“Oops… I forgot to tell you!” – Suzanne Partridge
February 5th, 2025 by Suzanne Partridge, Haven Bodyworker
If you’re wondering where I am these days, I’m home and well. At least as well as anyone can be
given a dementia diagnosis. It’s frustrating, at times harrowing and we’re handling it as best we can.
I say ‘we’, meaning my husband Dale, who is 82 and rudely says “welcome to my club”, with the good
humour we rely upon these days. He says ‘cognitive decline’ is natural, forgiving himself for many
times having the same sense of being lost or forgetting something as I do occasionally. “It used to be
called old age, so you don’t even qualify”, he says. Today we have lots of labels, yet still no cure.
Amazingly, over the last months working at The Haven, I’m like ‘Superman’, as if I’d jumped in a
phone booth to come out an entirely different person – like him, able to fly. As soon as I know I am
going to be doing my beloved Reflexology by Suzanne, at home or at Haven, a whole new energy
and ‘can do’ takes over. Despite that, right now the doctor says I should not work. I’m on a new
medication, so we’ll see if it changes anything, and I hope it does. I don’t want to just ‘stop working’. I
want to celebrate the joy and satisfaction I’ve had thanks to Haven and my pal and colleague Elfi
Shaw. It was she who invited me to join her in the Bodywork Department, to offer my services and
integrate them to the needs of clients and leaders during programs. During Haven’s heyday, with Ben
and Jock there to cheer us on and appreciate our contributions, Elfi and I reveled at being part of the
larger team: thank you Elfi, thank you Jock… and yes, thank you Ben and Joann. It’s been nearly 33
years of bliss for me, all because Mary Holdgrafer, my boss at the Edmonton School Board, paid for
me to take a Come Alive in 1988… can you imagine?
So, I’ll likely be around at times, hopefully to work again and certainly to see my dear friends at Mad
Rona’s. Yes, Martie, I’ll be by to share a coffee and get Dale his beloved brownies.
Regardless, I easily choke up thinking about all the friends, clients and Haven colleagues that have
made my life the joy it’s been at Haven. We’ve had so much fun, shared tears, enjoyed so many
amazing experiences, from honouring our many Haven sunsets, to me being twice invited to China
for many weeks. Wow! What can I say – thank you, thank you, thank you…
