My Mother's Story

My Mother's Story - North Shore

2010-11-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

Exciting news for My Mother's Story in Nov. 2011! In partnership with Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver we will use the skills we've gained working with actors and workshop participants to gather Mother Stories from across the North Shore of Vancouver. Starting with friends and contacts living there, we will encourage groups of friends, service and social groups, men and women, to write the story of their mother's life and share them with their intimate circle. We know many people will find this beneficial to themselves and their groups.

And then whoever feels encouraged can submit their stories here to the website and we will choose 9 of these stories to be told on stage as part of the Presentation House season. We will cast professional actors to "play" the writers of these stories using a script similar to those we've had for our Mother's Day shows. Kim Collier, creator of Electric Theatre and recent winner of the Siminovich award, is thrilled to be able to direct this show. It's all unfolding with grant applications, sponsorship deals and a brand new website to gather and display the stories.

Can't wait!

2010-10-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

Take a last look at this website! At the end of November 2010 we will be unveiling the new My Mother's Story website (at the same address) currently being created by a dedicated team in the Integrated Media department at Capilano University in North Vancouver.

On the new site you'll be able to -

read even more stories from the archive;
track submissions to My Mother's Story: North Shore, our new project in community engagement (story recruitment starts Mother's Day 2011, show running at Presentation House Oct. 2011);
and check the progress of 500 Mothers, our new campaign to reach daughters and sons across North America to tell their stories and build our archive.

I'll also be heating up the old social networking tools and reaching out to even more people interested in immortalizing the lives of 20th century women.

Michelle S - Vancouver

2010-05-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

I just got a card from my daughter today that said “However hard you try, you end up like your mother”. I now know at 61, that being more like my mom would actually not be such a bad thing. Yvette Lebel-Bourbeau passed away at 88 some 10 years ago now. Yvette was one of the most humble, gracious, generous people I have known.

She longed to be more educated, being the “chosen one” to stay home after grade 3 to cook and clean at 9 years of age for the other 11 members in the family. She taught her own 6 children the art of hard work and that nobody hands you anything on a platter….you work for what you want in life (yes, we are all workaholics). However, no amount of formal education could improve the values & behaviors that were just part of her persona. This was a woman who knew the difference between right and wrong and steadfastly stuck to her principles. She taught me to have a disdain for smoking (I concur), that you should only marry French-Catholic people (I didn’t listen), that spring cleaning is good for the soul (just getting that message now), that making grand-peres for dessert when there is nothing else around will thrill your visitors (amen), to keep the door open for anyone who wants to visit and that you stop to talk to them (no i-pods to interfere back then) and above all else, family is the most important part of your life (getting this message late in life I am afraid but none-the-less, getting it!). Merci maman for all the gifts you gave me and bonne fetes des meres!

From the baby of the family, Michelle

2010-03-25T13:45:00.001-07:00

We've had an exciting year trying out all kinds of ways of telling our mothers' stories. After the successful Mother's Day show with 20 women gracing the Granville Island Stage, we were asked to create a distinct show for Western Gold Theatre, a company that specializes in programming for seniors (http://www.westerngoldtheatre.com/) Six of our more mature cast members developed a fuller telling of their mothers' stories for a 60 minute show that toured community centers around the Vancouver. Again the audiences (who ranged in age from 8 to 80) were moved and enchanted by our simple storytelling and went on to tell us their mothers' stories in return. We were so thankful for this opportunity to share, in a more intimate setting, our combined histories.

After the success of the 10 person show we created for the Vancouver Storytelling Festival (http://www.vancouverstorytelling.org/) in February 2009, we've been musing about what other ways we could tell our stories. For years people have been telling us they wished we had more performances of our shows so their friends and family could also enjoy them, and our actors have always been keen to tell their stories again. But the logistics of creating and financing an ongoing show with a cast of 20 has been too daunting. Still, the thought persists that there must be a way to get beyond these single performance shows we've been able to create for special audiences or occasions. We've also wondered what we might be able to create if we hired a director and designers and had rehearsals - oh the possibilities! We might even have a show that could run for weeks instead of days! And maybe we could encourage all kinds of people to write and tell their mothers' stories!

