Sarah H - actor in Vancouver

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 .

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

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

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.