April 28th, 2024

Hello sweet ones,

I have been feeling the need to check in, but haven’t had the words to sum up what an utterly life-altering, devastating, shocking, soul-crushing 11 days it has been.

A day after I arrived in England, I received a call that everyone dreads receiving and one that I still have not processed the contents of yet. My mother had a routine blood test, and was immediately airlifted to the nearest university hospital (5 hours away), as she was diagnosed with Acute Myloid Leukemia. This is an extremely rare, violently aggressive, horrifically fast moving cancer. It is a total miracle it was caught on a routine blood test, because it develops over days or weeks. I flew back to Canada to be with my mom when I got the news and I am still with her now.

I cannot type every detail here, but I can say that after a very dicey first week, she is currently stable and has just started day 7 of her chemo treatments. We were told she had to survive the first week of chemo, as it would be the hardest week of them all, and we have made it. ❤

My life has been 100% focused on my mom and her care. I have not posted or responded to much of anything because I am so incredibly consumed by what is happening with my mom. If you are waiting on photos that should have been delivered by now, or waiting on a response from me for something, this is why.

A few days ago, I was 100% sure that I would have to cancel my upcoming workshops in England. I almost sent the email out letting everyone know, but my sister encouraged me to wait one more day. In that one more day, my mom turned a corner. After much discussion with my family, and improvement in my mama, we have come to the conclusion that we must care for our mom in shifts and continue to juggle our most pressing obligations, so we can tackle her treatment in a way that supports longevity (and be able to afford to support her in this process).

As of right now, she is never left alone. We are with her day and night. She has a steady stream of people loving her up, caring for her, bringing her nutritious food, advocating for her, making her laugh, and even watching her sleep.

She has at least two months of more intensive chemo in Edmonton ahead of her and a full year of maintenance chemo. Her prognosis has improved to possibly living for years if she can get through the chemo and it works for her body. This is a vast improvement on what we were initially told.

My mother is, and always has been, the strongest person I know. She has lived the most unimaginably difficult life and still chooses to smile, be kind, and have joy.

I was walking with my stepdad a few days ago and he told me (through tears) that when he cries for her he has to cry twice. Once because she has leukemia and once because she wants to live so damn bad.

More than anything, my mother wants to live. She is willing to do whatever it takes, even if whatever it takes only buys her a little bit more time. She is still smiling her beautiful smile and shining the way she does. If anyone can do this, it is her.

So long as things do not go sideways, I will be back in England to teach, and then right back home.

Please send my mama all of your love and and the most healing energy you can muster. She needs and totally deserves all of the goodness in the world.

May 1st, 2024

My mom caught me fiddling with a loose button on my coat.

“Is your button coming loose?”, she asked. “I can fix it for you.”

My beautiful mother, fighting for her life. Just diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. Trying to survive chemo. Utterly exhausted. Body covered in bruises.

Still, I wanted to say yes.

I wanted to hand her my coat and watch her lovingly sew my button on tighter with her beautiful hands that have held me countless times. I wanted her to mother me like that just one more time.

Instead, I hold her hand, kiss her head through my mask, and wish that I could love her well again.

May 12th, 2024

A few days ago, as I was prepping for my workshop, I stumbled into an antique shop filled with all kinds of little treasures. Dishes that once adorned family tables, beloved toys with bits and pieces scuffed off, relics of past lives spanning generations and centuries.

I commented on the unusual number of fossils present in this particular antique shop and one of the two elderly ladies working the counter blurted out, “Yeah, there are a couple more right here!”, and we all burst out laughing.

I rounded the corner of a glass case full of medals, books, and trinkets, paused, and turned around. “How old are you, if you do not mind me asking?”

I have suddenly become obsessed with age. My mother is 75 and is fighting for every breath. Four weeks ago, she was vibrant, active, working, feeling amazing, and living life to the very brim. Weeks later she is in a wheelchair and on oxygen full time. Acute myeloid leukaemia came for her hard and fast and it’s difficult to know exactly how many minutes, weeks, months, hugs, stories, heart-to-heart talks, and moments of laughter we have with her.

So I ask the question we are not supposed to ask. “How old are you?” I need to know. I need to know what is possible.

One of the ladies responded, “I am 80 and she is 83.”

I turn around, hold my breath and let the tears well up in my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I can’t stop them these days. Not a chance. So I let them come and go as they please.

“Have you lost someone, dear?”

“No, but my mother was just diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia.”, I respond, choking back the tears, and giving far more details than customary for complete strangers meeting for the first time. “Do you happen to have any gold lockets for sale? I have been looking for a gold locket and haven’t been able to find one.”

She stands up to have a look and brushes her hand across my back as she walks by. Just a touch, but it said so much. I felt nothing but pure love in that moment.

Oh what I would not give for all the years. No amount of time is ever enough. Treasure every single minute with your beautiful mama. Ask the questions. Share the stories. Record the memories. Make sure she knows how much you love her.

I am coming home, mama bear. Coming home to you.

Love, Cass

May 14th, 2024

Home Sweet Home

May 4th, 2024

When my sister first told me that my mother was diagnosed with a very serious, extremely aggressive Leukemia I was at Leeds Castle in Kent, England. I knew something was wrong because my mother texted me, knowing I had been in England for only hours, asking me to call her as soon as possible. I called several times and she didn’t pick up.

When my sister told me the news, I stood there in complete and utter shock. “Do you mean to tell me my iron ox of a mother is dying of Leukemia? How is this possible? I just saw her two days ago and she seemed perfectly healthy! They have made a mistake. This can’t be real.”

In the words of one of my dearest friends, my mother is “the strongest person to draw breath on this earth.” I urged her to go to the doctor for a check up a few years ago, which she did begrudgingly. The doctor asked her one her last check up was and she said, “July of 1987 when my last child was born.” He responded with, “That’s 25 years!” She said, “Yes, I guess it has been that long.”

My mom dislocated her arm last year after a bad fall. I called to check in and she told me she couldn’t move it at all. I pressed her to go to the hospital and she told me there was no need. She wanted to take a few days to rest it, as she was sure it would heal on its own. I insisted on picking her up and taking her in myself. The triage nurse pulled her shirt back and my mom’s arm bone was out of the socket!

My mother is 75, active, healthy, and still works full time on her feet for long days. She is strong. She is always smiling and truly appreciates the life she has been given.

When she discovered she had acute myeloid Leukemia, the hospital planned to airlift her out the same day to Edmonton for treatment, and she pleaded with them to allow her to work her upcoming trade show on the weekend first. 😅 They declined. I think my mom was in complete shock. She still felt great at the time.

Within two days of being airlifted to the U of A hospital and admitted with AML, my mama had her first of many blood transfusions. The cancer took its grip so quickly. She is now on oxygen full time, and needs to use a walker or wheelchair to get around. Chunks of hair are slowly making their way to the shower drain. We celebrate careful walks down the hall and back and wipe the tears when they roll down her cheeks. We are trying to focus on the wins. She made her own blood yesterday for the first time since starting chemo! Five whole hemoglobin!

A little snippet of an everyday moment so you can hear the beautiful voice that I turn to first every time life gets unbearably hard or unbelievably beautiful.

I wouldn’t wish this on the worst of people. 💔

May 15, 2024

I made my sisters promise me before I left for England that they would call immediately if things took a turn for the worse with our mother so I could be on the first flight home. I knew things were not going well, because each facetime call with my mama resulted in more pieces of her being chipped away. On May 8th, she was almost unrecognizable. She mistook one of my students for my husband. She was delirious. At times, she did not recognize her own children. She didn’t register any of my usual jokes or connect to any of my stories. I got off the phone, and through tears choked out, “That was not my mother.”

I got THE call on May 9th. My sister called and led with, “I told you I would tell you if it is bad news.” She proceeded to tell me that she had met with one of the many doctors on my mom’s team and was told that they were sending her home to Grande Prairie. When pressed about why they would do that when my mother was not stable (something her lead doctor had promised not to do), the response she got was, “This ward is for people we are trying to get into remission and your mother does not fall into that category.” We had months, at best.

What we got from that conversation was that all hope had abandoned us and my mother was being sent home to die. My heart, my soul, my very being crumpled. My sorrow and grief became primal. Like I had somehow connected with all of the other children (yes, forever her child) of the world who had lost their parents in slow motion and all of their grief compounded with mine to create this massive, unbearable, destructive sorrow that made it impossible to breathe and left me paralyzed.

