A sad story today about separation….but at its core it reveals the beauty of commitment.
Wolfram Gottschalk and his wife Anita of Surrey, British Colombia have been married 62 years, but for the past eight months they’ve had to live apart.
The elderly couple has been forced to live in different aged care homes because they were unable to find one that would admit both of them. The separation has been a heartbreaking time for the couple and their entire family.
The couple’s granddaughter Ashley Bartyik wrote in a facebook post “This is the saddest photo I have ever taken,’ accompanying a photo of her grandparents wiping away tears as they prepare to say goodbye to each other.
For the last eight months, Wolf has been on the waiting list to move into the nursing home where his wife lives. But because of what Bartyik calls, “backlogs and delays by our health care system,” no one can tell them when this might happen. A wait made all the more agonising by the fact that Wolf is suffering from dementia and now has been diagnosed with lymphoma. The nursing home says the problem is increased level of care needed by Wolf.
The family does what it can. Bartyik says she or someone else in her family make the 30-minute drive with Anita to see Wolf every other day.
A spokeswoman for Fraser Health, the local health authority, told CTV News. “We continue to work to reunite this couple and hope to do so in the next few weeks.”