TERRIBLE TOLL OF FLOOD
Janie Pighin places flowers at the spot where the body of her daughter, Jacqui Brocklebank, was found four years ago during the 2013 flood. Brocklebank was one of five people killed by the raging flood waters that devastated southern Alberta.
On June 18, 2013, Janie Pighin and her daughter, Jacqui Brocklebank, went on a daylong, mother-daughter date. It included a visit to the salon, shopping and lunch, with one break where Pighin dropped Jacqui off at the movie theatre to meet her boyfriend.
“It was a really beautiful day we spent together,” says Pighin, who raised seven kids in a blended family. On that day, her 33-yearold daughter gave her a belated Mother’s Day gift, along with an early birthday card that was filled with loving phrases.
“That card said everything she wanted to say to me,” says Pidgin. “But I couldn’t understand why she was giving it to me in June, when my birthday wasn’t until September.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Pidgin reflects on that happy, peaceful family day that took place less than 48 hours before raging flood waters began to spill over the banks of the Bow River. Four years ago, what is now commonly referred to as the Great Alberta Flood of 2013 temporarily displaced more than 100,000 people and caused more than $6 billion in property damage.
That day, five people also lost their lives in the flood. Jacqui Brocklebank, who called High River home, was one of them.
On the fourth anniversary of her daughter’s death, I meet Pighin at a secluded ranch nestled in the spectacular foothills, one of her many workplaces as a contract accountant. “Thanks for coming out,” says the warm and welcoming woman.
“It’s nice to be able to talk about Jacqui,” she says of the young woman whose infectious laugh was one of her calling cards, “so people don’t forget her.”
It wouldn’t be until Saturday, June 22, that Pighin would get confirmation that her daughter was the young woman who had drowned on June 20, when the flood waters turned the usually mild Highwood into a raging tide, devastating the town of High River.
The news stories would later describe Jacqui’s terrifying last moments, as well as her heroic act in helping to save a friend, on that fateful morning.
Today, though, Pighin is more interested in talking about the life, rather than the death, of one of those few human casualties of the flood — and the valuable life lessons her daughter taught her and the rest of their large extended family.
Her daughter, born Nov. 14, 1979, and later diagnosed with cerebral palsy, was a fighter. “It affected her entire left side and she had only partial sight in both eyes,” she says. “But I was always amazed at how she didn’t let her limitations get in her way.”
A social butterfly, as her mom calls her, Jacqui even resorted to occasional deception in her determination to be seen like everyone else. “She convinced one teacher she could read, because she had memorized the whole book,” she says with a soft laugh. “She’d go into stores and buy a nice coat on a payment plan.”
While she had a family that loved her dearly, Jacqui wasn’t in a position to indulge in life’s finer material items. Through the support of the Foothills AIM Society, she took jobs over the years that included everything from working in a sandwich shop to the local golf course.
Her hard-won independence, though, sometimes came with a strong helping of stubbornness and angry frustration.
“When she was 31, she apologized to me for ‘being such a handful to raise,’” says Pighin with a teary-eyed smile. “She was just starting to make some positive changes.”
That last wonderful day Pighin, now a grandmother of three, spent with Jacqui almost didn’t happen. She’d called her mom, who lives in Nanton, for a ride to Calgary for her annual check-in with a neurologist. “I asked if she could instead ask her dad, who is retired,” she says of Mac Brocklebank, her first husband who remained close to his kids. “She said he was busy, so I thought we might as well make a fun day of it.”
Of course, every June 20 Pighin also thinks of the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death and the impact it had on her and everyone else in her community.
“After Jacqui died, I went with one of my other daughters to help flood victims, cleaning up their basements,” says Pighin, a few hours before she brings a bouquet of flowers to the site in High River where her daughter’s body was recovered.
“I didn’t tell them I’d lost my daughter,” she says of the young woman who taught her about courage, perseverance and unconditional love. “It was therapeutic to help others.”