To make matters worse, my sister discovered that my mom had been placed on a crazy strong antipsychotic drug that was being used as a sedative to help her sleep. My iron ox of a mother. The one who did not go to a doctor for 25 years. The one who hadn’t so much as popped a tylenol, was drugged literally out of her mind. This had resulted in her sleeping 23 hours a day, her body ballooning up because she wasn’t able to move enough to push the fluids, delirium, confusion, and a host of other symptoms. Symptoms that we had chalked up to the chemo up until this point. We suspected if we got her off the drug, my mom’s symptoms would improve.

At our request, my mother was taken off the drug that was making her not the mother I knew, and my mama slowly came back to herself. To all of us. There she was, eyes shining, skin glowing, laughing, up and walking, alert, holding us tight, soaking in every minute.

She had her bone marrow biopsy on Monday the 13th to see if the treatment was working to target and kill the leukemia. We waited, counting the seconds as they rolled by at their leisure. When you are waiting to hear if your mother has a fighting chance or not, the wait is a torturously long one.

Last night, at 6:00 p.m, we learned that my mother is in complete remission!!!!! Cue happy tears. I told you she is and always has been the strongest person to draw breath on this earth. Only 22 days into treatment, and she is in full remission with one of the most aggressive, horrific, fast moving cancers in the world. She was fighting the whole time, with everything she had. Through the chemo and the litany of drugs she is/was on. She fought quite literally with every cell in her body to have the chance to be here.

There is no cure for my mother without a bone marrow transplant, and she is not a candidate for one. Her doctor doesn’t think she would survive it. Acute Myeloid Leukemia is a life sentence for her. She will be on chemo every month for the rest of her life. But, her life just extended to a possible 39 months!!!!!!

Thirty-nine months is a whole other story. Maybe a story for tomorrow or a year from now. Thirty-nine months is a complicated relationship with grief, sorrow, hope, joy, and memories all tied up in it. Tangled like an unwound ball of yarn that will never be a pattern sweater, but the possibility is there to turn it into something beautiful.

Thirty-nine months is what I cling to today, like a desperate child clings to her mother at preschool drop-off. Only, I am the child and I am 40 years old. Thirty-nine months is hope masquerading as time. Thirty-nine months is my mother coming home to see her brilliant white Mayday tree in full, fragrant bloom and walk through the home she didn’t get to say goodbye to. Thirty-nine months is my mother sitting on the deck eating yellow raspberries and cream. Thirty-nine months is making Christmas ornaments together while sharing stories and laughing until our ears hurt. Thirty-nine months is driving to her house without warning on a Tuesday afternoon and finding her there. Thirty-nine months is feeling her warm embrace as often as I can make my way to her.

I will take it. I will be grateful for it. When I am between moments, things are quiet, and I have time to think, I will tiptoe into asking the universe for a little more.

May 22, 2024

My sister called…

My sister called me bawling a few nights ago. She was just coming to the realization that our mother, our iron-clad, fiercely strong, magnificently independent mother, had not complained even once throughout this entire earth-shifting journey.

She never has been a complainer. Life has ravaged her more times than my heart can bear to recount. She has had to rebuild herself from the ground up more times than seems fair for one person. She has suffered unimaginable life blows, of which acute myeloid leukaemia likely doesn’t even come close to ranking as the hardest hitting.

Yet, she continues to smile. She doesn’t complain. I mean, sometimes she rolls her eyes when we try to coax her to eat like you would a toddler. She has tuned into a whisp seemingly overnight. Sometimes she closes her eyes and pretends to sleep when she has had enough of our constant clucking. Though, having us always near keeps her heart warm and beating. Sometimes she can’t stop her hospital gown from absorbing the tears that have rolled off her cheeks. Though, she still hasn’t had the kind of primal, deep, guttural, lung-robbing cry we all have. She simply doesn’t complain.

She takes it all in, one day and one breath at a time, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I suppose that is all she can do. It’s all we can do.

We have been cleaning and renovating her house all week in anticipation for her to be able to eventually be able to break free on a day pass. I found a book on her dresser that she filled out 20 years ago, “To My Daughter With Love: A Mother’s Memory Book.” In this book she answered all kinds of questions. The kinds of questions a daughter yearns for the answers to when the questions can no longer be asked. One question was what my mother learned from her mother’s example. She wrote, “I learned to be strong, to bear pain without complaining.”

Wow. Isn’t that the truth?

This morning, mom is finally on home soil, in Grande Prairie at our shiny new hospital. The view out her window looks like a renaissance painting. I am in her room watching her sleep like I do with my children, tiptoeing, so as to not wake her up.

Today, it is enough to be able to watch her sleep like this. It has to be. Though, I am not like my mother in one regard. I cannot bear the pain of life’s all consuming injustice without complaining. I take it step further and wail loudly. I choke on my sorrow as it rams itself down my throat and permeates my cells. I stand tall and scream out to the universe with every fiber in my being that it isn’t right. I allow myself to feel it all. Then, I take the injustice of it and attempt to spin it into something beautiful. That is all we can do. Turn it into light that shines on all of the people who come after us.

May 29, 2024

What astounds me the most about the last six weeks is how I view time. I count the minutes. Minutes with my mama. Minutes with my children. Minutes with my husband. Minutes driving, watering my garden, reading to my children. I am suddenly acutely aware of time in every single aspect of life. I have always had an appreciation for time, but I don’t think I ever really fully understood it until now.

May 31, 2024

Guess what we are doing today!!!!? We broke mama bear out on a day pass!!!! She is wearing her fuchsia dress that I have obsessed over since I was little. I have been NEEDING to photograph her. I don’t think I could have lifted my camera again without photographing her first. Emotional day. But, total magic.

June 2, 2024

My dear friend Nan said she could hear me saying, “Ladies and gentlemen… I present to you, the Queen of my heart!”, in response to this series. I felt it a very fitting title for this portrait of my mama. She muscled through her exhaustion on chemo to give us this priceless treasure.

I cannot tell you how badly I needed to photograph her before the chemo takes all of her hair. My mother. My foundation. My rock. The first person I call. The one who taught me how to do impossibly hard things. My everything. It is utterly devastating to watch leukaemia rob her of her bodily autonomy. Her life. I needed to photograph her as whole as possible just once. This was my first opportunity since her diagnosis. Her second visit out of the hospital (the first had to be home).

It feels like a second chance. I cannot believe I did not do this sooner. I cannot believe I did not prioritize it above all else. Me. The artist. The preserver of legacies. The storyteller. The keeper of what is good, beautiful, and true. I am beyond grateful the universe granted me a do-over. 

How utterly magnificent is this beautiful human? My hero and the queen of my heart forever and always. 

June 9th, 2024

My sister and I were texting the other night and she said, “It’s a strange dance everyday, between knowing the most devastating, debilitating grief is waiting on the other side of this. And, all it takes is one smile from her to allow me to pretend it is just a dream. I don’t know how I am going to through it, only that I will because I am hers.”

I think this might be the most beautiful photo I have ever taken. My sister and my mama.

June 24, 2024

Time is not a thief

Time is the wisdom keeper of the world

Time Warned us all

Time is a child asking you to put your phone down

Time is your grandfather in a nursing home staring at a photo of you.

Time is the tears that well up in your eyes when your son graduates from school

Time is the war that should have never been waged

Time is the polar ice caps begging you to let them stay

Time is my brother’s handprints that remained on my mother’s dresser mirror for over 20 years

Time is a teacher

Time is a prophet

Time is that sinking feeling you get when you spend it unwisely

Time gave you the most magnificent gift that can be bestowed on any one person

Time is the only gift that MUST be spent. It can not be saved up for a later date.

How do you choose spend it?

My mother‘a cancer hell is flaring. She is back in emergency at the hospital. I am so thankful I have the ability to choose to spend my time with her right now.

I wish I could bottle up all the love in the world and channel it right into her body and soul. 

 Who knows how much time we really have left.

June 25th 2024

It’s the little things. Last night my step dad told me he could stay with mama until 2:00 in the morning and told me to go home and get some much needed sleep. I asked him if I could talk to him in the hall, simply to melt in his arms and cry on his shoulder for a little while. I needed a hug so damn bad. He whispered in my ear that I was born to live this life and that I can do it and it can be beautiful all the while. I knew when I rolled in this morning and saw a red Ford truck, he didn’t leave her. He stayed all night. Sure enough, he was still there when I walked through her door. ♥️

Little things. Big love.

Aug 2nd, 2024

I stopped by my mom’s house to deliver some market strawberries today and caught a glimpse of my step dad on his knees on the floor next to my mom’s chair… his original edition, near ninety-year-old knees that can barely get him up a flight of stairs. I typically walk through the front door and catch a glimpse of one of two sights in the t.v room. One, my mother’s feet resting on the footstool of her recliner. Two, my stepdad’s matching feet in addition to hers, resting in his recliner.

