The power of love: Why a 96-year-old man sold his Ontario house and moved to rural Newfoundland
CBC
Charlie Comrie knows his story is unusual, and that some may think he's lost his senses.
But for Comrie, a 96-year-old veteran of the Second World War, it all made sense when he sold his house in Clinton, Ont., last December to move 3,000 kilometres east to a rural town on the island of Newfoundland.
Comrie now lives in Plate Cove West, a village of about 800 people, all who have welcomed him and his best friend Shiloh, a Nova Scotian retriever, with open arms.
But you might wonder why an old man would move such a distance to live along the harsh coast along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
And the answer is simple.
Love.
While this is the first year Comrie has lived in Plate Cove West, he and his wife, Anna, fell in love with Newfoundland and Labrador during the first of many visits starting in 2000. They would discover the community that is Comrie's new home 15 years into their tours of the province.
Anna died in 2019, after 19 years living with dementia. Comrie still misses her. After 70 years of marriage, being in a place that she loved so much, helps.
"I think maybe you can understand that I do feel closer to Anna with this. I really do," he said.
It was, after all, Anna's wish that compelled him to make such a bold move — the kind of change he has embraced several times in his life.
Some of Charlie and Anna's fond memories were with Chris and Karen Ricketts, the owners of Round Da Bay Inn, a 16-room bed and breakfast on the main road in Plate Cove West, which is nestled on the western side of Newfoundland's Bonavista Peninsula.
They remember the couple's first visit to Plate Cove West, in 2015, very well.
"When we met Charlie and Anna first, it was obvious Anna had dementia, but it was just something about Charlie's character, how he looked after," says Chris Ricketts.
They grew to call them The Notebook couple, after the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name.