“Be Good to One Another” – Bob Fry’s story

by Susan Haldane, based on an interview with Joanne Fry

It was Joanne’s birthday, and her husband Bob had died just three weeks before, of colon cancer caused by exposures in his job as a firefighter. Joanne’s brother, who lives out of town, often sent flowers for her birthday, so when the doorbell rang she wasn’t surprised to find a flower delivery. Then she glanced at the card which read ‘My love for you is eternal, love Bob’.

“That’s something you’d see in a movie, but that’s the man he was,” Joanne says. “That he was worried about my birthday, and what I was gonna do, so he made my daughter promise that she would send me flowers from him every year. I get the same card every year. My love for you is eternal. Love, Bob.”

Joanne will grieve the love of her life forever, but nearly 13 years since his death, she has found ways to be happy and live the life she believes Bob would want her to live.

“I cried every day for ten years,” she says. “I never thought it would take so long to stop crying. I don’t think I’ll ever get over his death, but I can talk about him now without crying. I’m lucky to have had that kind of love.”

Bob and Joanne had known each other through mutual friends for a while, but one night at a party Bob gave her a kiss and she truly noticed him for the first time and decided she “kinda” liked him. When he invited her out for supper not long after, she refused, feeling that as a single mom, her focus should be on her daughter. Then her daughter told her to call him back. 

“And I did. And if she wouldn’t have done that, I would have missed out on the best thing in my life,” Joanne says. “And we went out for supper, and we saw each other every day after that.”

The two married, again with the urging of Joanne’s daughter and the acceptance of Bob’s own kids. They loved doing simple things together with the kids – riding bikes, swimming, going to the park or just renting movies and watching them together. Joanne and Bob were married for 23 years.

Bob was a firefighter his whole career, and was exposed to many toxins now known to be the products of combustion when houses and buildings burn. He retired in his late-50s and not long after he started feeling tired all the time. He mentioned to Joanne that he’d lost 10 pounds. As a nurse, she was concerned and encouraged him to go to the doctor. A blood test revealed his iron was low “and I knew that if you’re low on iron, something’s eating it,” Joanne says. “I just knew then.”

After more tests, Bob was diagnosed with cancer. That was October, and he died only five months later. At one point Bob had been part of a crew fighting a chemical fire, and all 22 firefighters died of cancer. Bob was the last one. The Workers Compensation Board in Saskatchewan accepted their claim for compensation – most compensation boards have policies that automatically presume certain cancers in firefighters are work-related.

Bob spent most of those five months at home with Joanne as his caregiver. It was a nightmare, she says, watching this big, strong man whittle away to nothing. His funeral was attended by hundreds of people, and reinforced for Joanne and her family how much Bob was respected and how many people he had touched.

After his death, Joanne and her daughter tried to support one another, and she had supportive friends as well, but at one point she realized she was trying to avoid her grief. 

“Being a psychiatric nurse, I knew I had to go through it, but it didn’t help,” she says. “I finally realized I couldn’t run away and I had to go through it.” She had experienced loss and understood about grieving, but that didn’t make it any easier. She cried every day and didn’t feel she was making much progress. On the tenth anniversary of his death, she was in Mexico and feeling very angry with herself. She knew Bob would want her to be happy.

“Something just snapped in me on that 10th anniversary,” Joanne says, “and I thought, he would have wanted me to enjoy my life, and that’s when I walked to the beach, and I had my card, and I walked into a hotel, and I said, I want to reserve a place for two months next year. And I just started traveling and enjoying myself, and realized, you know, you’ve got to go on, and you’ve got to enjoy yourself, and that’s what he wants you to do. And I did.”

Now, she mainly feels gratitude for the man Bob was, for the time they had together, and the love they shared.

This winter, Joanne will be back at the same beach where she had what she thinks of as her ‘awakening’. She’ll take some of Bob’s ashes with her – she carries them wherever she travels. And she’ll continue to try to live by his motto, which she had inscribed on his urn: “Be Good to One Another”. It’s what Bob would have wanted.

Finding comfort in signs of Bob

After a loved one dies, lots of people have some sign that helps them feel close to the one they’ve lost – dragonflies, certain birds, even dimes. For Joanne, it’s the number 39. When her sister was dying, as a nurse Joanne happened to be taking her pulse at the moment when it stopped. She glanced at the clock: 10:39. On a visit to her cottage soon after, she noticed the clock had stopped at 10:39 and she never re-set it. While Bob was ill, he told her that whenever she saw the number 39, that would be him. 

“And every morning, every single morning, probably for the last 12 years, the first time I look at the clock in the morning, it’s 39.” It’s reassurance that their connection continues.