This is all post-cancer, of course. Pre-luekemia, my mother was never in her chair, and always up doing something. Sewing, making, gardening, working, you name it, she was doing it. When I would pop over for a visit, she would stop what she was doing and we would pile onto the sofa and chat.

When I left her house, she always walked me to the door and gave me the biggest mama hug ever. The all-consuming kind that a person feels on a cellular level. The same way grounding your bare feet on the forest floor sends a healing charge through your whole body, my moms goodbye hugs fill my love tank until it overflows. Nobody hugs like her.

She would then stand outside on the porch as I walked toward my car, blowing kisses all the while, waving, and saying “goodbye” and “I love you” again and again. Always, without fail. Even in the dead of winter.

It is different now. Busy days are a thing of the past in her world, unless they are filled with medical appointments and treatments. My mom’s porch is empty. Goodbye waves and blowing kisses have been replaced with quiet exits. All-consuming hugs at the door have been replaced with my cheek pressed to hers as I lean over her recliner. It is astounding to me how quickly life can change and how quickly we can adapt to a new normal, regardless of how much sorrow rests there.

I walked into my mom’s t.v room today and found her and my step dad with tear-stained cheeks. I should not have been alarmed. Daily tears are very much a part of our new normal. Yet, something about my step dad on his knees, leaning into her like he was, tears streaming out of his eyes and hers, shook me more than usual.

“What happened?”, I asked.

“I was just telling her how sorry I am that this is happening to her”, his voice cracked. “You used to be so full of life.”, he looked into her eyes. “So alive. I am so sorry you have to go through this. I love you.”

He loves her. There is no question. The first day she arrived home from the hospital, I walked into that same t.v room and caught him lying in his chair next to hers, rolled on his side facing her, watching her sleep.

Later that night, my sister and I were unloading groceries listening to Skylar Grey’s, Coming Home and we dropped everything and held each other so tight as we danced in the kitchen singing, “I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world I am coming home.” We didn’t see or hear my stepdad walk in. He stood there watching and when the song ended and we opened our eyes, he joined in, holding us even tighter, catching our tears, and dancing with us until the song played out a second time. When my mom was hospitalized again and he was worried the hospital wasn’t doing enough, he stayed the night. His tears soak his shirt as often as any of ours do.

I looked at my mama today and reached for something to say that could possibly take the sting out. Coming up short, I said, “The bright side is…. absolutely fucking nothing.” We all burst out laughing. Then I looked into her teary bright blue eyes and said, “You are so loved.”

It is 5:17. P.m. My mom and stepdad are coming over for dinner at 6:00 p.m. I am going to do my best to soak in every single second of this beautiful, terrible, heart-breaking, utterly magnificent, devastating, breathtaking life.

Aug 19th, 2024

Mama just started round four of chemo today. The last three weeks we have been doing nightly dinners at my house. It all started because food is one of my mom’s biggest struggles. She has no appetite anymore and food is no longer a pleasure for her. It is a necessity that has a history of ending in her feeling unwell or even becoming violently ill.

In an effort to get her eating enough calories and, perhaps, even excited about food again, we have been doing nightly dinners at our house. My husband puts on a big spread every night. The kids set the table, help prepare the food, pick berries, go the market with mom and dad and buy the veggies. It is a big family affair. We all pitch in to get everything done. Then, my parents come over to enjoy it.

It has been transformational. I cannot even put into words how amazing it has been for my family. My mom gets out of the house and feels the sun on her face. She is slowly building up her strength and maybe even starting to put some weight back on.

The kids are learning how to cook and trying all kinds of new foods. We are spending so much time as a family cooking, eating, visiting, and sharing stories. It has become rather ceremonial.

A couple of weeks ago we put on a massive Christmas dinner style turkey dinner and brought out all the fine china. My mom said that was her first time feeling excited about food since starting chemo. We promised my mom another one after she finishes this round. 

The last 4 months have been so chaotic and crazy. There were months of non-stop grabbing food on the go because we were in and out of the hospital several times a day and it was the best we could manage at the time.

Life is finally starting to feel balanced. I am not taking a single minute for granted. Every story, every hug, every time she reaches over puts her hand on me to as her way of saying, “I love you” between breaths. Every time I get to walk her back to her truck and stand on the driveway and watch her drive away. Every teary drive to and from her house, because I am so grateful for the extra time, and so sad, and so happy. Every everything.

This is my little reminder to you all to invite your loved ones over for dinner and share your stories and your love with one another. Do it while you can. You won’t regret it. Not ever.

Sept 6th, 2024

Today, I changed the emergency contact person on my daughter’s student demographic form from my mother to my oldest son. Then I cried. I cried a lot. How did you all do it? This slow, unbearably hard letting go.

Sept 8th, 2024

I promised my mom a Christmas dinner style turkey dinner after each completed chemo round. One a month! It is her favourite. I might not have as many years left with my mom as I would like. But, we are making the most if it. If I can fit 12 Christmas dinners, and hundreds of shared meals at my house into one calendar year (which is the trajectory we are on now), it is a start. You will never hear me say, “I wish I would have…” I wish is today. It can only be today. Not tomorrow or next year. Today, I am so grateful that I get to live here during this time, only 7 minutes from her house. 

 I cannot tell you what an enormous blessing it is to have dinner together almost every night and drive to her house at any given time just to love her and say so.

P.S. Christmas dinner is so much better in the summer with fresh market veggies and Hutterite turkey anyways. 10/10 highly recommend

Oct 22, 2024

First haircut for the mama since starting chemo 7 months ago. She has lost a lot of her hair and was nervous to cut any of what is left off. It looks soooooooo good. It is a miracle she still has hair. We were told she would likely lose it all in her second round of chemo. My sister mentioned something about this likely being my mom’s last haircut and it really struck me.

Everyone tells you about how poignant the “lasts” are with your babies. Nobody warned me about savouring the lasts with my mom. She can’t thread a needle to sew anymore. She can’t make our yearly beaded Christmas ornaments. Her hands are too shaky from the chemo. The lasts are creeping up on us and I am going to be honest with you…. It is really hard.

It took every ounce of self control I had not to pick up a lock of her pretty white hair off the floor and put it in a ziploc bag to take home like I did with my babies. Not even kidding. 

 Thankfully, I avoided presenting like a total crazy daughter for just today.

The mama in her 20’s.

Dec 28th, 2024

“You won’t know you are okay until you get there.” – Mom

If ever a sentence sums up my whole year, it is this collection of words uttered by my beautiful mother on December 23rd as we were sitting around the table making Christmas ornaments.

My mother has lived for 8 months since her AML diagnosis. Eight months ago, I could not fathom what today would consist of. There were so many unknowns. Life was a blur of hospitals, counting the minutes, and being pulled in several directions at once. I am not exaggerating when I say I have cried every single day for 8 months, often 15 or 30 times. I have fallen apart more times than I can count.

What really astounds me, though, is that I have laughed hysterically. Even when I felt like I was being crushed alive, I laughed. I connected with some of the most beautiful humans the world has ever known. I danced. I poured my heart and soul into being a mother, a daughter, a wife, teaching, and taking meaningful portraits. I picked wild strawberries and dreamed dreams. I slowed down and prioritized my family. I shared stories and had slow dinners with my mom almost every single day. I experienced awe-inspiring beauty. I experienced selfless love and kindness from complete strangers. The kind that makes a person feel bathed in light.

I recognized that it can ALWAYS be worse. One need only look to the world to understand this.

The human spirit is incredibly resilient. We really don’t know if we will be okay until we get there. I am not convinced that we even know where we are going until we arrive.

I love you all so much. I want to thank you for being by my side this year and showing me such profound kindness. You have walked me through one of the most challenging years of my life and made me feel like I am not alone. Thank you

Love, Cass

March 12th, 2025

Just had dinner with the mama. She told me she is up to 70 laps walking around her house every day. There was a time after her cancer diagnosis that she needed a wheel chair to get around. We army carried her from her hospital bed to the washroom. She could barely stand. She has taken it upon herself to get strong and stay active this winter. This woman has taught me every single day what it looks like to fight for the life you want. To live, even when she is dying. I am so proud of her and so proud to have her as my mother. 

 I can’t help but look at her and feel like it will be okay, because if she can carry what life has thrown at her and still choose to stand, so can I. 

 So can we all.

April 9th, 2025

On my birthday last year, my mom surprised me first thing in the morning with her infamous all-consuming mom hugs and my most favourite strawberry beverage of all time. I remember, I was frantically working down a 100-item to-do list trying to wrap up work and prepare for leaving for England for 6 weeks with the kids. I didn’t feel like I had time to sit and visit. I was left with a deep knot in my stomach. It felt wrong to not be able to slow down long enough to enjoy the moment, but I was caught up in the fray of life.