To that end, in the manner by which this whole project has continued to unfold, we just decided to make it happen. So we've applied for grants, have started to solicit sponsors, and will spend time in a rehearsal hall this spring 2010 with a director - Britt Small of Victoria's Atomic Vaudeville company (http://www.atomicvaudeville.com/) - creating a show that will feature 10 of our actors telling the stories you've come to appreciate from shows of the past, plus all the theatricality you'd expect from any big downtown show. Keep your eyes on this site for more details.

2009-12-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

"It's all about creating the ground under your feet. It's kind of a process of self-invention, so that you're standing with your feet planted, you know who the hell you are, you know where the hell you came from, you know where the hell you're going." Michael Ignatieff in Globe and Mail April 18, 2009, on writing the truth about family.

How many ways can a life unfold?

2009-04-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

In 2004 we began collecting the details of women's lives - just the facts: where and when she was born, to whom, and what happened next. We limited our experiment to 2000 words. And we started with the stories of our mothers lives. Wow! You wouldn't believe what came back. Check out Ultimate Stories.

This website is where you can add to the collection. Tell us about your mom: How did her life unfold? Submission details in Ultimate Challenge.

2009-04-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

Kay S - Winnipeg folklore writer and dreamer

2008-06-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

My mother was born in 1911 in a tiny rural town settled on the border of North Carolina and South Carolina. When she was eight her parents and their four children moved to Windsor, Ontario, and later to Detroit across the river, where two more children were born. She met my father at a Halloween party at her church, and they were married a year later – she was seventeen. Her first child was born the next year, and nine years later I appeared in the world, the first girl. Five years later we moved to south Florida – my parents, my oldest brother Allen, me, Janet, and Jolene, all bundled into our 1944 Packard. My mother, who never learned to drive, sat in the backseat with the girls while fourteen-year-old Allen sat up with my father.

To read more of Kay's story of her mother, including a short story she wrote inspired by her mother's garden, go to Ultimate Challenge.

Mother's Story Workshop

2008-06-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

As requested by Scarbie I have changed the font of these Mother entries. Instead of Arial small this is Georgia normal and I hope it's readable on Mac. Please let me know if there are still problems.

Last Wednesday I started the first Mother's Story Workshop at Unity of Vancouver. It will go for four weeks, every Wednesday night from 7 - 9, and it's exciting and scary for me to deal with "pedestrians". As you may know this project was started amongst my friends - women actors in Vancouver. I just threw out a challenge - tell me where your mother was born, to who and what happened next, in 2000 words - and some of the women who responded knew how to write, some just wanted to talk about their moms, some wanted to "play" with their friends, but all of us had the experience of telling stories on stage. We basically knew what we wanted to say and how to say it. Or we didn't get involved. At this workshop, I'm working with people (men and women) who have maybe not written anything beyond a grocery list or business report since they left school. They have sketchy memories of their moms, and feel bad about that, but they also want the experience of learning how to talk about her. So that's what we're doing.

I've told them we're writing instead of just talking because it's important to keep the focus on mom and not get sidetracked into our relationship with mom; this is, after all, not therapy. It's important that we systematically organize our memories by date so we can see the potential relationship of different events. Yes, 1942 means there was a war going on somewhere, could this have been a factor in her story? Yes, when she was five years old there were 4 older siblings, 2 babies and 6 more on the way - what was growing up in that household like? I've given them assignments to write about the major events in their mothers' lives and I have no idea what will come back next week.

A woman stopped me on the way out, confessing she didn't remember much of her mother and I told her of the women in our actors group who lost their mothers when they were very young and how by writing down what they remembered, it allowed more memories to surface. She said she didn't remember much of her own life either. She seemed pleasant enough, no sign of obvious trauma but who was I to know? Maybe this was a common thing amongst regular folk - no past, no memory. What was I supposed to do now?

Then I remembered having to sit down in my 20's to consciously link up what year I had done a play with when I had moved to that apartment to when I was going out with that guy. My whole grid system for memories had disappeared once I'd left school and I needed to create a new one that was tied to something beyond what grade I was in. Without a regular job, regular house, regular boyfriend, there were no constants by which to gather events in my memory - everything was strewn around like the clothes in my bedroom.

Perhaps this woman just hadn't established a grid for herself yet; I could solve that (maybe). But it made me realize that maybe this gathering and telling memories of mom was going to take longer than 4 weeks. I knew "talking about mom" involved breaking a big taboo and caused people all kinds of anxiety, but what other fundamental things would I have to teach them? What other unknowns were going to arise?

