Dr. Rob Parker, an official with the Interior Health Authority, confirmed that an elderly woman from the Interior who ate cheese that contained e.coli, died because of the bacteria.
It’s not just about an elderly woman passing away from e.coli. When you read elderly woman, our society depicts a picture of a frail 82-year-old woman at the end of her life.
In fact, Corry Van Der Linde was full of life before being poisoned by e.coli.
It is about a mother of three, a grandmother of 20, a great-grandmother of 38 and a wife of almost 60 years. It’s about a healthy, robust woman that was nowhere near ready to die.
Somehow, it was less of a tragedy because she was 82 and not 18. The fact remains, that the last few weeks of Corry’s life were horrific.
Our life will remain incomplete without the media. The newspaper is just one avenue through which to get information.
The common people believe the news given by the media. So that is why it is so important to be careful with words.
The word elderly has a visual connotation of weak, lived a full life or even an “oh well” attitude. There is no respect given to our elderly in some cases.
We comfort ourselves by using the word elderly as if it is not as bad as it could have been. Corry was not ready to die.
This was a feisty woman who held her own in many ways.
Yet the media nonchalantly depicts her as an elderly woman. Why? Do we, the readers, need to know the details of being elderly. A human life is a human life.
Corry had a zeal for life prior to this horrible incident. She was a jokester and always had something to say to make you laugh.
They were actively involved in their church, enjoyed visiting friends and were simple God-fearing people.
A relationship between a son and mother had been restored over the past couple of years. Where there was once pain and sorrow, was now love and laughter.
Dick says, “I used to walk into her home in the morning and the joke was there was no chat until the first coffee was poured. I will miss that.” With tears streaming down his face, Dick says, “It’s about the very little time I had to do what I wanted to do with my mom.”
Corry Van Der Lind’s life was ended too early and the whole one line about elderly “just doesn’t cut the cheese,” spoke Dick Van Der Linde.
Carrie O’Neill
