Woman helped those with same illness
Published Friday November 13th, 2009
QUISPAMSIS - Cathy Geddes never shed a tear of sadness over the illness she fought for 10 years before it claimed her life on Nov. 3, her husband says.
"She was an amazing woman. I knew she was special when I married her but I didn't know she had the strength to look death in the face," long-time Quispamsis resident Lowell Geddes said. "She accepted the things she could not change."
Wrapped in the arms of her husband, Cathy died at the age of 58 in her North Sydney home with the song Time to Say Goodbye by Sarah Brightman playing.
Cathy died of a rare form of cancer that targets cells in a person's digestive and respiratory tract and causes slow-growing tumors in the body. Geddes said it is an often misdiagnosed form of cancer that Cathy spent years researching and understanding after her 1999 diagnosis.
She used her knowledge and personal struggles to help others, through the Carcinoid NeuroEndocrine Tumor Society of Canada. Geddes said she would talk to newly-diagnosed people to help them understand and cope with the complicated and deadly disease.
Geddes said Cathy was a shy, quiet and generous woman who inspired people with her strength and courage.
Her friend Michael MacDonald said she had inner beauty that radiated and a smile that never left her lips.
"She taught me about life. It has its ups and downs," MacDonald said. "Whenever I started to pity myself or feel down I would think of Cathy and I think of the illness she was dealing with and how positive she maintained herself. She projected a very positive aura and never complained about anything and I would say to myself 'take some direction from Cathy'."
Geddes said he first saw Cathy at a high school in Cape Breton where they both lived. He said he was dating someone else at the time but met up with her two years later and fell madly in love.
He said their engagement occurred on Halloween night. He placed the diamond ring in an apple and tried to get her to take a bite so she would find it. However, he said, she kept insisting she was not hungry and didn't want the apple so he eventually had to bite into the apple himself to release the ring from its hiding spot.
He was attending university in Halifax while she worked in Cape Breton for CN when they decided suddenly they could not wait to be married.
"She came to Halifax by train, and I picked her up there and I said, 'We are engaged now,' and I loved her dearly, and I said, 'When do you want to get married?' And she said, 'Now.' So, away we went," Geddes said.
They were married days later by a justice of the peace. He said their parents didn't mind because they knew how madly in love they were.
He said she was a precious, beautiful person inside and out, and he knew instantly he loved her because he couldn't tell her a lie.
They later moved to Quispamsis where they stayed for 22 years.
It was there they fell in love with motorcycles and sports cars and would take trips to places in Canada and the U.S. where they would make friends along the way and enjoy nature.
He said Cathy loved baking, cooking, nature, birds, flowers and crossword puzzles. He said she had a perfect score on the New York Times crossword several times.
She was also a ravenous reader who, he said, would lug home three bags of books about Early Irish European history from the library and finish them in a few weeks time.
He said because of her overwhelming ability to forgive they never had a fight.
"I screwed up, I said I was sorry and she forgave me," Geddes said. "She was always so forgiving, she said, 'Forget about the past, let's move on,' and she didn't hold a grudge."
Geddes said there were many occasions when Cathy had the right to be mad at people and chose not to argue, but to forgive. "'If the two of us cannot agree, let the bigger man be me'," he said, quoting his wife.
Her funeral was held on Saturday at the St. Joseph Church in North Sydney. Geddes said he hopes to continue her legacy by promoting the education about her rare form of cancer and asks that anyone wishing to help please donate to the Carcinoid NeuroEndocrine Tumor Society of Canada.
"St. Thomas Aquinas said, 'If you live the good life you will be rewarded'," Geddes said. "Well she and I have been rewarded."
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