Nine days later, my mom went for routine blood work and got a call at 2:00 in the morning from the specialist looking at her blood sample. He told her she was seriously ill and needed to get to a hospital immediately. My stepdad thought it was a prank call and my mom wasn’t sure, but she felt fine, so she went back to bed. Her doctor called her first thing in the morning and told her to come in. That is when she knew something was really wrong. She went alone to get some of the most devastating news of her life, and then went to the hospital alone as well, where she was airlifted out to the University Hospital in Edmonton 4.5 hours away from home. I was on a plane to England at the time. When my mom finally called my sister, she urged her not to tell me because she did not want to ruin my trip. Yes, you heard that right. Thankfully, my sister did not listen.

We almost lost her.

Today, I get a do-over. I do not know how or why the universe conspired to give me such a gift, but I will never again take the time I have with my loved ones for granted. This morning, I am going to my mom’s to attend a much anticipated phone call with her Oncologist. We are going to Dunvegan to purchase carrot seeds this afternoon and out to dinner tonight. I know we will both stop and admire how much her tulips and daffodils have grown in just a few short hours of sunshine every time we walk to and front the front door, like we have for the last few weeks. I know when I walk into her house, she will give me the biggest, warmest, best Mom hug and this time I will not be thinking about all of the things I need to get done.

I will rush for nothing today. Today, we are alive and today we will live. Not the hurried rat-race version of life we have been misled to believe is normal.

April 17th, 2025

One Year

My mom went from working 12-15 hour days and loving it, to in a wheel chair and on oxygen in a matter of days after being airlifted to the University Hospital, with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Her platelet count dropped to SEVEN. Normal is 144 to 400. She needed both a platelet transfusion and blood transfusion every few days.

We never left her side. Her children. Her grandchildren. Her siblings. Everyone showed up. I remember my aunty telling me in the elevator that “it’s like a rollercoaster to hell.” In the first weeks it was so touch and go, somebody even slept with her at night. My sister oversaw and tracked every drug, questioned some, and caught errors. Everyone on shift made a notes file of every test result, conversation, and symptom to send to the family and pass on to the next on shift.

Her neutrophil count dropped to zero. She had no immunity whatsoever. My sisters and I, Cavi wiped her entire room and everything in it, including the floor several times a day. For those of you who don’t know what a Cavi wipe is, it is a super strong medical grade wipe that you have to glove up to use and no surface is safe to touch afterward until it dries. We Cavi wiped her bathroom before we would let her enter and fanned over the toilet to help it dry faster if it was urgent. We Cavi wiped every surface she touched, including the lobby chairs when she went for a walk. We followed her to every CT scan or out and room procedure to Cavi wipe every surface she would touch there as well. I did not hand her a pen without sanitizing it first.

Chemo made my mother so violently ill, she couldn’t keep anything down. We were told she needed to eat 2000 calories per day to survive chemo, but she wasn’t even getting a few hundred most days. Some days she seemed to retain zero. She lost an obscene amount of weight, getting more frail each day. Feeding her became a fulltime job. My husband and his parents would prepare meals in their kitchen and then boil glass containers to eliminate any possible germs and we would sanitize, glove-up and transport to the hospital. Food that went down okay one day would make her violently ill the next and we had to try and find a replacement that she could tolerate.

We dubbed the blood cancer wing the Ward of Tears. People entered and exited crying. Nobody smiled unless it was the forced kind in which the lips move, but the eyes do not follow. I started asking people what they were “in for” on the elevator up like I was trying to bond with a prison gang of inmates and doling out hugs to those who looked like they could use one. I was so drained by the end of the day, I joined the silent souls looking straight ahead, awkwardly trying not to make eye contact.

We adopted anyone unfortunate enough to be put up on a bed in the hallway outside of my mom’s room due to a room shortage on the dreaded Ward of Tears, and included them in our usual meal runs for the mama. Shout out to Brian. We couldn’t help but notice that most of the patients did not have frequent visitors.

A couple of weeks into my mom’s diagnosis, one of my mom’s specialists sat my sister and I down and told us that we “might have a couple of months”. She was smiling like it was a positive to look forward to, but we had previously been told we might have 39 months. The thought of a couple of months was more than a punch to the gut. It felt like I had been drawn and quartered. My sister and I instinctively reached for one another’s hands and gave each other a tight squeeze while locking eyes. I saw anguish in its purest form in her that day and I felt it in myself. My mom was too drugged to register what the doctor had said. My sister and I tucked her into bed for the night and made our way to the parking garage where I asked her if she wanted to walk to Earls and get cheesecake.

By some divine intervention, we were seated on a side of Earls that did not have a single patron, despite the other half being plum full. For the best, as we proceeded to ball our eyes out, unapologetically, hysterically even. Our server was not phased in the least when she asked us if we wanted a refill on our drinks. We surmised that working in Earls across from the University hospital probably attracts a different kind of customer.

For the next hour, we tried to process the enormity of what we had just been told. We shook. We cried. We even laughed maniacally, while tears poured out of our eyes and snot bubbled out of our noses as we repeated, “Two Months!!!” We looked and sounded utterly insane. The truth is, what we were told was so ludicrous. So incredibly difficult to even try to comprehend, we simply couldn’t do it.

If I am being honest, I still can’t process it. It isn’t real. They say the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. But, I do not think the elephant ever gets eaten. It’s too big. That is what this slow loss feels like. Too big. My brain recognizes that my soul needs to be protected at all costs. So, it gives me a bite in the form of an hour or a day, with the knowledge that the elephant will never be consumed, but the everlasting hope that it will.

Today, we have made it through 365 bites. It has been a whole year [that doctor didn’t know who she was dealing with]. My mom is stronger than she was a year ago. Her wheelchair and walker are tucked away in storage. The grab bars homecare ordered that she hated with a passion are gone. Her house is only sanitized once a week now. She has chemo once a month for 9 days. By some miracle, she managed to retain some of her hair and it is filling in again. Next week she will turn 76. Next month, her Mayday tree will be in full, fragrant bloom and she will get to stand beneath its branches. This summer, we will sit on my back deck once again and eat yellow raspberries and cream. I can pop by her house on any random Tuesday afternoon and find her there.

My bites are getting bigger. Today, I can look beyond tomorrow. Today, I am brave enough to ask the universe for just a little more.

Please.
Just a little more.

…..

Photo of my mom getting her pic line out last week. She is doing amazingly well and does not need it anymore, as it was intended for medication delivery. My mom is currently in remission. This means that her leukemia blasts are under control. She still has Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It is a life sentence for her, as she is not eligible for the only cure, a bone marrow transplant. She will remain on chemo. But, she has worked so hard to come off of ALL of her anti-nausea medications, which is nothing short of a miracle given how she started. I am so incredibly proud of her. She inspires me everyday to fight for the life I want.

May 20th, 2024

My beautiful mother, standing beneath her Mayday tree (the prettiest Mayday tree in town), on a Tuesday morning. This Mayday tree came from my childhood farm, which makes it even more special.

I took this photo this morning, then bawled my eyes out for an hour because there was a time I did not know if I would ever get to see her like this again. She loves this tree and this house. She fell in love with this house 30 years ago when the previous owners put it up for sale. She didn’t think she would ever be able to afford it, so she would park across the street every day after work and just daydream about calling it home. She did this for a couple of months until she got the courage to put an offer on it. The rest is history. A beautiful, heartbreaking, wonderful, tragic, inspiring, extraordinary, ordinary, magnificent history.

June 12th, 2025

June 27th, 2025

Happiness is getting to surprise my mama with fresh, local strawberries on a Friday afternoon.

August 5th, 2025

A year ago I didn’t think my mom would live past summer. I was certain she wouldn’t live past Christmas. A year ago, my mom wasn’t allowed to garden. It could have killed her. Tonight, we picked raspberries together. Our hands stained with the raspberries of my childhood. My son helped so long as he was on “grandma’s team.” Tonight was a miracle. I barely noticed, because it is starting to feel normal. 

 Not quite. Still raw. Still tender. Still scared. Still acknowledging reality. But, almost. If I exist in just a single moment alone, however brief, I can brush the edges normalcy.

Sept 17th, 2025

I have clung to the hope that my mother will magically get better with chemo alone, even though we were told the only pathway to a cure for her Acute Myloid Leukemia is a bone marrow transplant, a treatment that my mom is not eligible for. She has been terminal since day one. Yet, I have clung to this desperate (and maybe delusional) hope. I understand that medical treatment has kept her alive, but I have wished many days that love could bridge that gap between alive and cure. If I could just love her enough. Deep enough. Big enough. Maybe I could love her well again. We all could. I keep hoping for a miracle. That she will be an outlier case that defies everything we know about this terrible disease. Every blood test, I wonder if it will show that her cancer is gone.

