As former federal agriculture minister Eugene Whelan lay on his sick bed in late February, the victim of a tired heart, he witnessed what he thinks might have been an other-worldly debate over his fate.
“I had a lot of dreams and it was so real,” he said two weeks ago from his Windsor-area home last week where he is recuperating from a heart operation. “It was like a part of me was leaving my body, my complete image, and then it went back to the body.”
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So what was happening?
“I don’t know,” said a weak-sounding but still feisty Whelan, 73. “I’m not that religious or anything … but I’ve said that maybe the old devil wasn’t ready for me. The good Lord must have thought there’s a couple more things I could do on earth.”
His out-of-body experience followed a night of urgency Feb. 9.
He had been attending a 50th wedding anniversary for some friends. He began to feel ill and told daughter Susan, now the Liberal MP for his old Essex-Windsor riding, to take him home.
Before the night was over, Whelan was rushed to a hospital in London, Ont. for emergency surgery to replace a ruptured artery.
When word spread that Whelan was in critical condition, public response from across Canada was swift. Cards, flowers, letters and faxes started to pour in from across the country. “I must have 500 cards.”
Friends concerned
Whelan said former Conservative agriculture minister John Wise, who played political musical chairs with Whelan in the 1970s and 1980s, was in frequent contact.
And prime minister Jean ChrŽtien called four times, as well as receiving regular updates in the House of Commons from Sue.
“He asks Sue just about very day, ‘so how’s your dad coming?'” said Whelan. “She says ‘he’s fine and he doesn’t think you should call an election until the fall’. “
So does this mean the recently appointed senator still thinks he has some politics in him?
“You’re like a horse on a milk wagon. You go to the gate each morning to have the harness put on you. You wait for the harness to go back to work.”
Whelan said he will be too weak to campaign if a spring election is held.
“I walk about 500 feet every day. I go up and down seven steps at least once a day, sometimes twice a day,” he said. “The worst part of laying that still for six weeks is that your muscle system breaks down. I have a hell of a time walking.”
In the autumn, though, his Senate seat will be waiting.
