Angelika Margit Reuter

With a very heavy heart I have to announce that my beautiful inside out mum, best friend and soul mate,

Angelika Margit Reuter (nee Lüdecke),
Born September 3rd 1940 in Braunschweig – Germany

Left from Vancouver – Canada for heaven on November 14th, 2021

She is survived by her son Perry Edgar John Booth, her daughter Nicole Claire Elizabeth Seeger, Robin Seeger, her grandkids – Raphael Seeger and Aviana Seeger, her cousin Ilka Kasper and many, many friends.

Born into a very sad time in history in Germany, she left with her parents (Kläre and Edgar Lüdecke) in the early 50’s for Toronto Canada. My Opa Edgar, a chemical engineer, had been offered a job at Avro, but when they arrived, there was a strike and no more employment. For a while they had been relying on the Salvation Army and she was always grateful for them. Unfortunately she faced hardship at school from one of the teachers, because she had the same first name of one of Hitler’s nieces…

In the 15 years she lived in Toronto, she loved to waterski, she did modeling and worked at Toronto Metropolitan police force as a cop and became even a detective, where she met Neil Booth, who she married. Then she had me and about 1- 1 1/2 years later my sister Kerry, but she was born with an open heart and only lived a couple of days.

Later on she got separated and she, her parents and little me of 3, moved back to Germany where we mainly lived in Bad Homburg v.d.H. Germany. She got divorced then, worked as a Chief Secretary for Honeywell Bull, where she became an EDP (electronic data processing) instructor, teaching people, in a total men’s world in the 70’s, how to use these at that time, room sized computers, programming them with paper slips. I am sooooo proud of her!!!

She met then Heinz Reuter, which treated me as his own son. They got married and they had their daughter Nicole.
She dedicated herself being an at home mum and had for a while in Bad Homburg a little Knitting wool store and gallery (Angie’s Wollstube und Gallerie) with her Mum, where they sold wool, their amazing beautiful hand knitted pullovers and her Mum’s paintings.

Nicole and I helped them out here and there in the store, what a beautiful time!

Then Claire and Edgar, passed (too early) away within a year, when at the same time Heinz left her. This was a very, very hard time for her and us.

I honestly do not remember anymore how our single Mum got herself and us through this time except for one thing, we three sitting at the kitchen table, she asking us to take each other’s hand and say three times together: Liebe macht stark! (Love makes you strong!).

I am forever grateful to her for that lesson, told her so until recently, remembering it and now practicing it with Joy and other beautiful family and friends who I am surrounded by.

For various reasons we decided to have a Tapetenwechsel – Wallpaper change – German saying to have a larger change in life. So we did a trip with friends to Canada in 1994, where we fell in love with Victoria on Vancouver Island.

She bought our new home and we all moved (incl. our dogs Sheba and Tikki) in May 1995 to her beautiful old character home in Oak Bay close to Willow’s beach, a dream come true. She lived there for many years. During that time she got ovarian cancer but decided not to get operated, nor had chemo or radiation. She chose to pray and visualize the cancer gone. After about half a year, her cancer was gone!! Through the power of belief and her mind. A true story!

She unfortunately had to sell her house, as the upkeep became too expensive and so she sold and bought another house in Victoria, not at the ocean, but with beautiful views. In Victoria she found our soul family dog Gina, which brought soooo much joy to her and us.
In Victoria, she was helping me with my business and she also helped Nicole with her store.
As we all felt that Victoria is beautiful, but just too slow for us, we all moved one by one to East Vancouver, close to Commercial Drive, because of our family’s friend Thomas’ suggestion. She loved it there, the neighborhood and The Drive with all its cafes and restaurants and that I only lived two houses over from her, which gave her comfort and safety. Originally I felt weird living so close to Mum and what women might think, but I am grateful to God for so many reasons that I lived so close to her.
We went to The Drive many times and often when I got us a coffee and came back she was already talking with the employees/owners of the shop or some stranger from the street, hearing their life story in the shortest time and then sharing it with me. She helped many, many people with her wisdom, caring and love and jokes. People just felt safe and opened up to her.

