AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Cassandra Patrick and I take my dog Ziggy for walks in a stroller.
I grew up in St James until age 22 when I got married and moved to Westmoorings, where I still live. We have one daughter, Danielle. I come from a huge family, ten brothers and two sisters. I am number 11. Yes, we were a very Catholic family. When I said there were 13 of us, the first thing would come out of people’s mouths was, “Ay, your parents didn’t have a TV or what?”
I am Catholic. I went into a church last week for the first time since my husband’s funeral in 2019. My faith during that whole ordeal, was very strong but diminished over time. My mother and my sister are, like, staunch-staunch Catholics. I went to Catholic schools, Mucurapo Girls RC and then on to Holy Name. I try as much as possible to follow the faith but I would not say I’m staunch.
When my husband Dennis got sick in 2019, I started to question my faith. Dennis lived around the corner in St James. So I knew him for most of my life. I was friends with his sister at primary school.
After three years, it’s still extremely painful to talk about my husband. I’m doing a lot better than I was a year ago, a few months ago. I will never get over grieving for my husband but I am certainly getting through it. So I look at that as progress.
Dennis did a lot of travelling for work and, in July 2019, he visited five countries in six days and came back home tired. Then he collapsed and I took him to the hospital. We were waiting for the blood work result when we heard a doctor exclaim, “What does it mean when a blood count is 1,000 times what it’s supposed to be!” Dennis immediately started to cry. He had acute myloid leukaemia. He died six weeks after finding out he had AML.
Never in my wildest dreams, when I got on that plane leaving Trinidad to take my husband to hospital in Miami did I think my husband would die. I was in denial for months. I worked through the stages of grief. Anger, guilt… I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that he’s not coming back.
I kept my husband’s stuff for two years. In my crazy head, I thought, “If he comes back, we’ll have to get all his stuff again!”
The company he worked with used to charter ships and wanted to get their own ship. That last five-day trip he went on, they were looking for a shipping company partner. They decided on a Swedish company, Stenna. The CEO of his company, David Cassidy, wanted to name their first ship in honour of Dennis. So they named it Stenna Pro Patria, the Patria coming from our surname, Patrick.
I have these two doggies. Marley loves to walk and play, Ziggy, not so much. After two steps on a walk, Ziggy would just plump himself down and refuse to move – but Marley wants to go! So I would pick Ziggy up in my arms and we’d go around the park. He’s only eight pounds but it adds up over distance. I used to be, like, real sweating. I told my daughter, “I don’t know why someone doesn’t come up with baby-strollers for dogs!”
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