Dean and Donna

Donna and Dean Suggett married 62 years met in Bentley. Alberta. Their life together shows how to live long, appreciating life. Dean is 92 years old, and Donna 87.
Life has been good Dean says, but not always easy. Both Dean and Donna express gratitude for their two loves: the Canadian North and their three children: one girl and two boys. Daughter Anne lives in Vancouver, where she retired recently from occupational hygiene.  Son Jack, the oldest, lives in Calgary. An engineer, he retired in 2022. David lives in Edmonton and is a heavy-duty mechanic and teacher at NAIT.
David and Jack were born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Anne was born in Dawson City, Yukon, with the assistance of a midwife. Donna describes her as a special person from Scandinavia. The midwife, pregnant when she helped delivered Anne, later delivered her own baby because no doctors were available.
Dean loves Northern Canada where working as a radio operator, deciphering flight plans, he used Morse Code, which he likes. However, Dean didn’t like shift work, especially when he and Donna worked opposite shifts.  They lived in Fort Smith and Yellowknife, returning to Edmonton in 1967 and stayed. Their children attended school and David started Kindergarten.
Donna nursed part-time at the Charles Camsell Hospital in Inglewood. Her children didn’t like when Donna worked weekends; therefore, she switched jobs becoming a Science Aide at Parkview School: work she did six years. Then, she studied occupational nursing; work she enjoyed eighteen years.
Life changed as they aged. Over the last 14 years, Dean suffered health setbacks to his sight, heart, and thyroid. Donna says they don’t travel like they used to. Times past, they drove through forty-four of the fifty states in. the United States.
 Donna suggests “Life isn’t as good as it was. Dean agrees their quality of life decreased. His hearing diminishing, he won’t answer the phone. Donna concurs, Dean’s health declined: he has a bad back, hearing and sight loss. Dean says, at times, he looks at Donna and they share a knowing glance anticipating when their lives will end. But they live the life they have fully. They bring out poetry Dean’s written, along with a family album created by Anne, reading aloud, reminiscing, knowing ‘their time’ is coming, but also appreciating the life they have now.