I had written another story here of another woman stopping me on the way out and her story of "the dark things" but upon reflection I've decided that as much as it shows that we need to write these stories if only to release ourselves from the thrall of history, I must respect the privacy of the people talking to me, if only until their stories have settled within themselves and they are truly released. Suffice to say, wondrous things are happening.

Elizabeth R - Vancouver

2008-05-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

Three large boxes of Tupperware lids missing their bottoms; 22 boxes of books; 594 cups and mugs, several emblazoned with gold and yellow flowers and one dedicated to “the world’s goofiest golfer,” nine travel alarm clocks; 142 pillow cases in assorted patterns and colours; seven exercise contraptions with hand grips and foot stirrups connected by a stretchy steel spring: all of this was just a small portion of my mother’s collection of stuff.
I helped her sell, donate, ship and trash her stuff when she moved to Florida this summer. I handled so much stuff, that I feel like stripping my own house bare, sleeping on moss and eating off slabs of bark.
My mother would never do that. Stuff means a lot to her. Born in 1917, she is a tiny woman whose quick steps and busy hands mask a hip replacement and decades of arthritis. She has been busy since she was 12. She cared for her younger brother while her parents struggled to keep factory jobs. It was the Depression, so the jobs were on-again, off-again. Her family ate meals of potatoes and not much else. My mother blames the plum-sized bunion that pains her today on her parents’ inability to buy their children proper shoes. When I helped pack her stuff, she had 63 pairs, most unworn.
She also had tricks: two vanishing-ink pens, nine magic ring tricks and 14 assorted card tricks with folded instruction sheets. And she had accumulated 82 books on training dogs, raising various breeds of dogs and housebreaking puppies. But she never owned a dog. I found a book on Shetland sheep dogs in her library. “My friend has two shelties,” I said.
“Take it and give it to her,” said my mother, adding the book to the sofa-sized pile of stuff she had deposited in a bedroom for me to take home. “A lot of people have dogs. It’s nice to give them a book.”
My mother has given stuff to friends and family, but seldom to herself. All those unworn shoes? All of the 21 blouses I found in a closet with price tags still attached? She will probably never wear the stuff, and she probably never had much of an intention to.
She toiled most of her life taking care of five children and my dad, a demanding, irritable man. In a letter she wrote to me before he died last year, a letter I tossed away because I could not bear to ever again read a certain line, my mother said she had looked back upon her life. The line contained an uncharacteristic lament: “I regret that I didn’t have more fun.”
But she tries hard to make sure everyone else has it. When I was a child she invented craft projects for me and my sisters. Later she collected the magic tricks for our children. For the adults, she has gathered jokes—in three shelves of joke books and in her memory. “Did you hear about the man who fell in the upholstery machine?” she quipped, as we packed a donation box of my father’s clothes. “When they pulled him out, he was completely recovered.”
She easily parted with my dad’s things, but her own stuff was more dear. My mother wanted to discuss every item I was sorting, down to a half-pack of toothpicks, to decide whether she or someone she knew might have use for it. Eventually I realized that she clung to her stuff not just because it gave her security, but also because it gave her life meaning. “My husband was always working on his business,” she said. “When I wanted to talk with him, he would say, ‘Not now, dear.’ So I would go shopping.”
She shopped for stuff, thinking of what other people might need. Whenever she visited my home, she brought boxes of stuff. A few years ago, she saw crystal candle holders on sale. She bought 16 pairs. “A gift to give people when you visit them,” she explained during the packing marathon, as she placed the delicate crystal in the bedroom for me.
When she took her afternoon naps this summer, I would creep into that room, remove much of the stuff and put it in the garage for the three-day moving sale we were planning. There was little space left for browsers among the tables, boxes and shelves of stuff in the double garage, but at least 100 people squeezed through. My mother’s artificial flower collection went fast. We managed to sell all of her furniture and enough dishes, small appliances, games and knick-knacks to fill a large pick-up truck.
We sorted what was left along with boxes of non-garage sale items. There were trash piles, donation piles and ship-to-Florida piles, as well as the bedroom take-to-Vancouver assortment. Ultimately, 41 boxes went to Florida. Eighty-four boxes and 29 black plastic bags of stuff were donated. Canned goods went to the food bank. I didn’t count the number of trash bags we discarded.
It took almost a month total to pack, but suddenly, unbelievably, her house was bare.
My mother now lives in the southern part of the continent, and it will take a plane trip rather than a car trip to visit her. As I sat last week sorting though the stuff she gave me, stuff that so fully filled the trunk and back of my car that you couldn’t squeeze another dishcloth in, I found one of those fun items: a game of Jack Straws, a version of pick-up-sticks with tiny shovels, ladders and pitch forks.
I will play the game with my four-year-old grandson and tell him about his great grandmother. I will tell him about the interesting time I had helping her pack and about the very most wonderful thing of all the stuff she gave me. She gave me love.

