“If I wake up in the morning, it is a wonderful day,” said Clara, a senior who quietly guards her age and has lived most of her life in Mission.
“I am going to fight to be independent and make it stay that way.”
Clara is a client of the Mission Community Services Society (MCSS) Better At Home program for seniors, and claims a call and rides to emergency and a vascular surgeon by coordinator Debbie Daoust, saved her life after the swelling in her legs became extreme, indicating heart trouble.
“I would be dead if she didn’t do what she did,” said Clara, mother to a son in Abbotsford and a daughter who died of cancer in 2000. “I have three granddaughters and one grandson.”
Clara likes to drive and to make her own meals, but has enjoyed MCSS volunteer medical rides when needed, income tax services, and special MCSS Food Centre deliveries.
“I am so thankful to MCSS,” said Clara who enjoys playing the penny slots at the local casino and works on craft projects to earn a little money and to remedy her arthritis.
“I enjoy the soups, canned food, and crackers from the Food Centre. What I don’t use I share,” she said, adding that home care arrives twice a month to do laundry, vacuum, wash floors, change the bed, and clean the bathroom.
Clara worked for 20 years at Vic Wallace Insurance in Mission, and remembers a time when she walked up Main Street and said Hi to everyone. “I’ve lived a good part of the history in Mission. I’ve seen it grow. Sometimes I wish we could go back to the 1950s.”
Meanwhile she counts on those regular calls from Debbie at MCSS. “They mean a lot.”