AYNSLIE RUTH MACPHERSON

Aynslie would never have made it to heaven if she had to find her car keys to get there. It’s a good thing that an exceptionally kind heart and an unconditionally open mind were enough.

She is lovingly remembered by her daughters: Sandi Hagenaars (Henry)  and grandson Rick (Danielle), great- granddaughters Nellie and Addie; Tracy (Brad Hutto) and grandson Skyler (Lindsay); Kerri Stokes (Gordy) and grandsons Kav (Agustina) and Ian (Emily); and Tamara Vukusic (Alan) and grandsons Adam and Finn. She was predeceased by her son, Rick, who died at 19. While watching a slideshow in her final days, she said, “I can still smell Rick.” She thought the world of Heather Parrot (the daughter from Dad’s second marriage) and Chris, Natalie, and Andrew. This connection in her last year of life was very healing for her.

She was also predeceased by her parents, Ray and Marjorie McDermott Buckland, and her brother Brian.

She was a fixture in Riverview in her childhood, attending Riverview Elementary and Gordon Bell High School, and returned for her last 47 years. Robin’s Donuts, the Royal Bank, Safeway, Vesuvio Pizza, Woo’s Cafe, The Oakwood Cafe, and The Park Theatre were all places that felt like home. The people she met in “the Rouge” mattered to her. A woman she met outside Fred Tipping Place, who loaned her I Love Lucy movies. The bank teller whose new kitten she babysat for a day. The list is long.

As a teen, she swam on the Manitoba swim team and was a star high school basketball player. As a grandmother, she floored us all in games like ping-pong (literally, we would have to hit the floor). Her impeccable eye-hand coordination and competitive nature meant no one was spared.

Aynslie sacrificed completing her nursing degree to start her family. She gobsmacked us with her deep understanding of medicine and her ability to diagnose all things ending in -itis, -osis, and -opia. It made one uneasy when she suspiciously eyed an appendage. In her last week of life, while being cared for by her daughters in her home, she was spouting off medical words like tabes dorsalis, St. Vitus’ Dance, intermittent claudication, olecranon, and salicin.

She was a loving and resourceful mother to five children. She had the first four within five years and could pin a cloth diaper with one hand while plunging the toilet. She babysat other kids to make ends meet while Dad was a medical student at McGill. She mastered frugality and made things last, be it sewing on buttons, darning holes, lengthening, shortening, or patching. There was no waste. Ever.

In the Tuxedo years, she was a strict but playful mom. We weren’t allowed to play with our Christmas gifts until thank-you notes had been written. A toy had to be put away before a new one was taken out. But, if it was snowing, she was the first out the door to build snow forts.

She was never one for cooking, but we didn’t quite expect her last meal request to be a hot dog. Mom loved the simple things. It was a source of pride that her Rice Krispies squares were the first to be scooped up at bake sales on account of their golden colour (she used margarine). A special breakfast was Cheez Whiz on bread, topped with scrambled eggs, or cinnamon and brown sugar toast. Sleepovers at friends’ homes were a disappointment because we discovered that not everyone adds chocolate chips to the pancake batter.

Mom was breathtakingly beautiful. We remember her outside on the school grounds at Laidlaw Elementary, shooting hoops from the top of the key in her hot pants (short shorts), with a baby in utero as big as the ball.

After school, our dining room would transform into a study hall. She was a relentless tutor. She’d drill us on French verbs or the nine times table until we knew them as well as our own name. We’re pretty certain these will be the last things we forget in this life. She had creative ways of remembering things: mnemonics, alliteration, or association. Often it worked, but sometimes it was a disaster.

Later, when it was just Mom and Tammy in Riverview, she was a trailblazer and a free spirit. Simple things made her happy: a Junior’s burger, a Wendy’s Frosty, a Coke Slurpee. She was impulsive and game, from hitting the drive-thru for a Whopper at 10 pm on a school night in PJs, to buying a 14-foot motorboat at a garage sale. We had sleepovers on the boat tied to the dock, but rarely took it out on the river. When we did, every Redboine Boat Club member came running to help buffer our return.

She was a movie buff and took great pride in knowing details from hundreds of movies. She wrote out the names of actors and every movie they star in on index cards. And she memorized them. She was a bit smug about her ability to rattle off every Morgan Freeman movie or the name of every actor in the Three Colours Trilogy. Her hundreds of VHS tapes and DVDs were organized in alphabetical order, but her kitchen drawers ran amok. She was also a voracious reader. Her reading picks were dictated by what was available at the Winnipeg Public Library used book sales.