Onni M - Vancouver

2008-05-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

CHANNA VELLER MILNER

My mother died of a heart attack in 1981. She was in her 70s. It wasn't until after her death that I realized she was more than what I had experienced with her.
My mother was exotically beautiful as a young woman She was a couturier in Kovna, Lithuania, and all the finest ladies of the city came to her salon. She was a successful businesswoman with several women working under her.
All that changed when Hitler invaded Lithuania in 1941.

Read the rest of Onni's compelling story of her mother in Ultimate Stories

Glenda M -

2008-05-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

My Mother Helen L. Hill always wrote in red pen.

Helen was born in Ancaster, Ont. Canada. She was the daughter of a Dairy Farmer, the middle child of 3. Her parents were Hungarian. Her mother’s mother, my great grandmother, came from Hungary when she was just 13, married and with child. She lived on the prairies of Saskatchewan.

My great grandmother told me things I've never forgotten. She was a women who spoke Hungarian always. She wore a dress that was 30 years old and you'd never know it, unless she showed you where she patched it. Her home was the cleanest I’ve ever known. I looked up to her and still speak of her, driving across Canada, many times I've thought of her and spoke about where I came from as I drove...

To read the rest of Glenda's story of Helen go to Ultimate Stories.

Mom Show 3 launched

2008-05-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who has submitted stories, poems and photos about their mothers. It's been wild to open my email everyday and see what people have sent to bear witness to the women who are our mothers. There is so much diversity and heartfelt candor in this world. Please keep sending in photos and stories as the spirit moves you throughout the year.

We just finished our big My Mother's Story show here at Unity of Vancouver and once again experienced the power that comes from releasing these stories into the bigger world. Our two shows were packed with people weeping and laughing (sometimes at the same time) and the stories we're hearing back of the conversations that happened on the way home after the show have made the hair on my arms stand up once again. I hope that the people who have submitted their full stories (found in Ultimate Stories) will have found a similar experience. If so, can you tell me what happened? Was it good for you?

I'm off to be on a forum panel sponsored by Full Figure Theatre in Vancouver entitled "Who Am I To Speak?" that will look at the effects of speaking our truth - psychologically, historically, socially. We want to collect more of these stories on the impact of telling your mother's story or what has happened after you've witnessed someone else telling their mother's story. One moment of spoken clarity can often bring down a whole crumbling edifice of belief or open hearts and minds to accept brand new thoughts. Families have been transformed by one person asking questions. If you have a story about anything like this, please send it along.

In the meantime, here's a great mother's story:

The New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist

Call Your Mother

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: May 11, 2008

Much of the outlook that infuses my own writings was bred into me from my mom, who believed that even if pessimists were usually right, optimists were behind great changes. Full article here

Chris C - sound engineer CBC Vancouver

2008-05-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

My mother, Norma, was born in Hyas Saskatchewan in 1923. When she was about 4 years of age her mother died in childbirth (with twins who also died). My mother told me of a tornado that moved the grain silo 5 miles down the road and a barn that they never found. Of the time when her 19 year old brother was head-kicked by a horse and died with the family crowded around him two days later. And of the time when she and some of her freinds went skinny-dipping at a secluded pond.

Read Norma's Story by Chris in the Ultimate Stories section

Julia F

2008-05-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem for my mother Erika Begemann a few years ago for Mother's Day. I wanted to express my thanks for the wonderful fairy tales and poems and stories she shared with me when I was a child, from the forests of Germany where I was born to southern Ontario, where I grew up

My Mother’s Gift

I remember your garden still
a sweet-scented, sun drenched hum
and a sheltered leafy peace
like your safe arms around me.