Today, I drove her to Edmonton to meet with her oncologist.

One of my mom’s tumour marker tests is called an NPM1. She gets the test every 3 months. When she was first diagnosed and had this test, 44.3 cells out of every 100 tested positive (and 93% of her bone marrow cells were blasts). We found out today that in July, her NPM1 showed that only one cell in 10,000 tested positive. She is in deep remission. 

 She still needs her chemo to stay alive. That one in 10,0000 can rob her of her life very quickly if unchecked. But, that number still feels like a miracle.

She had another NPM1 today. I am pushing for a zero. I need to believe miracles happen. If not today, some day soon. She is fighting everyday for the life she wants. She exercises every day. She eats healthy. Grows her food. She does crossword puzzles to keep her brain active. She wants to live… well. I cant help but ask myself, how am I living? Am I living well? I have the best role model.

I will let you know when (not if) we hit that zero.

Nov 14th, 2025

Last year, I took my mom off of my kids’ emergency contact forms at the school. My mom could barely make it from one room to the next. Leukaemia was robbing her of her life, her dreams, her loves, and her bodily autonomy. She was so incredibly sick and chemo was so torturous on her body, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hang on. She cried herself to sleep every night, but didn’t admit that until much later. I remember telling her that we would support whatever decision she made with her own care, but also asking her to please give her treatment six months before she made any hard choices. There was a time I didn’t think she would make six weeks.

Before my mom got sick, every visit, preparation for a trip, or a craft show, I would end the visit by asking my mom to please not die. Always half playfully joking, and half serious. She would give me an exasperated initial response and then we would chuckle about it. I would frequently remind her that she gave birth to me, and therefore owes me forever 😅. She would follow up each time saying that she would never leave this world before I write my book and she gets to read it. Then she would reassure me like a parent does with a small child.

When my mom was first diagnosed, I had just made it to England. The first words out of my mouth on FaceTime, through uncontrollable crying and with tear-stained cheeks was, “What is the one thing I asked you not to do?! We both just wept.

Last night, I FaceTimed my mom and she was giddy. She was packing up to drive to Grimshaw today to take part in a craft show and she was soooooo excited! She giggled like a school girl.

She is still on chemo 9 days out of every 35, but she is strong now. She doesn’t get violently ill on chemo anymore. Her chemo tremors have lessened and she can sew and write again. She has found her JOY. She gardened all summer and dressed up for Halloween to hand out treats to the kids. She is dabbling in work and planning for the future.

I asked her last night if she could watch the kids for 1.5 hours on Tuesday to bridge a gap in my schedule and she said, yes.

She said, yes! I can’t tell you how huge that is. I mean, for me to even ask… I didn’t think I would ever see a day where my support system could sneak back into my life. I learned to cope without that security of knowing mama could be there if I needed her and it hurt like hell.

Here she is, cutting fabric for aprons and reciting age old wisdom drilled into her by yours truly, just like before. Last night, the words snuck out of my mouth for the first time in 1.5 years, “Please don’t get into an accident and die on the way to Grimshaw.” I know she isn’t doing to die of leukaemia today. I never thought I would be pleading for my mother to drive safe on a two-hour trek on icy winter roads again.

My mother is proof that miracles happen. Some things in life cannot be explained purely by science. They can only be explained by the heart and a pure tenacity to make the most of each breath of life.

Nov 28th, 2025

Every workshop, every adventure, every beautiful soul I meet has a lesson to teach me. Something to carry forward to guide me through the next chapter of life. This year, New Zealand has been all about pivoting. I arrived thinking my work was largely done as far as prepping and scouting for the workshop went. I spent so much time scouring every inch of the landscape for the most magical compositions last year. I felt this year I could lean into the work I had done.

I arrived to find ALL of my most magical and private locations I scouted last year had been sprayed and the lupins were GONE. Every single one. No colour. No magic. Just brown grass. After three days of travel, I was too exhausted to panic. I felt more numb and shocked than anything. The same day, I took a wrong turn and stumbled onto the most stunning display of lupins. Even better than last year. More magic. More opportunity. Something different to light my soul on fire.

I thought to myself, the universe provides. I must trust the process. I am doing what I am meant to do. Then, Tekapo got an insane amount of rain. The lakes flooded. The sirens rang. The dam had to release the excess. When I went back to my magic spot with my second workshop group, it was full of water. Half of the lupins were drowned. All of the spots I had scouted and used previously were a lake. So, I took a deep breath and pivoted. I made new magic with my second group. We found new nooks together, and got a little wet and a lot cold in the process, but it was an adventure and it was so beautiful.

I was so excited to start the trek home today. I called my mom on the drive to Christchurch to let her know I will see her soon and could tell immediately something was wrong. I could actually see something was wrong days ago. She looked off. She just said she was just tired. Her oncologist called her today to tell her her hemoglobin and platelets are dropping and her cancer blasts are flaring. My mom is not feeling well and is in a lot of pain. She needs to be back in Edmonton for a bone marrow biopsy on Monday and they want to start her on a new clinical trial, since she is not responding to the chemo therapy like she should be.

The tears have not stopped flowing today. I don’t know how life can be something so incredibly beautiful one minute and so painful the next. My mom was doing amazing only a week ago. Her blood work was perfect. I don’t know what to do. I feel paralyzed. All I can do is pivot. One day, one breath at a time, and hope that something even more beautiful is on the other side of all of this.

Dec 1st, 2025

How quickly life changes. One week ago the mama was on top of the world and so was I. In the last week she has relapsed. She is in excruciating pain. We don’t know what it all means yet. We just arrived in Edmonton for some tests.

This woman has been a living miracle for 1.5 years. She achieved what I didn’t know was possible. If it is not too much to ask the universe, I am hoping she has the opportunity to do it again.

I will be unavailable over the next few days while we navigate this next chapter together.

I love you all and I want to thank you for the love you have shown to my mom. It has meant the world to both of us.

Dec 2nd, 2025

Number one rule when caring for the mama, you must sleep while mama sleeps. 

 Hospital life.

Dec 5th, 2025

I got the call that my mom was in emergency at the hospital while I was still trying to get home from NZ. After being away from my children for two weeks, I only got to spend 1.5 hours with them when I got home before having to go to the hospital to care for the mama and accompany her on her medivac flight to Edmonton.

The next day, my husband drove the kids to Edmonton and I got to spend the evening with them. To say I was elated is an understatement. I missed them sooooooo much. I was hard to leave them so soon after getting home.

We decided to keep the kids in Edmonton for the rest of the week so they can spend time with grandma and I don’t have to part with them again so soon.

In an effort to find balance and reconcile my two worlds (my kids and my mama) I told them we can do one fun thing each day in between my shifts with grandma. I booked tickets to take them to see the nutcracker for yesterday evening. Our first night together, they got to pick out outfits to wear for our special night out. Flynn has wanted a suit for YEARS. He was over the moon.

The world shifted in two short days between making a commitment to spend part of my day with the kids and the actual nutcracker performance. The gravity of the situation, and sheer guilt and panic of not being with my mom while I am with the kids, and guilt when I am with my mom that I am not able to mother my children caught up with me.

Our actual nutcracker date consisted of me having a mental breakdown and crying uncontrollably whilst hyperventilating for a solid 1.5 hours before the performance. Long enough that I wasn’t able to take the children to see grandma beforehand so she could see Flynn in his suit. I really wanted her to see Flynn in his suit.

On the drive over, my mom’s oncologist called and confirmed that my mother is in final stage relapse and it is “really bad”. He asked if we would like to go the compassionate care route and focus on comfort, or if we would prefer to hit her with a grueling course of chemo to try and bring her blasts down enough to buy us a week to see if we can push her into the clinical trial (her only hope at extending her life). No guarantees. He encouraged me to call the family in to gather and spend time with her while we can. 💔

Then I finished driving my kids to the f-ing Nutcracker. Tear stained cheeks and all. It felt as crazy as it sounds. It wasn’t lost on me that I was sitting at the Nutcracker watching ballerinas in total opulence while my mother languished in a hospital bed. Of course, it wasn’t the special night for the kids I originally hoped. Noelle held my hand as tears poured out of my eyes and whispered in my ear, “It is going to be okay, mama.”

I knew my mom would take the chemo because she told me she would do absolutely anything for another chance at life. So, I asked him to get the ball rolling on the chemo and we asked mom after the fact. As I knew she would, she asked for the chemo, knowing full well how sick it would make her on top of everything else.

