When Lynn McNamara was told she had only two months left to live, she didn’t change a thing about her life.
The 62-year-old woman was one of the lucky ones. But for the cancer she had lived with, on and off, for almost 20 years, Lynn loved the life she lived, focused on her family, dogs, career and garden.
That garden, since finished by her husband, Paul, is part of the Teeny Tiny Garden Tour on Sunday, June 11, a fundraiser for Victoria Hospice.
“Victoria Hospice gave us so much during the final months of Lynn’s life,” Paul said. “I’m really happy to share the garden and help raise awareness about the wonderful service Victoria Hospice provides to our community. We’re so fortunate to have it.”
The 12th annual Teeny Tiny Garden Tour lets you wander through 12 gardens in the Fernwood, Hillside, Lansdowne, Braefoot and Gordon Head areas from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The self-guided tour showcases a variety of gardens ranging from the truly tiny to larger gardens too good not to be shared.
Proceeds from the event (tickets are $25) support Victoria Hospice’s end-of-life care programs. Events such as this are crucial for Victoria Hospice, since donations and fundraising make up almost half of its annual operating costs. In 2016, almost $3.5 million came from donors and fundraising.
That is critical to Hospice’s ongoing operations, ensuring patients receive expert palliative care at the hospice unit, or 24-hour support at home from Victoria Hospice’s palliative response team, as the McNamara family had.
The money also goes toward counselling services, support for families, a volunteer program, rooftop garden and music therapy.
“Victoria Hospice is incredibly fortunate to have strong support from our generous community,” said Mischelle vanThiel, chief executive officer of Victoria Hospice.
“The funds raised through events such as the Teeny Tiny Garden tour help us to provide the best care and comfort for our patients and their families. Hospice palliative care is about living your life — and living it well — right to the end.”
Like thousands of others helped by Victoria Hospice, Lynn had cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994 and had various surgeries and treatments, each of which bought her time, Paul said. During this, she lived a happy and busy life, raising their two daughters and the family’s various dogs and working for the provincial government in adoption placement, a career she loved.
The couple also loved buying fixer-uppers and doing the work needed to bring them back to life.
“Between the two of us, we just really enjoyed fixing up houses and making them nice. That and gardening were two things that we always did together,” Paul said.
Lynn loved gardening and wanted to get every plant that would grow in the West Coast climate in the garden. Paul, a retired social worker and now an artist, helped with garden design. “We were a pretty good team.”
They bought their home on Burdick Avenue in 1994.
“It was a gem in the rough,” Paul said. The back yard had virtually no landscaping but for one overgrown red maple. The McNamaras went to work, slowly creating the path-filled garden, with small surprises wherever you wander. Turn toward the garage and there’s a fountain almost hidden, surrounded with tile work that echoes that inside the house. Glance back in another corner and there’s a fish pond. And that red maple is now a centerpiece, shaped over the years so it looks like a large bonsai.
Even with all the elegance, the garden is friendly and invites children and dogs to run on its brick paths. The family loves dogs and is never without one. They started with a Standard Collie and then had four Dobermans. Lynn’s friend had one and she fell in love with the breed.
“Lynn had one very special smile in particular that only came out with babies and puppies,” said Paul.
The couple also tackled the inside of the 1933 house, updating original wiring and windows and revamping all the rooms. The couple did some of the work themselves. “Lynn loved to save money,” Paul laughed.
They didn’t change the layout of the house but redid it all in warm colours and textures. A sunroom at the back of the house went from a dusty rose monument to the 1980s to an open yet cozy room with large fir windows that bring the garden inside.
“We liked slate, wood, plants and light. Everything here is kind of natural. We wanted to feel like we were close to the garden.”
In 2010, Lynn was diagnosed with another form of breast cancer. This cancer didn’t respond to treatment.
She was given an estimated two years to live.
“She decided she wanted to keep living her life the way she had been. She didn’t do anything particularly different. She just lived every day with a sense of appreciation for that day that I don’t think most of us have,” Paul said.
As the disease progressed, Lynn made choices.
“Lynn researched everything, and this was no different. She studied all the available options and was very clear she did not want to go into hospital for her end-of-life care.”
The family met with Victoria Hospice, which set up in-home care for Lynn. When doctors told the family Lynn had about two months left to live, their daughters Erin and Kate returned to the family home, as did Lynn’s brother Craig.
“The five of us were together as a family for the end of her life,” Paul said. Their Doberman, Olivia, slept on the bed with Lynn the last two weeks of her life.
The Victoria Hospice home care program provides medical care as well as support for the dying person and the family.
“We couldn’t have done it without Victoria Hospice. We wouldn’t have attempted it,” Paul said. “With hospice people, it’s not just a job. It’s a vocation.”
A week before Lynn died, a hospice counselor organized a “family meeting.” It wasn’t the type of thing the family usually did, Paul said, but he realized that the painkillers were making Lynn more and more distant.
“Lynn wanted to say her actual goodbyes to all of us while she still could. The counselor realized that and made it happen.”
Lynn died a week later, on Sept. 14, 2012.
Every summer since, Paul and his daughters have gathered to celebrate her life and the happy times they shared. This summer marks five years since her death and the completion of the plans that the couple made 25 years ago when they moved into their dream home on Burdick.
“The only wish that Lynn had as she approached the end of her life in the summer of 2012 was that she not be forgotten,” Paul said. “I hope sharing our garden and our home will keep Lynn’s memory alive. This year my daughters and I will be overjoyed to be able share our celebration of Lynn’s life with others.”
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What: Teeny Tiny Garden Tour
Where: 12 private gardens in the Fernwood, Hillside, Lansdowne, Braefoot and Gordon Head areas
When: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 11
Tickets: $25 at Capital Iron, Dig This, Heart Pharmacy IDA, Garden Works and more. For a list, go to victoriahospice.org/events/12th-annual-teeny-tiny-garden-tour
