself called upon to offer sympathy and comfort to strangers. It’s not unusual for people to confide in me about their tragedies and troubles—women in particular! I’m always willing to listen, and help if I can, but it takes me aback, because I’m not aware of what it is in me that they respond to. Not long ago, I was giving a luncheon speech in Brockville for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. After it was all over and people had left, I sat down at a table to finish my coffee and dessert. Then I saw two of the young waitresses coming towards me, one of them pushing the other in front of her, who seemed shy and reluctant. Of course I assumed she just wanted an autograph and got out my pen. But by the time the girl got to the table, she had burst into tears and was just sobbing. I really didn’t know what to do. Her co-worker had to explain why she was so upset. Only a few weeks earlier, her brother, an avid hockey fan, had unaccountably dropped dead. He was only twenty-two, and no one knew what had caused his death. There had been absolutely no warning. Meeting me, the poor girl was just overcome with emotion—obviously, she wished her brother could have been there. When I went to sign my autograph to her, she asked that I make it out to her brother instead. I’m used to hearing these sad stories, but still, they always affect me, and some of them I can never forget.
It’s the same kind of thing when I’m at home. The doorbell will ring. I’ll say, “Can I help you?” And the person will say, “I’ve got a mother [or father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, son, daughter] who’s only got two or three months to live. You weren’t supposed to live the night, but look at you now. Can you come to the hospital with me?” The person will often start crying, right there on our doorstep, and say, “You’ll be an inspiration to her. Maybe she’ll live like you did. Please, can you come with me?” I get that so much, and I go.
Some friends of Roly’s in Paris, Ontario, asked me to come see them once. The mother had had a stroke. Roly got hold of Ian and me, and asked if we would go. I said sure. Later, they told Roly that if it hadn’t been for our visit, their mother wouldn’t have made it. We were there for two hours, and I just tried to be positive and make them laugh a little, too. Now the lady is able to live by herself. I credit Ian with that. They had wanted to put her in a rehab centre. But Ian said to them, “You know, if you can get her one-to-one help, like Walter had, she’d be better off.” They took Ian’s advice, and she’s very well today. Ian and I met the lady who became her therapist at a fundraising function at my grandson’s school. Talking to her, and knowing what I know from my own experience of intensive individual therapy with Ian, I am convinced that this is what people need to help them recover. That and the love and support of family. I hope our health care system will move toward being able to accommodate one-to-one therapy as much as possible. Institutionalization should be a last resort.
I’ve learned over the years that it’s not just older people who suffer strokes. There’s one young lady I got to know here in town: Crystal Walton. I think she’s eighteen now. I met her after the doorbell rang one night and a couple of young people were standing on the doorstep telling me that their fifteen-year-old sister had had an aneurysm. Could I come to Hamilton and see her at the hospital there? Next day, I went to the hospital, the same one I had been in. Some of the nurses who had looked after me were there when I arrived. I was standing in the hallway, talking to them, when one of Crystal’s family members came out of her room and said, “She’s ready to see you.” I walked in. She’d had a blood vessel burst in her brain and was totally paralyzed on her right side. They asked her, “Do you know who this is?” She said, “Of course, that’s Walter.” And for the first time in six weeks, she smiled with both sides of her mouth. Her face moved. Do you know how great it is to be part of a moment like that?
Her family had a homecoming celebration for her and asked if I’d come. Wayne was in Buffalo at the time, so I got an autographed picture for her, and he signed a get-well card. When the ambulance brought her home, I gave her the picture, the card and a couple of other things from Wayne. And then I gave her another little package, which was wrapped up, and I said, “Crystal, whenever you look at this, I want you to always remember the smile that you gave me the first time we met.” She was in a wheelchair and could only use one hand. It was a digital watch that I gave her and she turned to me sideways and said, “Thanks, Walter.” She smiled from ear to ear.
I go over there now to see her all the time. She lives a couple of blocks away. Crystal is up and walking, but she has to drag her foot. The police association in Cambridge bought her a computer to help her with her studies. She’s a brilliant student.
Every year, at Christmastime, I take a couple of days and go along with a group of Ontario traffic police officers to some of the hospitals in the area, visiting the kids who are sick, giving out teddy bears, and little souvenirs and photographs of Wayne. And many generous people help us out—like Paul Arrowsmith at Kraft Canada, who every year gives us thousands of hockey cards for the kids. I really admire the officers who organize this and give of their time. There’s a very special atmosphere in these places, very sad sometimes, but hopeful, too. Each time I visit, I have to take a deep breath and say to myself just before I go in, “Be brave now and maintain your composure.”
