Amazing love beyond all measure
How do I put into words what it was like growing up with my mother and how she influenced me with her work?
As far as I can remember she was always taking care of me and everyone else around her. My brother and I were always her priority. She risked her life on several occasions, even when she was beaten to near death, to save our lives, finally succeeding escape when I was around two years old.
I have always had a very special connection with her.
She once told me I consoled her during Christmas when we didn’t have much after moving back home to Newfoundland. I was around three years old ... and told her, ‘Mommy, I know why God gave me to you. He gave me to you to take care of you.’ Throughout my life I felt that way. We took care of each other.
I remember her going to school to become an LPN, back then called nurse assistant, when I was around four years old. She would sometimes walk to school when no ride was available, as we didn’t have a car. She still managed to be an amazing mother, even baking my dolls and teddy bears birthday cakes and throwing parties for them when I was bored.
She worked 12-hour shifts, caring for her patients as if they were her own family. I vividly remember Christmas being broken hearted because my mom had to work. She explained how she will celebrate with us differently and taught us to realize how lucky we were.
She was needed in the hospital, on the pediatric ward, where so many very sick children were not well enough to go home to their families for Christmas, some without their parents because they lived far away.
She then arranged for my brother and I to go into the hospital on Christmas day … to bring gifts into the children. It was around that time she met my dad, who became the love of her life and our true father. They married, brought in my stepsister and we all became a family.
When I was a teenager, mom had endured multiple injuries ... at work to the point where she could no longer work. She decided (to) go after her dream of helping victims of violence … She also advocated for stricter laws. She decided to study psychology and counselling online to start the next phase of her life (and) became one of the cofounders of the now known Violence Prevention South and Central and Status of Women Central.
She continued her work from home and meet with the other co-founders at the kitchen table until they opened up an office here in Grand Falls-Windsor. She taught us at an early age that no form of abuse is acceptable nor should it be tolerated.
Mom also taught us that some men are also victims of violence and had helped several dads and their children to escape situations of violence from their abusive wives/ partners as well.
Mom loved her family to the fullest and during her last days, she wanted to be sure they were OK, not afraid and knew of her love for them.
Mom had battled several serious health issues after retirement. She fought through one bout of cancer eight years ago, recovered from the chemo and radiation. She then suffered a severe stroke a couple of years later and we almost lost her several times, yet she fought her best fight and came back again … This last reoccurrence of cancer was the beast that took her. She had fought the fight for life, more than anyone I know, and she was the bravest woman I knew. It was her time and now she is at peace.