Mom was frugal and wildly resourceful. She squished the end bits of soap together to form Franken-soap, and she bragged that she could towel off after a shower with a facecloth. Her mantra was “close the door”, be it the front door or the fridge, with a nod to the electric bill. She walked to Robin’s Donuts every day to gather money tips from the free copy of The Financial Times. When Robin’s closed, she walked the hour-and-a-half loop to McDonald’s several days a week for their $1 coffee.

Her creativity knew no bounds, and she could turn salvaged items into a statement piece or whip up an art installation from driftwood and leaves (much to our horror, sometimes suspended from the ceiling). She prided herself on fixing things with what she had on hand, jerry-rigging and repurposing relentlessly. We all ribbed her for keeping too much stuff and then found ourselves humbly poking through her piles, finding exactly what we needed.

She was the person you wanted on your apocalypse team. She was a quick-thinking problem solver who could engineer a solution from items in the recycling bin, and she was calm, collected, and laser-focused in an emergency (but only in an emergency). She insulated her attic and laid a subfloor over top, and painted the entire exterior of her cottage with a 2-inch paintbrush.

She usually rebuffed offers of assistance. When she accepted help, she hovered with very specific and detailed instructions. If you were in her home, you were prey to her exhaustive lessons, like how to fix a broken toilet handle or hard-wire a light fixture. Later in life we wished we had listened a little harder.

Sometimes we wanted to crawl under the table or hide behind a tree when she struck up a conversation with an unsuspecting stranger. But we softened as we watched how they responded to her. She made others feel good about themselves.

Mom would anticipate every possible thing that might go wrong, and she fired off questions to make sure you had all bases covered. Did your tires have deep enough treads? Did you locate the emergency exit at the concert? Did you remember to buy travel insurance? We teased that she was the founder of the Calamity Club.

She would throw herself fully into new interests. The Omega Juicer. The perils of sodium. The merits of stevia. The dark side of nitrates. These interests came in waves, and she was dogged about gathering evidence to build a case in favour of or against her latest revelation.

In her 80s, she lifted weights at the Fort Rouge Leisure Centre. Before COVID ground things to a halt, she hit a workout record of 146 days in a row (including Sundays). She swam laps at Bonivital Pool often, never settling for fewer than 100 lengths.

Victoria Beach was a very important part of her life for more than half a century. She wintered over in her uninsulated cabin one entire fierce Manitoba winter, and she was still climbing up on the roof to remove moss (when no one was looking) into her 80th year. When she was unable to drive, Sandi and Henry took her on frequent trips to Victoria Beach. In her final days of life, she travelled there in her mind. It was her happy place.

In her last year, she spent hours marvelling at the squirrel and bird circus that unfolded outside her front window. The small herd of deer that slept in her backyard during winter became unnamed pets.

In her 89th year, people still commented that she was beautiful. And she was. But she yearned to be recognized with words like “smart” and “clever”. In her final weeks, we played catch-up. We filled the days reminding her of the breadth of knowledge she bestowed on us. There was so much.

Aynslie lived 40 years of her life single and fiercely independent. She showed her four daughters that women are capable of carving out a space for themselves and living a full life on their own terms. She provided more than a decade of care - eventually daily care - to her aging parents. The years of dedication and care for dependents (both children and parents) total a whopping 39 years.

She enjoyed a close relationship with her home care workers for the past six years. Special thanks to Martha, Angelie, and Terry. They say she worried about their comfort more than her own, always reminding them to button up their coats and drive safely in the snow. She loved them.

Thanks to the Medicine Shoppe Osborne team for their compassion in tending to Aynslie’s shifting needs with Parkinson’s.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in-home palliative care team was beyond exemplary. We encourage families to learn about their offerings before they are needed.

Her former neighbours and dear friends for 30 years, Beth, Michael, and Bronwyn Smyth, treated her like family, and she adored them all. Their dogs, too.

In Aynslie’s memory, tell the smart and clever girls and women in your life that they are so much more than beautiful.

If you would like to reach the family or share a memory, please email Tamara (Tammy) at tamarainkamloops@shaw.ca.

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ETHICAL DEATH CARE

Cremation & Life Celebrations

1833 Portage Avenue - Winnipeg

204-421-5501 - www.ethicaldeathcare.com

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