Some of the kids have terminal illnesses, and they all have to be very strong and courageous in the face of their difficulties, as do their families. If I can help out at all with a visit, some words of encouragement, some little gifts, I’m happy to do it. I’ve got a good friend at Sears here in Brantford, Jerry Greenslade, who gets me dozens of digital watches every year, and when I go to the hospitals, I give them out to the older kids. Isn’t that something, that every year my friend from Sears does that? They’re not five-dollar watches either. They’re nice watches. One time, we went into a room, and there was a girl there by herself, a fourteen-year-old. The OPP officer gave her a teddy bear, and I gave her a picture of Wayne, and a watch. She kept saying thank you, over and over and over. I was told later that she had terminal cancer. The girl had less than three months to live, yet she was so grateful because I gave her a watch.
KIM: At Mum and Dad’s house, you know everybody goes downstairs to see all the awards and trophies that Dad has made into a shrine for the kids, but what he never shows them are the awards hanging in his office, such as the CNIB Arthur Napier Award, Brantford’s Citizen of the Year, Honorary Big Brother, the Ontario Provincial Police Citation, Brantford General Hospital Volunteer Award, as well as a medal honouring his contribution to compatriots, community and country awarded by the Governor General to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Canada. And the dedication to my dad of a special Heart and Stroke Foundation Memorial Fund for Stroke.
For him, I know the awards are special, but he gets his real reward out of volunteering and helping people as much as he can, anyhow, anywhere.
But deep down, one event really meant a lot to him, and that was being inducted into the Brantford Walk of Fame at the same time as Alexander Graham Bell. When you think about it, here is a man who worked at Bell Canada for his whole life and now he’s standing there on stage with relatives of Alexander Graham Bell.
My journey back to health and vitality was not an easy one, and I couldn’t have done it alone. But maybe if you have made it all the way through this book, you have an idea now of what’s possible for someone who survives an aneurysm. I accept my limitations, but if my loved ones had looked at the state I was in during those first hard years after my stroke and concluded, “This is it. This is how Walter will be now for the rest of his life,” if they had given up on any kind of therapy for me, I would not be as well as I am today, speaking in public, helping kids and enjoying some time on the golf course. I may be retired from my job at Bell, but I’m not retired from life! I can’t even imagine wanting to have an idle “retirement.”
Anyway, I guess I was always aware that the time was coming sooner rather than later. So it wasn’t really a surprise when he phoned on a Thursday, and said, “Dad, come to my game in Ottawa.” I knew then that that was going to be the last time my son played hockey on Canadian ice.
I don’t recall much about the game itself, but afterwards, Bob Coyne and I drove back to Brantford. We stopped so many times along the way, I gave up counting. We had a cellphone in the car, and everyone somehow got wind of the number. That phone just kept ringing and ringing: “Hi, we’re radio station so and so in some town you’ve never heard of, and since you guys are on the highway coming down from Ottawa, would you stop and give an interview?” We gave an interview to everyone who asked. I understood how important this event was to Canadians, and if they wanted my comments, I was prepared to provide them. Hockey fans deserved that, for sure. So many of them had come to equate their enjoyment of the game with watching Wayne play, and so many were almost in mourning or shock that his career on ice was finally coming to an end. Everyone wanted to talk to me about it.
And it was only a matter of a couple of days before Wayne’s very last game at Madison Square Garden. He generously invited three of our close friends down there to join us for that: Butch, Eddie and Charlie. They were so touched.
WAYNE: I wanted my final games in Ottawa and New York to be a celebration, because some people were treating it as though it were a funeral, and I didn’t want that. It was important for me to know that my dad and Janet especially, the two people in my life who would say that one of their biggest joys was watching me play hockey, were there that final night. We flew down to New York after the game in Ottawa. On the Saturday night, we all went out for dinner at a nice restaurant in Manhattan. It was a very special and private time for me, my family and our friends. My dad tried to talk me out of retiring right up to the last minute, but I was at peace with my decision. It absolutely felt right, and he knew that. But I think he is to this day a little confused as to why I decided to do it when I did. Sometimes he asks me if I’m going to come back, especially now that a few of the older players have recently done so. But my answer always was and always will be no. It’s the right decision for me.
Sunday morning, just my dad and me, we took a cab—you don’t drive in Manhattan!—and went down to the Garden early. It was important to me to share that final time alone with my dad. I just knew it was the right thing to do. Everything I have in my life has come to me because of hockey, because of my dad.
Was I sad watching my son skate around the ice for the very last time? I’m not sure I’d say that exactly. Maybe I didn’t really let myself believe he’d never be playing hockey again. It was emotional. You could not be in that darkened arena, among all those thousands of fans, clapping and cheering on and on, as Wayne was down there waving goodbye, skating around and around on the ice by himself, and not feel something. Awe, really. I am his dad, but I feel just as amazed as anyone else when I think of what he has achieved over the years. It was one of those significant occasions that even someone with my kind of memory is never going to forget.