The dark forests of my childhood
transformed by your stories
into enchanted kingdoms
infinite with mystery and delight.

And later you gave me
the poetry of love and longing,
of the soul’s sadness and redemption,
in the language of castles and roses.

You showed me moonlit sonatas
and the great symphonies,
the sound of children’s angel voices rising
to join the music of the spheres.

I thank you now and always
for revealing the secret realms
of magic and beauty and imagination,
for helping me to spread my own gossamer wings.

Patrick R - Victoria

2008-05-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful idea.

My mother passed away last fall.

The first Raging Grannies were founded in her living room.

Read Bess's Story by Patrick in the Ultimate Stories section.

Karren D -

2008-05-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

I never met my mother until I was 45 years old and only knew her for thirteen years. I was adopted as a child and spent a life long search for her. I found out when I was 12 years old and made a vow to myself that I would find my mother if it was the last thing that I ever did. After years of searching and a lot of dead ends my vow to myself finally came true.

Read Bernita's Story by her daughter Karren in our Ultimate Stories section.

Kathy F - Vancouver

2008-05-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

When it comes to initiative and perseverance, my mother is unusually gifted – I have always enviously admired her ability to focus and “get down to business” with whatever she puts her mind to. She wanted to play the cello for years, and when she was 40 years old, she bought one. I remember the day she brought it home – it seemed impossibly enormous to me, especially compared to my sister’s violin, which now looked miniature by comparison. She began lessons, and often practiced in the evenings. I have warm, comfortable memories of hearing her practicing down in the living room as I was falling asleep, and sometimes I’d be woken in the morning by her practicing, too. My mother turned 60 last year, and has played in an orchestra for many years now. Her dedication with the cello is just one of the many examples she has given me over the years of how to go after what your heart desires.

James K - somewhere in Canada

2008-05-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

My mother married after WWII and had five kids in the next eight years. When the fifth was born it became apparent that the marriage was falling apart. Divorce wasn't fashionable in small-town Canada in the fifties but my mother decided to end an abusive relationship and bring up five kids on her own. She held down two jobs for years and yet we never felt left out or neglected. She held her head up high and refused charity and welfare, but members of the community, both male and female found ways to help her survive. In this poem, which took me years to complete, I tried to convey the pride and the gratitude that I have for my mother.

My Mother's Eyes

Folks often say I have my mother's eyes,

But what is more; she taught me how to see,

And when a rainbow's wonder fills the skies

To her I owe the joy it brings to me.

And when an author's grasp of human grace

Leaves tears of wonder dancing down my face

They are my mother's tears, and hers the heart

That feels a painter's fears, a poet's art.

And when my child, if frightened by a storm,

Or fraught with fever, calls out in alarm,

I speak the words once whispered in my ear:

"Don't be afraid my son, for I am here."

Gail L - Artistic Director, Bowen Island, BC

2008-04-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

My mom always told me to imagine her with flowers. She would encourage me to see her taking care of her flowers and, in that moment to capture a mental image of her, because that is how she would like me to remember her after she dies. I think that it is a beautiful thing for mothers to nourish their daughters with a sense of themselves alone on this planet after their mothers pass. It really is so hard to consider being in this world without the woman who gave you life, so a bit of fortitude feels essential and appropriate. I love how my mother still takes care of me in this and many other ways even though I am now in my 40s.

Dodie W, Bob W - in Ottawa and Vancouver

2008-04-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

Wanda on Mother's Day 2007. Taken an hour before she died.

Dodie W, Bob W - she wrote it, he submitted it, on their mother

2008-04-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

Wanda Woodham, a charming, gifted and gregarious, Brazilian woman, died on Mother's Day, May 13, 2007, just one month less a day before her 93rd birthday.

She was fiercely independent, well educated and fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. She won a scholarship to attend an American university and obtained a degree in science in her second language.

When she shared her scholarship news with her family, her uncle expressed shock that her father was allowing her to go to the U.S.A.

First of all, her uncle insisted, good Brazilian families never allowed unmarried women to go anywhere without a male family member as chaperone and second, to go to the United States of America alone when everyone knew there were no virgins there, was just plain crazy.

Her father disagreed, saying that his daughter had earned the right to choose her own path and she had his blessing. This was unheard of in the Brazil of the 1930s.

