Brenda Rae Pachal

Brenda Pachal, 67, passed away in the early evening hours Thursday, October 5, at her residence in Aberdeen Hospital, Hillside Unit, Victoria, B.C. of complications of Multiple Sclerosis. Predeceased by both her parents, Raymond and Valerie Killeen, Brenda is survived by her sons, Travis and Brendan Pachal and families, her sister Vanda Killeen and family, and her aunt Susan Bergkvist and family.

Born in Calgary, Alberta in 1956, Brenda lived her first five years in Lethbridge before the family moved to Edmonton in 1961. That same year Brenda’s younger sister Vanda was born. Brenda attended Lauderdale Elementary, Killarney Junior High and Queen Elizabeth High School, on the city’s north side. Through the 60s, the family lived in a rowhouse complex, full of big and little families and a strong sense of community. Brenda was a champion of the underdog and in addition to making her little sister feel safe, she took other shy and/or bullied kids in the neighbourhood under her wing, always willing to throw down her books and come to the fists-up defence of anyone being picked on.

Brenda was a talented swimmer and in addition to achieving the Red Cross swimming levels (up to and including Bronze Medallion) and working part-time as a lifeguard, she swam competitively for several years with a north Edmonton Swim Club. With her little sister pedalling furiously behind her, several days a week they would get up at 5:30 a.m., ride their bikes down the road to the pool, practice laps and tumble turns and dives, ride back home, eat breakfast and go to school. Brenda quit competitive swimming when she was about 15; Vanda quit a few days later because it turned out her favourite part of swimming was doing it with her big sister.

Like many girls, Brenda was horse-crazy. Her bedroom walls were decorated with horse posters, she had a subscription to Western Horseman magazine and was the proud owner of some fabulous cowboy boots. One dreamy summer when she was about 13, Brenda’s parents purchased a ‘horse for a month’ from a nearby stable. For that month, the horse was Brenda’s, to feed, groom and ride at will. Going riding at stables around Edmonton was a regular weekend activity for Brenda and of course, her tag-along younger sister. Sigh …

If Brenda’s childhood sounds idyllic, well, heed the times. A child of the 60s and a teenager and young woman of the 70s, Brenda jumped with both feet into the turbulence and confusion, excitement and danger, brightness and darkness of the times. Always fiercely strong and independent, Brenda, like many of her friends and classmates, crammed a LOT of living into the 70s. With her parents doing their version of the same thing, life at home wasn’t easy and when she was 16, Brenda made good on her many threats to run away. She got all the way to Seattle before the RCMP found her and brought her home to Edmonton. In those pre-rehab times, Brenda spent some time at a provincial mental institution where, she told me years later, she “got the best pot” she ever had.

After she moved out on her own when she was 18, Brenda decorated her little studio apartment with several big, lush plants. When asked where she got them, she said she “picked them up” from apartment building lobbies when she was leaving parties. And there was the story she told of sitting in her car one evening, fixing her hair and doing a lip touch-up before going into a house party. She walked in smiling, greeting friends and mingling around. Eventually she went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, to see her lips covered in concealer. In other words, not seeing her lips.

After high school, Brenda developed a very successful career in accounting in the oil and gas sector. Life rolled along, she married and had two sons, Travis and Brendan. Both boys were still little in 1988, a ‘milestone’ year, for all the wrong reasons. At the young, prime-of-life age of 32, Brenda was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS. The news was devastating for Brenda and her family. She started a course of treatment and in her usual way, was determined to not let the MS intrude. In the early 90s, Brenda and her young family (including her beloved Australian Shepherd, Sport) moved to Plamondon, near Lac La Biche, where they built a house in the country and Brenda raised goats and chickens (with dreams of getting a horse, of course).

Nothing really goes as planned though, does it? Brenda’s marriage broke up not long after the move to Plamondon. When her two sons moved east to Winnipeg with their father, she responded by moving as far west as she could, to Vancouver Island. Moving the family to Plamondon, building a house, a broken marriage and dissolving a household, the heartbreak of her sons leaving, then packing up and making a massive move from northern Alberta to the Island … all took a huge toll on Brenda’s health; one she never recovered from.

From her first landing in Parksville in 1998, Brenda tried to live on her own and independently for as long as she could, moving around the Island (Nanoose Bay, Qualicum, French Creek) in search of safe, affordable housing and health care. Unable to work and with never enough government subsidy to meet the Island’s high housing and living costs, and unable to obtain reliable, effective home care, much of Brenda’s early years on the Island were spent suffering through unhealthy and unsafe living conditions, for which she paid a steep price with her physical and mental health.

In 2008 Brenda’s MS progressed to the point where she needed daily assistance and care. She found this, and more, in Aberdeen Hospital, Long-Term Care, in Victoria. It was a big adjustment for Brenda and it took some time for Aberdeen to feel like home. But over the years she came to love her humble ‘home’ in Aberdeen. As she settled in and got the good care she had needed for so long, more of the ‘old’ Brenda returned. With her cheerfulness and authenticity, Brenda made many good friends, who she enjoyed sitting in the sun and chatting with on smoke breaks.

Brenda was not a complainer and she wouldn’t want me to carry on about the many struggles she faced and overcame, most related to the DAMN MS that she lived with for more than half her life. She would want me, and everyone, to focus on the good times, and the good memories, and the good laughs and love we shared with her. My sister taught and gave me many things that I will carry with me through my life (like, you should wear flip flops to bed during bad thunder and lightning storms – you just never know!). But I think the biggest thing is that there is no relationship in life that compares to that of sisters. Nobody else has known you so long or so well, nobody else can read your mind and peer through your soul like a sister can. And that’s how I know my beautiful, funny, smart, most special sister is always with me. Lucky me.

“Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life.”