About Betty

Today is a very big day for many of us: not just election day, not just a must-win game for our beloved Toronto Blue Jays, for about five hundred people in our area, it's the start of the curling season. The Collingwood Curling Club opens its season tonight.

Personally, I'm going to be playing four days a week and teaching on Sundays for the next 20 weeks, hoping to win back the women's championship.

The season will be different because one of my fellow skips will be missing from the club.

I was really looking forward to seeing Betty Rinaldo tonight. She has been one of the skips in the women's competitive league right from its first year. I've won against her and I've certainly lost to her, and every one of those games was a fun time, thanks to Betty's fun ways.

Betty is one of those people who you just can't NOT look forward to seeing again. She is one of those tiny women who get a lot done but who always look great doing it and seem to have an inner strength that propels them forward into the world with positivity and grace. I liked and admired her.

I found out yesterday that Betty died earlier this month.

I knew her well enough to ask her to be on my Friday night date-night curling team, but not enough to know that she was not well.
August 30th, she said yes to being on the team with Sweetie and me. September 9th, Betty sent me an email saying she wouldn't be able to be on Sweetie's and my team after all. She didn't supply a reason, and I didn't ask. I wrote back, "Rats, that's too bad, but we'll figure something out." I did not ask if everything was all right; it simply didn't dawn on me that there could be anything wrong with someone so vital and so alive. I just figured she had gotten a better offer, perhaps from a better team.

I should not have 'just figured'.

October 7th, Betty died at the Campbell House hospice. I was shocked yesterday when I found out she had been 79 - she seemed so much younger. I knew her well enough to know I wanted to spend my Friday nights with her all winter at the curling club, but somehow not well enough to know that she was sick.

I regret not saying goodbye to her; I would have told her how much I admired her fierce enthusiasm for life. She was fun and funny. She had awesome draw weight. She had a terrific laugh. She was what some people call "a pistol".

I will miss her. I already do.