I took this picture of my father and my stepmother, Sarah Doughty, in September of 2016, on my last visit with my father in Victoria, B.C. I treasure it: you can see the love and caring in her face, and the utter trust in his. The sun had just come out from behind the low clouds and filled his room with radiance.
So much of his memory had been erased by then—in some moments, he was still the diplomat who spoke of behalf of Canada at the United Nations. In other moments, he was my father. In yet other moments, he was a frightened, confused child-man whom I longed to gather in my arms and protect.
The cruelty of his illness notwithstanding, it had also given each of us the gift his forgetting anything about our occasionally strained father and son relationship except the literal present, the here and now. All that was left was love and wonder.
My father died the following summer, in 2017. We lost Sarah last week.
So many of my friends have had disappointing evil stepmother stories—I have none. This elegant, gracious, intelligent, stoic Englishwoman gave my father his life back after the loss of my mother. Sarah never tried to replace my mother; she treated my brother and I with respect from the start, and with love right up to the end.
While he was alive, Sarah frequently acted as a buffer between my father and I when either of us became abrasive to the other. In his last years, she smoothed a path so that my last memories of him are profoundly sweet ones.
I will miss her humour and her kindness, and I'm grateful to have had the privilege of her presence in my life. She taught me a great deal without ever intending to.
She's free of pain now, and that alone is a reason for joy, not tears. The heart however is illogical that way. The tears come and go of their own volition. But they're for my loss, not her free flight.
Rest well, beauty. And thank you for staying here on earth with us awhile.