My mom’s is in excruciating pain. The blasts are proliferating in her bone marrow and putting immense internal pressure on her bones. She can no longer walk. She cannot stand without being lifted. She is unable to get enough oxygen into her lungs on her own. She is so heavily drugged on pain killers, her awake moments are one minute at best. She still wants to fight for every single breath.

We have no extraordinary plans for today. I am at the hospital with my mom. My in-laws brought the kids so grandma could see Flynn in his suit and hold them for just a minute. Flynn insisted that grandma needs goat slippers. Noelle made her smile with her rat puppet I got her at the market. All of these little moments that make up life.

December 7th, 2025

Today, my magnificent, strong, full of life mother decided to stop treatment and enter palliative care. The doctors told her that there was a very slim chance they could extend her life at all, and that trying to do so would take an even larger toll on her body. The bone searing pain became too much for my mama. The one who has fought harder for every chance at life than anyone I have ever known. She lost her ability to walk, stand, hold her head up, feed herself, and even the ability to shift her own leg into a more comfortable position. All in a matter of days.

We are all here to support her and hold her hand through death; her children and grandchildren. My husband drove 5 hours to make her turkey dinner (her absolute favourite). After refusing food for over a day, she finally ate. We managed to spend the morning telling stories and sharing laughs (the Jones way) through all of the tears.

This afternoon, I tracked down carollers singing in the hospital chapel and managed to convince them to come and sing in my mom’s room. They sang Silent Night and it was so beautiful.

As my husband was preparing to take the children home, I had to tell them that this is the last time they will see their grandmother. She wrapped her arms around them for the last time. 

In this very moment, I am watching her sleep. The doctors have increased her pain medication to make her comfortable.

I am so proud of my mom for choosing to honour herself and her body and know her limits. She taught me how to live, and now she is teaching me how to die. None of this has fully sunk in yet, and despite countless complete, lung-robbing, breath-stealing emotional and mental breakdowns over the last week, I know I haven’t scratched the surface of the depth of my grief.

When my mom was first flown to Edmonton and waiting for her bone marrow biopsy, she looked at me and asked, “Are you okay?” I lied and said, “Yes.” Of course, she knew I was lying and asked me not to lie to her. I turned the question around and asked her if she was okay. She said, “No, I am really scared”, and we both burst into tears.

I needed to set the record straight this morning. I told my mom that I am not okay. None of us are. She knows this. But, one day we will be and we are all going to turn this into something beautiful and bathed in light. Losing my daughter taught me that.

P.S. She did this with her hands all in her own this morning and, somehow, seeing them together like this all bruised and punctured, gave me an odd sense of peace knowing she made the right choice. Nobody should have to endure what she has.

Dec 8th, 2025

My sisters and I spent the night at the hospital with my mom last night. None of us wanted to leave her and we won’t until she crosses over.

We ordered Thai food and had it delivered to my mom’s hospital room door, and ate it with large slices of carrot and water bottle lids because there is an apparent cutlery shortage in the hemotology ward and none of us wanted to leave mom’s side.

My mom’s favourite memories are of our family get togethers. She loves listening to her kids talk and tell stories. So, that is what we did. Mom stopped being responsive last night. No more words. She refused water, despite obvious thirst. She made her choice, and once goodbyes were said, she checked out. Yet, I know she could hear us, because at one point I was pleading through tears for the nurse to stay on top of her pain meds and I caught a tear rolling down her cheek.

My sisters and I snuggled up into the corner of her room together, taking turns on the pull out chair. We didn’t get much sleep. As each of us sobbed in the darkness of night, the other sisters would reach for a hand or stroke the other’s hair. Our attempt at trying to fill the enormous hole in our beings that only a mother’s love can rectify.

At 4:00 a.m we played Jim Reeves Christmas music, mom’s favourite, and tried to sink into this new world. Nights are always harder for some reason. Things get quiet. Too quiet. There is too much time to think.

Today, I am grateful for my family. I can’t imagine having to do this alone. Our mother gave us the most beautiful gift by giving us each other.

Dec 9th, 2025

I didn’t know that my mom’s last day being conscious would be the day she chose to stop treatment. She declined so incredibly rapidly and I genuinely thought I would have more time.

That morning, she had a period of delirium and told me she was in the North Pole. She really wanted my kids to see Santa and the reindeer. She loved the snow. She confirmed that Santa’s sleigh is green and white with hand painted florals. Every time I asked her where she was, she was there and it was beautiful. In some strange way, I feel like she helped preserve Christmas magic at a time I felt that this deep pain would forever ruin my favourite time of year.

She came back to us just long enough to say goodbyes and be loved up by her children and grandchildren. She had her favourite meal as her last (turkey dinner). She listened to the choir sing Silent Night at the foot of her bed and cried because it was so beautiful.

Later in the afternoon she was conscious just long enough to say, “It was such a great day yesterday”, confusing the morning for the day before. Her final words before she lost her ability to speak were, “I love you.” Words that we have exchanged at least 1000 times in the last week.

I am on day three of not leaving this room. It has become a sacred space, where food and utensils are scarce, body hygiene is very poor, but love is deep. My family gathers big during the day and more and more siblings are spending the night. We count breaths from the mama and all pause when she stops breathing for a number of seconds. We take turns sponging the inside of her mouth, adding artificial saliva, massaging her limbs, and whispering love notes in her ear.

Yesterday was full of family sharing stories of her life. Lots of tears. Lots of laughter. Lots of piecing together all of the missing bits for all of the siblings so we can walk away with a fuller picture of our one and only magnificent mama. It was healing. A sort of rebirth for our family. All working out a way to move forward and hold each other up as we rebuild ourselves from the ground up from this all to enormous, all-consuming loss.

Today feels heavier. More tears. More guttural pain. Today, the room is silent when her breath changes. Today feels like the final test. We have done the work. We built each other up enough to give us a foundation to move forward.

Today I want something I never thought I could ever want. Today, I want my mother to die…. Because watching her suffer and wondering how much pain she is in, and having no way to take it away is more than I can carry. Today, I want peace for my mama. Forever peace.

Dec 10th, 2025

My mother is with the angels now. She passed away yesterday evening (Dec 9th) at 5:10 p.m, surrounded by her children and husband. I kissed her forehead and ran my fingers through her hair as she took her last breath. Her children held her hands and her heart. We vowed to give her the most beautiful death we could possibly deliver under the circumstances and we did. It was peaceful and extraordinarily beautiful. After she passed, my sisters and I washed her body and hair ceremoniously and then dressed her in something soft and pretty and prepared her to be picked up.

Having the opportunity to be with my mother while she took her last breath has been the highest calling and greatest honour of my life. These last 3 days have been transcendent. Sacred. Divine. I am forever changed.

My mother was extraordinary. Her brother described her as always having stars in her eyes and he was right. She took the cards dealt to her, however difficult, and found beauty and magic there. Her life was wrought with tragedy from the moment she was brought into the world until the moment she left it, but she loved it just the same. She was truly grateful for each day. She always found a reason to smile and never complained. She never let the hardness she experienced dull her deep sense of empathy. She always honoured her intense desire to create and move through the world with purpose, even when her means were meager. She was fiercely loyal to her children and grandchildren. Her love was all-consuming.

The world will never be the same, My world will never be the same. I am going to be honest, I do not know what to do and where to go from here. I left the hospital last night after holding my mother for the last time and sat in my car paralyzed, unable to move. Normally, when my heart shatters into a million pieces, I call my mother.

For my entire adult life, I have called my mother every day, sometimes 16 times. It has been a running joke between us. There are times I call just one more time to say goodnight because I have talked to her so many times I may as well throw in one more call to drive the number up, and we have a good laugh about it. I tell her absolutely everything and she listens with grace. She always takes my side, unless I am complaining about my husband, because somebody has to defend his honour and she thinks he is a saint. Ever since my mom got sick, we have had her over for a big family dinner almost every night. Hundreds and hundreds of meals shared and stories told. These meals transformed our family and our lives. I swing by her house at random, always knowing I will find her there. I do not know where to begin to fill this enormous emptiness and sorrow I feel without her here with me.

A part of me died with my mom. This is exactly what I experienced when I lost my daughter. I remember feeling so scared because I knew the old me was gone and I had to work to create a new sense of self that would be able to account for and honour such a profound loss. My little Ava Maria showed me the way. She taught me that deep sorrow plants roots that produce transcendent beauty. I am not scared this time. I know I will get there. I just don’t feel like I have the strength to do it alone at this very moment and I am not sure where to start. So, today, I am going to breathe. One single breath. And then another.

