She was diagnosed with dementia. Then this 95-year old decided to do something ‘crazy’ – travel the world

“They said I was too old,” Dee recalled defiantly.

After climbing to the top, she posed for photos with a cane in one hand and a purple umbrella in the other: “It was very wet and very cold, and I said, ‘Why am I doing this crazy thing?’”

Dee was on a bucket-list journey to see seven places before she died — or before her mild dementia worsened, potentially making such trips impossible. She and her step-granddaughter, Kim Freeland, came up with the idea a few years after Dee’s diagnosis.

The child of an itinerant sergeant major in the British army, Dee grew up loving travel. But around the spring of 2021, she started forgetting the names of streets in her neighbourhood.

The isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic stunted her socializing and quick wit. “I wasn’t allowed to do anything,” Dee said. “I couldn’t see people … That was awful.”

Kim thought her grandmother would benefit from the cognitive stimulation of meeting new people and discovering different cultures. Perhaps travel could help slow her decline; they had taken trips together before, and Kim remembered how it had exhilarated Dee.

Last May, the pair decided on a spur-of-the-moment trip to see icebergs in Newfoundland.

By the time they reached the Greek temple last December, Dee and Kim had visited the Terracotta Warriors, the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum and Pompeii.

For Kim, more than a decade after her family suffered a tragedy, it was an adventure she hoped could forestall another devastating loss.

The last day of January 2013 was bitterly cold, dropping to -10C in the dead of night.

Kim’s great-aunt, Kathleen Pollock, left her seniors’ residence in Don Mills that afternoon and hailed a cab. They drove 14 kilometres southeast, to an abandoned mansion on Pine Ridge Drive in Scarborough.

A plumber working next door recalled seeing a stylish elderly woman with bright lipstick exit a cab and walk up the driveway. Hours later, police would find Kathleen dead of natural causes outside her old front door, her last footsteps still visible in the snow.

Kathleen was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease at the time of her death, and the 1930s-era Georgian revival mansion, known as Lakewood, had once been her family home. It had been empty for two years when she returned on that January night.

“I almost think she went there with a purpose,” her son told local media at the time. “I think her last wish was to be there on that property when she expired.”

Kathleen’s death left Kim heartbroken.

“The idea that she went home sounded romantic to some perhaps, in a nostalgic kind of way,” she said. “But … the breakdown of communication on so many levels was very sad to me.”

Years later, upon learning of her grandmother’s dementia diagnosis, these memories flooded back. Kim recalled how much Dee loved seeing the world, and as they reminisced at a friend’s wedding in Waterloo last May, their travel plans began to take shape.

“I felt it was a bit of a race against time,” Kim said.

Their adventure was a continuation of a journey they had started 30 years earlier, in the jungles of Australia’s Mission Beach.

In 1992, after Dee’s genealogical research revealed roots on the other side of the world, the pair flew to New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

Kim had suggested they travel as backpackers to save money. Dee, then in her 60s, was game.

“We slept in a jungle,” Dee recalled. “We slept in a tree. We slept in the strangest places. We slept in a prison from the 1700s [that had been converted into a guest house].”

Dee says she never feels settled, always thinking there is “somewhere else to go.” In 1974, she married Kim’s grandfather, a widower, after visiting Canada for a holiday. He died just over a decade later.

Around 2014, a bladder cancer diagnosis grounded Dee for awhile. She was declared cancer-free last spring, just before attending the wedding in Waterloo.

Kim hopes the excitement of travel, meeting new people, practising languages, and immersion in different cultures could help to keep her grandmother’s dementia at bay. Experts say it’s not that simple.

Much depends on the stage of dementia and the patience and resources of caregivers, said Anthony Levinson, a neuropsychiatrist who helped to develop McMaster University’s iGeriCare program, which offers multimedia resources on dementia.

While travelling the world might provide memories and cognitive stimulation, Levinson said it could overwhelm those in the later stages of the disease: “As dementia advances, sometimes we really focus on providing a consistent routine, familiarity, scheduling — and so it could be pretty unsettling with the unpredictability of international travel and delays.”