She especially attracted mostly women which lost their mum’s/ grandma early and they found in her a second mum/ grandma and are also friends of mine, us supporting each other.

The name Angelika has its origin in Latin and means: Messenger of God – how true, she touched so many family, friends and stranger’s hearts and lives.

She often said, it’s not easy to get old because of her feeling so young inside which didn’t match how she looked on her outside and how her physical body felt, also losing so many friends (Heide – born like her in September 1940, Jutta and Susan, all this year – 2021) and Gina (our soul family dog) before that.
Missing her daughter and her grandchildren, which moved abroad June 2017, was very hard on her, and understandably and sadly, took a lot of her love for life away…

Gina’s passing about 4-5 years ago was very hard on her and I. For some time neither of us was ready to find another, preferably, rescue dog, but when we eventually tried for about 2 years (we went to the SPCA many times), it was very hard to find a small dog and the ones out there had been given to other people. Sadly, we didn’t find a dog in time.

This year 2021 was very hard for her. After suffering for some time she finally had her colon cancer operation (27 staples!) on Dec. 30th 2020. The very large tumor was supposedly incapsulated, I brought her home 4 days later, she healed up fast. The surgeon was very happy and he and her family Dr. said just to do a blood test every 1/4, which she did. She experienced some numbness on her upper right leg (the side they took out the colon cancer…). She reported
it to the Dr’s and asked if maybe a nerve was damaged at the operation, they said no and that it’s caused from her back and gave her pain medication for over 1/2 year which caused her other health challenges.
Her right leg, then sometimes started to hurt more and more which she kept reporting to the Dr’s and she developed signs of stomach upset and nausea as she had before her last operation… All of her blood results had been good, which we trusted because of what the Dr’s said! In August, the Dr. decided to give her an ultrasound on her right side, which then revealed the cancer had come back. They did then a CT Scan which showed that the Dr’s operation had
been successful, colon was all healed up where they stitched it together, but right next to it it had come back, being metastatic, grown into the muscle, where it kept more and more pressing on her leg’s nerve causing her so much pain she described if someone would cut her leg off… They also found out that the cancer squeezed down on two parts of her small intestines which caused the other problems…They said they won’t be able to do anything about the cancer, but operate (25 staples) to put two internal bypasses in, otherwise she would have died and so she was able to eat and drink again. This time I was able to be with her in the hospital, as they just changed the Covid visitation rules and I am glad I was able to as she was there for two weeks (she had some complications after the operation) where she had horrific experiences and so for me, witnessing the pain the nurses caused her putting in IV’s over and over again and more, the hospital room and how she was treated (there had been some good nurses and Dr.’s).
They told her (us) about 3-4 times to basically go home and die…

I took her home in Joy’s car, as she didn’t want an ambulance and I still don’t know how she and I managed to get up to the 3rd floor of her house, as she wanted to be in her bedroom and not in the guest bedroom.

We wanted to get her treatment (she qualified for Immunotherapy, but preferred alternative treatment at the Chipsa Clinic in Mexico, which had been very supportive), but for all she needed to leave the house, which she wasn’t able to, as she was too weak and her leg hurt too much. So we tried our best with nutrition, all what cancers don’t like, no salt, no sugar, no red meat,
highly alkaline Kangen water, all organic food and all the type cancer does not like. We also talked to some specialists in this field, getting her special supplements and vitamins and CBD.

Unfortunately the cancer was very aggressive, pressing more on the nerve in her leg, causing more pain, needing more pain medication, adding to the vicious cycle, we tried to break out of. And so she stayed even more in bed, developing bed sores and later even back sores, eating less, getting weaker…

We decided to move her then down into the living room (firefighters came and carried her, which she truly enjoyed ) where she was then in a special bed to help her to be more comfortable and be more part of life.