I want to thank you for being on this journey with me over the last 20 months and loving my mother. I needed the world to know about her. I did not want to carry this alone like I did with my daughter and I did not want her to carry it alone either. My mom read every comment you ever left. Your love healed parts of both of us in so many ways. It is a wonderful thing to feel seen and valued as a human being. I am forever indebted to you all.

Dec 11th, 2025

Today, I make the 4.5 hour trek home. There is something terribly exposing about leaving the sanctity of her hospital room. The room my siblings and I locked ourselves in for almost three full days without leaving. The room in which so much healing happened and a deep foundation of understanding was built. We vowed to protect one another until the end of time. Our group chat was renamed, “The Five”. The bond we developed is unbreakable. There are no other souls on this earth that know what we experienced inbetween those four walls.

Today, I am alone. No siblings. No sacred space. No reverence. I feel empty and hollow with no real direction. My North Star is gone. I am dreading going home. I have always shared home with my mother. I am her only daughter that lives in the same city. I will need to go to her house and make sure the driveway gets shovelled and things are up-kept, but she won’t be there. I don’t know how to do that.

I would like to lock myself in my house and collect lovingly made meals from my front door as I play Silent night on repeat, but I know that life will demand so much more from me than comfort and time to be swallowed whole by grief. My children are excited to decorate the tree. They can’t wait for Santa to come (in his green and white sleigh with hand painted florals on it).

I will need to start grocery shopping and picking up the mail and doing all the things I don’t want to do. Strangers will ask me how my day is going and I will want to blurt out, “My mother just died.” The world will keep turning even though mine has stopped.

Somehow knowing that people have been able to endure the loss of their one and only mama and still be able to put one foot in front of the other helps. It tells me that it is possible. If that is possible, anything is.

Dec 12th, 2025

The morning after our mama died, in the wee dark hours, with tear soaked cheeks, I opened my phone to find this message from my big brother. I was laying in the fetal position, bawling my eyes out, crying for my mama, wondering if I would ever feel whole again. These words changed something in me. My brother tapped into something ancestral. Something primal. Something fierce and strong. Something my mama had in her.

With his words, he connected the golden thread that was woven in and out of all of my ancestors before me and stitched it right into my soul. I cried like hell that day and all of the days since, but I did so with my head held high and my shoulders straight.

I read these words at least 100 times a day. Everytime I start to feel like crumpling into the ground and letting the wind carry me away like dust.

It is incredible what letters on a page can do when they are strung together in just the right way. It is astounding how much the stories we tell ourselves and others impact our lives and alter our perspectives.

So many of you have left thoughtful messages for me and I want you to know I have read every single one. I have screenshot many to keep for later when I need to read them again, just as I have with this one. I have not had the emotional and mental bandwidth to respond. I am in the trenches of grief right now. I just want you to know that your messages have allowed me to feel seen and understood and given me strength in ways that I am eternally grateful for.

One day, I want to share my mama’s whole story with you. It will break your heart and inspire you to achieve the impossible in equal measure.

P.S. In addition to these words, I would like to share a song with you that my brother also sent to my sisters and I to honour our mother’s life. I have had it on repeat for the last two days. It empowers me to do hard things. I know a lot of you are grieving right now as well for your own reasons, and you may need an anthem to help you feel strong.

Dec 13th, 2025

Yesterday, I asked my stepdad if I could come over and cry with him and sit in mom’s space and breathe in what she left behind. He responded saying, “Of course you can. Her chair is just the way she left it.”

I couldn’t sit in her chair. I didn’t want to change the traces of what she left there. So, I sat across the room and bawled my eyes out. Then I went downstairs and laid on her side of the bed, soaking in the sights of her room and letting the tears flow. I was very proud to see that Bill had made the bed that morning.

There were so many nights after mom was released from the hospital when she was first diagnosed that I tucked her into her bed and kissed her on the forehead before she went to sleep. My stepdad took over her midnight and 2:00 a.m meds in those days because he goes to bed so late. He would help lift her up and hold her for a few minutes rubbing her back before she was awake enough to get the pills down. For as much as the two of them disagreed on politics and a myriad of other topics during the day, those moments in the quiet darkness were sacred and they made my mom feel so loved.

Her home…. The one she dreamed of, parking on the street in front of it every day for two months when it was listed for sale, wondering if she could ever make it hers. It is just a big empty house now. Rooms that were once bustling with activity are still. My mom’s orchids are on the table. Her fudge spatulas are sitting out, ready for the next cut. The remote is still sitting on the arm of her chair, which made me question if Bill was able to distract himself with anything at all these past few days.

In just a few days, the house and everything in it transformed into relics of a past life. An archive of dreams lived and unlived. A museum of sorts. It happened with the sudden swiftness of a sandstorm. It feels like an alternate dimension, with the pervasive quiet of fresh fallen snow.

The quiet… it is too quiet. I feel it in my house too. I invited my stepdad over for dinner last night and asked a dear friend to stay when she stopped in to drop off some goodies and give me a big hug. I could not bear seeing my mom’s empty chair at my dinning room table. Our nightly dinners brought so much LIFE into our house.

My parents were always here. Lots of days we scrounged for extra chairs for extended family, friends, and neighborhood kids as well. There was so much ritual and ceremony around our family meals. We all helped select the food from the market or dig it up from the garden, wash and prepare it. My husband would cook and the kids would set the table and pour the drinks. Often Noelle would make a special dessert or we would make Swedish crepes (a childhood recipe) with berries and cream to finish our meal. We would wash dishes together, extending the conversation for another half hour. I ended every meal by packing up leftovers for my mom for lunch the next day and walking her to the truck to give her a hug and say goodbye. Rain, snow, or sunshine, I would stand there and watch my stepdad drive my mother away, and my mom and I would wave and blow kisses to each other until she was out of sight.

I cannot count the number of nights we got into heated political discussions because Bill insisted on goating everyone with his wildly different political views. One night we spent a whole dinner talking about how good an old college professor of mine (that my oldest boy now shares) smells and hypothesized about all of the potential contributing factors. A whole hour of discussion. Other days, my parents told stories about their childhood and their young adult lives. My children spent many meals in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s, and 60’s learning about how different life was back then. Hundreds and hundreds of meals.

We took my mom’s diagnosis and turned it into something truly beautiful.

I don’t know how to even begin to bridge that gap today. There is such an enormous void to fill. Too many empty chairs in too many places. 

 I do know, however, that I want my children to have a house filled with life, love, and stories. I know that mother’s walk toward death taught me how to live. Today, the stories being told are laced with sorrow. I am hopeful one day they will be bathed in pure, unadulterated light.

Dec 14th, 2025

The day after my mom died, my siblings and I met for lunch before going to the funeral home to make arrangements for her body. I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours, and the day before I had only eaten a cheese bun dipped in a tenth of a bowl of tomato soup at the hospital. Meals were scarce and sadness stole my appetite. I lost 15 pounds in 9 days.

We drowned our sorrows in peanut sauce at Lemongrass Cafe while we talked about next steps. My sister suggested we start a text thread called, “Good things always happen to me”, and each contribute one good thing per day, however small, in an effort to stay focused on the positive around us and attempt to rewire our thinking during this heavy period of intense sorrow.

Yesterday was my hardest post- death day yet. My numbness and shock were starting to wear off and grief hit me like a freight train. The kids were so excited to decorate the tree, but I only managed to get lights on 2/3rds of it and then had to lay down and nap for the entire afternoon because my limbs felt like they were made of lead. I have been so tired since getting home, I can barely keep my eyes open.

We had dinner with my stepdad again and it involved so many tears that I felt compelled to ask him if he knew what he was in for with our nightly dinners. I am not the best dinner companion at the moment and I can’t help but feel bad about it.

I did manage to get up, bathe and take the kids to the Grande Prairie Boy’s Christmas Choir, despite the fact that I bought an extra ticket for my mom while she was alive so she could join us and I wasn’t sure if I could reconcile the empty seat.

Then, something good happened. At the end of the concert, the most magnificent singers gathered and sang the most beautiful rendition of Silent Night I have ever heard, first sung in Austria 200 years ago. The same song another Choir sang at the foot of my mom’s bed the day she spoke her last words. I bawled like a baby. It was so enormously special and an experience I will carry in my heart forever. I wish I had a recording of that moment to play again and again. Good things always happen to me. 

*** Photo of my tree and disastrous house because this is what grief looks like and I am quite certain I am not the only one.

Dec 16th, 2025

My sister was at my mom’s house yesterday looking for paperwork for mom’s end of life filings, when she found this. She told me it was mom’s Christmas gift to me.