In 1944 she married a Canadian and went on to become a high school teacher and later a school administrator and consultant. Her first child was born in 1945, her second in 1950. She lived in Canada for more than 50 years but never lost pride in her Brazilian roots and cultural heritage.

She died while at a special Mother's Day luncheon, with family and friends by her side. She was all dressed up in her best party attire. She was happy, smiling and waving to friends. While waiting for lunch to be served, she put her hand to her chest, turned to her daughter and commented that she felt peculiar. While holding her daughter's hand, she looked up, leaned back, and died.

A good life, a good death. Goodbye, mom.

Jane S - in Vancouver missing her parents and the woods of Ontario

2008-04-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

My mother is sweeping the woods. Crazy as it is, the sound fills my heart. She is right outside the log cabin walls and ready to be greeted and teased. We arrived late and she is preparing Birch Rock for our first glimpse of water through trees, of the loon with its baby in the bay.

The woods look fine now, but together we remember the summer that caterpillars ate up all the leaves of the forest canopy, how she felt it was her own life being nibbled away at so quietly. She brags that she’s been out in the laser already and reports on the song she sang on the lake for any early swimmers who might have been listening. Rake set down, her arms lift as she sings it for me—“Oh he’s out with Kate and Jane, then he’s off to sea again, Ship Ahoy ... the naughty boy.” The wind might die down, she says, “So go now. Enjoy yourself.”

My mother is eighty something, and I can barely keep up. I absorb her encouragement and scoot out onto the lake, tacking and looking back at the hillside I dream of in winter. The lake wraps its thick and thin horizon around me, a flowing green arm that comforts and never holds me too tightly.

Once in my confused twenties, I sat fuming on the big rock until my mother squatted beside me, respectfully ignoring the heavy air around me, and she said, “I used to watch you four from up here, your perfect limbs in the sunshine. And I thought how beautiful, how perfect ... and how disappointing that you’d have to grow up and grow warts and get ugly.” She smiles, brushes the path, and leaves an opening for me. With my own babies, I have remembered this moment — remembered that joy is also sadness, that our comings and our goings are one and the same. We show one another the path, saying, “Go now, enjoy yourself.”

Steph C - mom of three

2008-04-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I took off to backpack through Europe for a couple of months. My mom decided to join me for the last week of my trip so we could enjoy some mother-daughter bonding time in Paris. As we strolled through Place Vendome one day, Mom suggested we stop in at the Ritz Carlton for an afternoon drink. “Dad and I spent a lovely afternoon there last year,” she said.

I glanced down at my ratty jeans and hiking shoes and knew we didn’t stand a chance. “Look at me,” I protested. “I’ve been living out of a backpack for the last two months and I’m really not dressed for the Ritz.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, trotting up the steps. “It’ll be my treat.”

We didn’t even get to the front door of the place before a security guard stopped us mid-trot and told us, quite loudly, that the hotel was “only open to registered guests.” My mom was absolutely stunned and I was doubled over in gales of laughter. Needless to say it was a memorable bonding moment – my mom just wishes I would stop referring to it as “that time Mom got us kicked out of the Ritz!”

Joyce P - singer/songwriter in Surrey, BC

2008-04-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

I caught a glimpse of yesterday, another time and place,
I looked into a mirror and I thought I saw your face,
Your eyes were looking back at me, and somehow I could see
Reflections of a gift you gave so long ago to me…

Chorus: You gave me music, and it made me strong,
For when life was empty, I filled it with song,
‘Though our time wasn’t easy, we did all we could do,
But when you gave me music, you gave me you.

You used to say you couldn’t buy me all you wanted to,
Pretty dolls and fancy clothes, like other mothers do,
But when you played piano, and I sang harmony,
What better gift in all the world could you have given me…

When I was only 17 you simply went away,
I never saw your face again, I never heard you play,
So many years I tried to keep your memory from view,
But when I sing, I realize how much of me is you.

