A resident of the North Vancouver care home who has died of COVID-19 is being remembered for her strength and smile.
Sandra Cairns died at Lynn Valley Care Centre, where a cluster of coronavirus cases were some of the first reported in the province.
“She was an amazing woman with a strong will and a quick wit,” wrote her daughter-in-law, Anita Coueffin-Cairns, in a tribute on social media on Friday.
Cairns was a registered nurse and a civilian police officer in Vancouver, her daughter-in-law wrote. She spent 25 years at the police station near Main and Hastings streets, working as a guard and a nurse to women who were incarcerated.
“It must have taken a very strong will to do the kind of job that she had to do,” Coueffin-Cairns wrote.
She said her mother-in-law was initially hesitant to enter a care home, but eventually learned to make the most of it.
“The nurses told us how she had a smile for them every morning when they woke her up, and a smile every night when they put her to bed.”
Coueffin-Cairns closed her note with a fond memory of the time she sneaked a rum and eggnog to her mother-in-law while she was in hospital at Christmas in 2011.
“I think I may have gotten in her good books after that,” she wrote.
Seven of the eight COVID-19 deaths in B.C. have been linked to the Lynn Valley Care Centre.