She also said that she started having pain in her whole body, besides the leg pain.
This was so devastating to me, being at my ropes end about helping her to heal.
We kept adjusting to her increasing needs, from 2 to 4 daily care workers.

Besides hoping for a miracle, I kept praying that whenever she leaves our realm, that she leaves peacefully and that I could be there with her, something she also always wanted and our prayers got heard, Sunday the 14th of November at 11.44 am, where Joy was there as well having sung to her for some time.

(If not recommended earlier by your Dr., please!! do yourself a favour and do a colonoscopy when you are 50 and from then on regularly as recommended for preventive measure. It’s really not a big deal, easy to do, just the preparation for it, fasting and more is not so much fun.)

As you can tell, Mum was a stand-up woman! Strong, intelligent, happy go lucky kind a’ woman.
Mum was always a bright light, wherever she went, she shined. She brought smiles to people’s faces with her witty humour and smile. Even when she was in the hospital, not feeling well, she made jokes with people.
She always liked to dress nicely when going out, and had a great sense of style which got her many compliments. She loved bling-bling, if it were her eye glasses, rings, her cell phone case and shoes and more. Talking about things, she also loved her convertible sports car (V8, 300HP!), got her many compliments sporting such a fast car, which she said helped her out of
many dangerous situations, being able to speed away.
She was pulled over by the police on the HWY for speeding, a couple of times I believe, ending up having a nice conversation with them, sharing with them a cigarette and that she was also a cop and then driving away with no ticket, but another fun story.

Yes, she loved smoking and making herself a coffee with her Italian Expresso machine with milk, no sugar, either at home on her porch (she also loved to sit outside in any weather, often wearing a fleece jacket, which gave her comfort) or at Cafe Calabria or Renzullo’s.

She quit smoking twice each time for 10 years! And I am so proud of her that she did that, but unfortunately she started again.

She loved music and to dance and she did, although Dr’s told her she won’t be able to it anymore and needed to wear a knee brace and use a crutch till the end of her life (after an accident with our dog Sheba, she tore all of her ligaments and the acl in one of her knees); needless to say, the knee brace and crutch was used for only a very short time and since then had sat in the closet.

She also liked to go to the casino (in Germany it’s a dress up event, with an entrance fee). She  mainly went there to meet others and share stories, but she also loved playing (Roulette and fun slot machines) and won often and was never really upset when she lost.

She also loved to read (a lot!!) and hand knit, which she was really good at, having learned from her Mutti.

She loved food, going out for brunch, lunch and dinner and started cooking very late in her life.

She made the best great German pancakes (which I learned from her), German cucumber salad, Gnocchi a Gorgonzola, Curry sausage, Sauerkraut, Red cabbage, Rouladen & Kohl Rouladen, German gravy, stuffed bell peppers and more.

Altogether, she always liked to look at things on the bright side and yes of course, she also had her moments.

She loved to be there for others and kept attracting (mainly) women into her life who either not a close relationship with or had lost their mother (sometimes grandmother) way too early and became their 2nd mom and she adopted them as their daughters.

Some are part of my life, us being friends, brother/sister for another – soul family

To honour and continue my mother’s way of being, I would like to create a non-profit group named “Angie’s place” where lonely mothers and daughters can meet and connect and hopefully beautiful relationships will unfold.

Last but not least, she loved to give from her heart. If she saw something she thought you could need, she’d buy it for you or she’d give you her own. Sometimes she’d quietly hand you some money if she felt you needed it. She had so much pleasure in giving.

She is now in a better place, with no pain and also will be with her parents, which she loved and missed so much, for Christmas as she wished for.

Until we meet again!

I Love You! And will do so forever! And you are loved and will be missed and never forgotten, by so many more!

Liebe macht stark!

In lieu of flowers, Mom would be honoured if you considered a donation to the SPCA:

http://support.spca.bc.ca/goto/AngelikaMargitReuter

Thank you! Dankeschoen!