Janet N - Powell River, BC

2008-04-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, I have always had a bit of a travel bug, and so has my mother. When I was in about grade 10, growing up in Newfoundland, Mom and I made a pact that we would take a trip together one day. I hand wrote a little contract, we both signed it, and it found a place on my bulletin board and didn't move ... for a long, long time. If I remember correctly the contract stated The Trip would take place at some point before I finished high school.
Well, that was about 16 years ago and last fall The Trip finally happened! My mom and I spent an incredible month volunteering together in Vietnam. It is so impossible to describe what it is I carry away from it the most, but I do know I feel extremely grateful to have had that time - and all those experiences - with her. And if we can find a way to pull it off again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Ruth M - actor and theatre educator in Vancouver

2008-04-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

Poem written by my mother in 1982
I Am

I am one with the rest of nature

timeless

life-full

child of the centuries

mother of life yet unborn

I am the solid rock of the mountains

exposed

vulnerable

strong in the face of storm

I am the violent hurricane

lashing out

tearing down

I am the gentle breeze

caressing and

caring

those I touch

I am the curious chipmunk

shy and

bold

hesitating, advancing, exploring

scolding, chasing, playing

I am the young bird struggling

to fly

to experience

the freedom of fullness of being

I am the river

running deep

I am the forest pool

the fresh mountain stream comes spilling into me

I overflow - spill out

am cleansed and cleanse

I am Maureen

Amy W - writer, NYC

2008-04-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

When my mother got her first job as a first grade teacher just after graduating from college, she used her first paycheck to put a down payment on a racing green MG convertible. In the subsequent 45 years, she has always owned a convertible, even as safer, more family-friendly cars came and went in our driveway and our family's garage. I think that years from now, decades from now, when I think of my mother, I will see her this way: behind the wheel, blond hair blown back by the wind, sunglasses on, cool, contained, and on the open road in a universal symbol of freedom.

Teresa L - freelance print specialist, Certified Life Coach, mother of one, grandmother of one

2008-04-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

My mom was a homemaker until the youngest of her 4 children was all grown up. She was 50 years old at the time, with no previous work experience, but she started looking around for opportunities. The small city she was living in advertised for someone to start up a Volunteer Bureau. My mom applied for and got the job. She ran this organization for the next 15 years and, when she retired at 65, she was awarded the Woman of the Year Award from the YWCA.

Her organizational skills and love of people enabled her to achieve many markers that surprised even her: she got the law changed so physically and mentally challenged people were allowed to volunteer; she enrolled nearly every non-profit organization in the city into her program and matched volunteers to their needs; she established a program with the university so volunteers could obtain credits; she got good at writing proposals and got extra funding to hire more staff; she even hosted a regular local TV show where she interviewed both agencies looking for volunteers and volunteers who shared their experiences to encourage others to volunteer. She also volunteered herself while she was working full-time.

She was flown to a larger city once a year to speak on Volunteerism. She had become the Expert. She spoke on how to enroll volunteers and how to make sure that programs had benefits for volunteers. She loved parties and regular appreciation nights were always on the agenda.

After she retired, my mom took on the challenge of heading up the Volunteer Program for the Seniors’ Olympics. She first decided what different areas were needed, then enrolled volunteers to head those areas and empowered them as decision makers and leaders. That was the first year in the history of the Seniors' Olympics where they had to turn away interested volunteers because they had too many.

My mom, at 50 years old, went from unemployed with no experience to being a leader in her community. I’ve always said: ‘If she can do it, we can do it.’

Sylvia L - to her mother who died of colon cancer

2008-04-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

OH ANGEL, MY GUARDIAN

YOUR EYES OPEN WIDE

THOSE OF A CHILD

A VIEW THROUGH THE WINDOW

OF YOUR SOUL, THERE INSIDE

I WALK TO YOUR BED

THE YEARS SLIP AWAY

MEMORIES FLASH BY ME

ALL THE WORDS NOT SAID

TIME, IT GOES QUICKLY

MINUTES, HOURS, DAYS

YOUR COMFORTING WORDS

VANISH IN A HAZE

SPEAKING SO CALMLY

YOU ACCEPT WITHOUT FEAR

THE FUTURE AWAITS

OF ONE I HOLD DEAR

THE FACE OF AN ANGEL

A HEART SO PURE

NO THOUGHTS THAT ARE EVIL

OH, WHERE IS THE CURE?

A LIFE THAT WAS TROUBLED

FULL OF PAIN, YET THE LORD

AWAITS ‘ROUND THE CORNER

IT IS TIME, STRIKE THE CHORD

YOUR SPIRIT WILL DANCE

YOUR BODY AT REST

THE SOUL OF A SAINT

WILL FLY WITH THE BEST

OH TAKE ME WITH YOU

EACH TEAR THAT I SHED

I LONG TO BE NEAR YOU

I SLEEP AT YOUR BED

FOR IT IS WRITTEN

AT THE END OF TIME

THE CHOSEN FEW WILL INHERIT

WILL IT BE MINE?