Well, maybe it’s that crazy word “retirement” that I just keep stumbling over. When I consider the busy and varied life I lead today, I can’t line it up with that concept. No reason why I should, in my opinion. I’ve got a lot of challenges to tackle, not to mention a lot of golf to play. Looking back on where I’ve been, I can only say I’m grateful, lucky to be alive, and raring to go wherever the next adventure takes me.
chapter eight
A LUCKY MAN
When I look back on my sixty-three years on this planet, I can honestly say that I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. Not one, a thousand. All the different places I’ve been and things that have happened! Here, there, all over the world. It’s wonderful to travel so much, have adventures with my good friends and meet such a wide variety of people—heads of state, native chiefs, Hollywood celebrities, sports legends, you name it—hear their stories and share some of mine. I hope to continue doing what I’m doing for a long time to come, as long as anyone asks me to share what I have learned over the years, before and since my stroke. And even though my direct involvement in hockey is scaled down now that I’m not coaching, it will always be the greatest sport around, in my opinion. I love to drop in at the local arenas, hang out and chat with whoever is there. Wayne may not be playing any more, but he’s invited me down to training camp in Phoenix, and I’m keen to get a look at that. Keith’s scouting for the Coyotes and living in Paris with his wife, Diana, and Brent is still playing for Fort Wayne in the United Hockey League and lives in Indiana with Nicole and the kids. (I still chew him out over his performance whenever the opportunity arises!)
PHYLLIS: He’s happy as long as he’s kept busy. I think people want to be around him because he likes to talk. He’ll just walk up to strangers and start yakking away. He was not like that before. He would wave to the neighbours, but that was it. Now, he’s out doing something for somebody all the time.
Maybe I should take more breaks—Phyllis sure thinks so—but all the travelling and socializing suits my restless spirit, no question. And with a family the size of ours, and with all the different activities everyone’s got on the go, there’s really never a dull moment at home either. It’s great to have Glen around, who worked with his sister over the last couple of years to help me with this book. Kids, grandkids, dogs, cats and neighbours are coming and going all the time.
I like to go over to Phyllis’s mother’s house almost every day to keep her company and do any little chores she needs done. Since recovering from the stroke, I’ve also gotten into the habit of raking leaves and shovelling snow for some of our neighbours, ladies who’ve been widowed or who are unable to get out and do strenuous tasks. Wayne even bought me a snow blower last Christmas, so I can really do the job. My family thinks it’s quite a joke, because let’s just say that raking the leaves on my own lawn and shovelling the snow in my own driveway weren’t exactly high priorities for me before the stroke.
I don’t know exactly how or when my career as a neighbours’ handyman got started. But I know there was a point when I understood that Ian and my family were concerned that I find ways to use my time, and I was eager myself to find things to do. I truly wanted to be useful. I had my energy back and didn’t want to waste it. My neighbour Roly Bye recalls the time a few years ago, when I was becoming more mentally alert and starting to get out on my own more, and I went down the street to visit him. He was doing some work in the front yard. He’d had a backhoe come in and dig everything up and had a dump truck with topsoil sitting out there. Roly’s chihuahua ran down the driveway and started yapping. Roly hollered at her from where he was in the backyard, wondering what the heck she was barking at. He came around to the front and saw it was me standing at the gate. I said,
“Hey Roly, what are you doing with all this dirt?” He told me it was topsoil he had to spread. I said, “Where’s a shovel? I’ll give you a hand.” He looked shocked and said, “Oh Wally, no, you’re not going to shovel that. There’s a dump truck full.” But I said, “No, really, I’ve got some time.” After all the things Roly had done for me, I felt it was the least I could do. But he said, “No, as a matter of fact, I’ve got a professional coming in to do it.” I thought he was just trying to discourage me. Finally I said to him, “Come on, you’ve been so good, can’t I do anything?” He just kept saying no. Then we got out back and I saw his grass. I said, “Holy moly, Roly, when are you gonna cut your grass?” He said, “When I get around to it.” So I said, “Well, where’s your lawn mower? I’ll cut your grass.” He kept saying, “You don’t need to cut the grass, Wally.” But I insisted. I got the lawn mower and pulled the cord a couple of times, but it didn’t start. Roly said, “It’s not going to go, Wally. It’s got no gas.” But I knew there was gas in it, and I was determined to get it working. Poor Roly was late for an appointment and thought, “Oh brother, I’ll never get out of here if I don’t start the lawn mower for him.” So he started it, and I mowed the yard. He shook his head. He just couldn’t believe I wanted to cut his grass. He even took a picture. I was happy to do it, especially when I found out it was Roly and Gloria’s wedding anniversary. Cutting his grass made me feel good. Here was something I could do for people, and I continue to do what I can for my neighbours.
On Family, Hockey and Healing Page 19