Sandra Black, a neurologist who leads the Centre for Brain Resilience and Recovery at Sunnybrook Hospital, noted that the potential physical limitations associated with old age, such as arthritis or back pain, could make extended trips a challenge.

Local tourism could provide cognitive stimulation without the disruption of overseas travel, Black said: “Even in your own province, or your own area where you live, there are lots of things you can explore with a loved one, and go to sites that are known to be interesting.”

But all these experiences could be fleeting. Dementia impacts the brain’s ability to form new memories.

“They may for the moment enjoy things,” Black said. “They may love to see a beautiful scene or [historic buildings] … but they may not remember what they’ve seen.”

There have been times in their current journey when Dee forgets things. Looking at photos can help.

“Memory, having memories, remembering things, it’s important — but really, it’s not so important, because in the moment, we are laughing our heads off, we’re enjoying, we’re meeting people … we’re just in the moment,” Kim said.

Dee goes by the name the “Longevity Queen” on Facebook, where the pair chronicle their adventures.

Within hours of hatching their plan at the wedding in Waterloo, Dee and Kim did not wait to pack warm clothes before driving to Newfoundland to see icebergs. They bought boots and sweaters along the way.

“No one in our family knew [we were travelling], because it was so special, we wanted to just savour it ourselves and enjoy it, and not have any comments or questions — ‘is it safe, is it healthy, how’s your health’ — just enjoy,” Kim said.

“It was very exciting,” Dee added.

They rode across miles of ice and snow on a Zodiac boat and watched a mother whale play with her calf. They also drew up Dee’s bucket list of seven places she wanted to see before she died: icebergs, the Terracotta Warriors, the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, Pompeii, the Parthenon and Angkor Wat. At the time, “they were just dreams,” Kim said.

Then heavy rains last summer flooded Dee’s Scarborough basement. The cleanup attempt uncovered crumbling asbestos and mould from previous floods, requiring significant renovations.

Realizing it was “now or never” — and after getting six months of medication for her dementia and arthritis, and a green light from Dee’s doctor — the two women set off in August.

They visited the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall of China, fulfilling dreams Dee had harboured for more than half a century. In Hong Kong, Dee climbed 431 steps at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery.

“After two and a half hours of walking, climbing, I looked around and said: ‘Is there a coffee shop up here?’” Dee recalled with a smile.

Dee’s late husband would have loved to travel the world with her. She thinks of him often during her globe-spanning adventure with Kim, which continued last fall as they toured the ruins of the Colosseum and marvelled at the ongoing excavations in Pompeii.

As they ticked off their bucket list, the pair also stopped in other countries along the way, from Iceland, to Spain, to Singapore.

When Kim is not posting to Dee’s “Longevity Queen” page, she also writes about her grandmother’s stamp collection — featuring images of Churchill and Gandhi, butterflies and the moon landing — and recollections of Dee’s springtime garden full of purple crocuses and bright yellow daffodils. She posts these memories to a blog aiming to raise money for McMaster’s iGeriCare program, using a crowdfunding platform provided by the school.

Kim hopes the blog will help to jog Dee’s memory, while also preserving a record of her unique life story.

Determined to make it to 117 after a fortune-teller told her she could reach that age, Dee says: “Never give up. If you want to do something, do it, because if you keep putting it off, you’ll never do it.”

Last month, as part of a whirlwind South Asian tour, Kim and Dee checked the final site off their list: the vast Cambodian temple complex of Angkor Wat.

They haven’t yet decided what lies ahead.

They will consult with Dee’s doctor in Toronto later this month. They hope to travel to the Netherlands in the spring to watch the tulips bloom. They’re also considering a cruise in Norway, a trip to Siberia, or the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

For Kim’s late great-aunt, it seemed Kathleen Pollock’s final wish was to go home again. Dee is not in a rush to get back to her Scarborough house.

With her age comes back and knee discomfort, though usually a pain pill or massage helps. “And then we get on the Zodiac and we go out, and we forget for awhile,” Kim said.

“Sometimes forgetting is a good thing,” she added. “I would say maybe that’s our message: it’s important to remember, but it’s also nice to forget.”