QUESTIONS I ASK

AS THE TIME DRAWS IN

YOU NO LONGER CAN ANSWER

I STARE AT MY SINS

OH GOD, HOW I PRAY

AS YOUR EYES I DON’T SEE

OH GOD, HOW I HOPE

AS I SING, SING , SING

THE TIME IT HAS COME

YOUR EYES I DON’T SEE

LIFE HAS BEEN TAKEN

I AM LEFT HERE, WITH ME

TIME, IT GOES QUICKLY

THE PAIN IS STILL HERE

BUT YOUR SPIRIT’S WITH GOD

AND YOUR LOVED ONES ARE NEAR

EACH STEP THAT WE TREAD

EACH THOUGHT WE THINK

OUR HEARTS RISE TOWARDS YOU

WE ARE THERE IN A BLINK

FOR GOD, HE IS GENTLE

OUR WISHES HE HEARS

OUR LIFE MAY BE SHORT

BUT OUR SOUL WILL HAVE YEARS

THE EYES OF AN ANGEL

OUR HEADS WE WILL BOW

THE PRAYERS OF A MOTHER

SHINE DOWN ON US NOW

Veronica H - Pam's 3rd daughter, Arizona writer and mom to two girls

2008-04-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

My mother, Pamela Tiger, was part of the first senior class to graduate from Pequannock high school in New Jersey. In May 1960, the senior class initiated skip day, heading to their cars instead of the cafeteria at lunchtime. Those who had cars packed as many friends as they could into their vehicles and headed to the barn.

That afternoon in May, Pam was driving her boyfriend’s car. A hot car set up for drag racing. While sitting at a red light next to a fellow classmate, Pam heard the other guy rev his engine. She knew he wanted to show off. She decided to give him a run for his money.

When the light changed, Pam stepped on the gas, too. This was her first drag race, and it was up hill. Pam played it cool and shifted whenever the other driver shifted. And Pam Tiger won the drag race up Butler Hill on the inaugural senior skip day for Pequannock high school.

Sarah H - actor in Vancouver

2008-04-03T13:17:00.001-07:00

Mum's Cookbook Cover with all the boats and houses we lived in!

Shelley K - Coquitlam, BC, engaged to be married, mother to cat Jimmy .

2008-04-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

One evening many years ago, I called my Mom to complain about work. As soon as she answered, I dove in, rattling on for over an hour. My Mom just listened, letting me vent. When I was done, she jokingly said “Just another day in paradise!” A few weeks later, I came across a fridge magnet with that exact phrase. I sent it to my Mom in an envelope with no return address. A few days later, my phone rang… and all I could hear was laughter. I knew that Mom had received my package. It’s been our motto ever since.

Winnie H - actor in Vancouver

2008-04-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

I never thought my mom and I had much in common until we both got older. Now I understand where my silliness and my sense of wonderment come from. She has become much more understanding and apparently, according to my many cousins, is the only aunt on Facebook. I didn't think we were that much alike until my very conservative and Asian mother left me a message to guess where she was and to call her on her "cell phone". I called her and she was on her way home from a wrap party; she'd had her first acting role in a feature film. Yes, from her first audition ever. Oh mom...

Nadine P, a single mother in Vancouver, BC

2008-04-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

When I was six years old, my mother contracted encephalitis, while
travelling around the world filming a made-for-television travel
series. As her brain started to swell, she began acting erratically,
and then fell into a coma that lasted several months. One day, as I was
visiting her in the hospital, a doctor told me that if my mother
survived, she would likely be a vegetable for the rest of her life. You
can't imagine how I felt, picturing my poor mom transformed into a
carrot.

Luckily, my mother proved the doctor wrong, and now, twenty-five years
later, keeps herself busy growing vegetables and teaching kids karate.

Sharon H - actor in Vancouver

2008-03-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

When I asked my Mom if she thought I was a good actor she would say that I was an awfully good cook.

Kiley T. - mom to be in Vancouver

2008-03-24T13:31:00.001-07:00

This is my silly, wonderful mother demonstrating how much snow Ottawa got in the winter of 2008. The picture captures her perfectly: open to the world and up for anything.