I met Gordon in Walking Group 47. He makes it very clear, in this presentation, that the friends made in this Walking Group are the ones that have helped him the most.

Gordon is an outgoing and energetic man whose life is completely dominated by a ten pound dog. However, life does go on, and that little dog is having, I am happy to say, a bit of competition these days.

When John asked me to speak about my experience of Hospice Walking Groups, my first reaction was that this is something that I am not able to do. This is a perfectly normal reaction considering the fact that the fear of public speaking is the number one fear for most people, including me. However, I felt compelled to accept John’s invitation since the Walking Group Program has become one of the most important events in my life. You may think that I am exaggerating, but believe me, I am not!

To understand why I feel so strongly about this experience, you need to know a little about why I was even vaguely interested in joining a group of people whom I thought would consist largely of the depressed and the lonely. By the way, this assumption proved to be very wrong indeed.

My Rosemary died six months after she was diagnosed with cancer, one year after my closest friend, Tom, and four

months before my brother died. It was, to put it mildly, a very stressful and busy six months. We had doctors’ appointments, specialist consultations, chemo, radiation, hospital stays, hopeful days, tears, and even some laughs. When the end of Rosemary’s life came, everything was managed beautifully by Hospice, a truly amazing organization about which not enough can be said!

Once Rosemary was gone, I could now suffer the horror of survival, a reality that I didn’t consider while I was helping her with her fight. We shared a common enemy and goal, and we had been busy focusing on the struggle. I had no idea how difficult it would be to survive without a purpose; I had no idea at all. I fell into a pit of blackness and depression that was so painful that, thankfully, I can’t really remember clearly what it was like. I survived ninety to one hundred and sixty days that I don’t really remember. Basically, my dog saved my life at this point because she demanded my time. I ran my business by rote; I was a zombie, just staggering along. My life was a total mess.

Hospice, as usual, timed its reappearance in my life perfectly. I was told about a Wednesday drop-in group at St Aidans’ Church, and I managed to get myself there. I learned about the Walking Group Program and the Saturday night social. I was lucky to get into Walking Group 47, and my recovery was well under way.

The first few walks were a little stiff as we, the walking wounded, began to find our feet. After we took over the responsibility for our walking group, it really became something that I looked forward to each Saturday at 10 a.m. We have walked the Songhees, Beacon Hill Park, Beaver Lake, the Galloping Goose Trail, and many other wonderful routes.

Let me be clear. The new friends that I have made through this great group have restored my faith in what makes life worthwhile. When we first met, we were a very disjointed group of lost souls, but as we walked, we came together in spite of being very different people of all ages and backgrounds.

The great thing is that, although we have all suffered huge losses in our lives, we have no need to explain ourselves to anyone. Everyone understands, so when we have bad days or weeks there is always someone to hear us out and support us. We have drunk hundreds of gallons of coffee, most of it pretty awful, but we have also enjoyed some really great laughs and fun together. We have had complete strangers ask us why we are so happy, and when they hear that we are a Hospice Walking Group, they are just amazed.

The price of membership in our very exclusive group is extremely high; that fact is why I hope most people never qualify to join. I will be forever grateful that my walking group existed when I needed it. My Rosie would have loved my new friends, and they would have loved her.