My mom was set up at the Christmas craft show at the Elk’s Lodge when she bought it. She was soooooo excited to be working again doing what she loved. The artist who makes these was set up right across from my mom and my mama knew I would fall head over heels in love with these fairytale cottage birdhouses. She picked the best, most-cottagey house to purchase for me and then said to the artist, “My daughter will be coming later today. You will know her when you see her. She is going to LOVE your birdhouses. She will definitely buy things here. Can you put away any of the houses that look like this one until after she leaves so she doesn’t purchase what I just bought for her?” The artist agreed and the plan was set.

I trotted in a few hours later with homemade turkey soup and fresh dinner rolls with butter for my mom and her craft show friends for dinner. As my mom predicted, I went absolutely crazy over the birdhouses and bought two! One as a gift for someone and one to keep, excitedly showing my mom how adorable they were and cooing over their inherent whimsy.

Mom facetimed my sister that night absolutely giddy with excitement over my gift and laughing over the fact that I played right into exactly what she predicted I would do when I saw the birdhouses. She was so excited to give me my gift.

It warms my heart and breaks it a little at the same time. I wish she could have seen me open it. I love the story so much, I made my sister tell it again, and then one more time. 

Everyone celebrates the firsts in life, but the lasts are just as special, maybe even more so. My last ever Christmas present from my mama. It’s definitely going to my little cottage in the woods when it is finished being built.

Dec 18th, 2025

Sometimes I eat pickles for breakfast and think to myself, am I allowed to do this?

I have always wondered when I would feel grown up. Most of my adult life has consisted of me having absolutely no idea what I am doing or what I am in for. Sometimes, I look around and cannot believe I live in my own house and have my own family. There are days I look at my husband and see a boy in my bathroom who was once a complete stranger that had to convince me to give him my phone number. We have lived a rollercoaster of life’s ups and downs together, but every now and again it feels new to love him. Even after 22 years, we still question our next life adventures, wondering if we should commit to this or that. Not possessing the ability to know for sure.

I have always felt a bit like a child forced into an adult world, despite having four children of my own. Every year, I ask myself if this is the year I will feel grown up? When will I get to the next level of the human experience?

Conversely, I have always looked at my mom and seen a heroine. A matriarch. Someone wise, steadfast, and true. Someone who had the answers to everything. She was only a phone call away if I needed advice or an answer to one of life’s burning questions. Never once did I look at my mother and see a girl trying to navigate this life for the very first time. Not until I lost her. Not until she was dying and told me she was scared. Not until the last 48-hours of her conscious life in which I witnessed her ponder her next decision, unsure and unsteady, wondering if she should continue with treatment or not. Yet, she was a mother to the very end. Carefully calculating what was best for her family.

I realized this week that the day we grow up is the day we lose our mama. For some people, this happens very early in life. My stepdad was only 3 years old when he lost his mom. He was 3 years old when he grew up. As a child, he didn’t get to experience the all-encompassing, unconditional love of a mother. It is a safe place. The kind of love you can free-fall into and know that someone will always be there to catch you. During our nightly dinners over the past 20 months with my mom, my stepdad had a hard time wrapping his head around my 11 and 13-year-old children still sitting on my knee at the dinner table and walking up and wrapping their arms around me 50 times to pelt me with kisses. He didn’t have that safe place. Some people do not get to experience this at all. Ever. They are born grown.

The day I inhaled my mother’s very last breath, I took the torch from her hands. It is my turn to lead. It is my turn to be the matriarch. I still do not have all of the answers, but I will work tirelessly until I do. I may not have a safe place to free-fall into, but I can be that place for my children. This girl is gone. A woman stepped up in her place. She is steadfast and true. I am her.

My last portrait with my mama.

Dec 19th, 2025

Dec 29th, 2025

I forgot how physical grief is. It feels like an open wound. An amputation of sorts, only instead of a limb, an entire being was severed from my own. A being that has been with me since I took in my first gulp of air.

I don’t think we honour grief well in the western world. My mother was just cut from my body. There is a wound where she once was stitched into my flesh and bone. Yet, I am expected to be whole, functional, polite, conversational in matters I regard far less important, and even happy. People ask me how my day is going and I am expected to say, “Good. How are you?”. A tidy, empty, meaningless, response. My sisters and I joke about starting a little line of badges that can be worn to help the bereaved avoid meaningless banter and either produce helpful connections or be left alone. “My mother just died. Please do not tell me to have a great day.” Or, “My mother just died, please do not ask me how I am doing unless you really wish to know.” Or even, “My mother just died.” It is direct and gets to the heart of the matter.

Instead of, “Have a great day!”, what I need to hear is something my mother would say. “Prioritize your rest today, sweetheart. Drink lots of water and give yourself time to heal.” No words at all would be just fine. Or a touch on my back, a squeeze of my hand, or a hug that swallows me whole for just a moment.

The night my mother died, the window shade was completely open in her hospital room. At one point, after washing and dressing her lifeless body, I looked down to see people entering and exiting Little Ceasar’s Pizza. If they only would have glanced upward, they would have witnessed a quiet, sacred, life changing ritual. But, we rarely look up.

The next morning, I wondered why the flags were not flown at half mast. I wondered why there was no gathering on the streets. No procession. No wailing and chest beating. No mention in the news that the world would never be the same. I was 5 hours from home and there was nobody waiting to collect my weary, injured, amputated body and nurse it back to health.

My professor’s father died when he was only 8 years old and for years afterward, his mother asked him to set the table for his father because she was expecting him home for dinner. She wore black for the rest of her life… A mother wrote to me two weeks ago and told me that she lost her 10-year old daughter two years ago and had not touched her breakfast bowl. It remained exactly where she left it for two years… A young woman told me when her child was stillborn like mine, after she had swaddled, cuddled, and memorized every little eyelash and finger crease, and after the nurses took her wee baby to the morgue, she screamed, “WHERE IS MY BABY?” until they brought her baby back for her to hold.

This is what grief looks like. There is nothing cheap and quick about it. It is deep and all-consuming, reverent and transformative. From the outside in, it probably looks like those left behind are experiencing a fall from grace. I am sleeping 16-18 hours out of every 24 right now, my body’s magnificent built-in self-defense mechanism for carrying intense sorrow. I can barely keep my eyes open. My unbrushed hair is desperately in need of a good wash. I smell like onions. I have been wearing the same pajamas for weeks. I bought my mom and I matching pairs while she was in the hospital. She needed new jammies and these ones were soft, pretty and her favourite colour. I sent her for her cremation in these matching jammies that are now glued to my body.

Yet, despite appearances, this is exactly what grace looks like. Grace is made up of universal truths and this is true.

We are always wanting to slow down time, grief does just that. It brings time to a crawl. I think that is why it is so transformative. Grief does not rush. Human beings tend to glorify being busy, but grief forces us to just exist in the moment. The only way through it is to slow down and honour it. To rest in our love for those we have lost and let the sorrow wash over us and cleanse our bodies from the inside out.

My greatest comfort in these moments is knowing I got an extra 20 months with my mother and I did not waste them. I showed up for her. I made sure she could feel how loved she is. I shared hundreds of meals with her in those 20 months. Eighteen big Christmas style turkey dinners, thousands of conversations and Facetime calls. Countless stories. I showed up for my one and only mother to the greatest of my ability every day. This knowing has brought me peace. Overwhelming peace. Surprising peace. I did not expect to feel at peace this early. No regrets. No guilt. That in itself is a gift.

It is a gift I want to keep experiencing. I want to live every day with no regret, prioritizing what is truly important in my life. This will be my life’s work. Peace. Deep connection. Unconditional love. Creating with purpose. Leaving the world a little more beautiful than I found it.

Grief is such a wonderful teacher, isn’t she?

Dec 30th, 2025

Can I tell you something? You may not think photos are important today. But, one day, you are going to lose someone so precious to you that you will feel like the breath has been stolen from your lungs and the weight of future you did not get to live will sit so heavily on your chest that it will feel like you are being crushed into a million shards of glass. No matter how carefully put back together, they will never fit together the same as they did.

You are going to scramble for proof that it was real. Proof of the magic. Proof of the eyes that shined so bright for you. Proof of the hands that lived a thousand lives and still reserved the strength to hold you. Looking for proof is one of the first things you will do. It is a near frantic urge. You will need something physical. Something true.

Not the AI crap that that is being floated around the internet that means absolutely fucking nothing. It isn’t real. It is cheap, fast and meaningless. It isn’t tied to real memories or places. Your triumphs, scars and stories do not live in those fake narratives. It isn’t YOU and it isn’t who you hold close. Nor are heavily filtered images that erase everything that makes you magnificent.

One day you are going to want to see the truth. You are going to want to see your loves in real time and space with real lines, wrinkles, capillaries, bruises, blotches, and real life running through their veins. One day, your loved ones will search high and low for evidence that YOU, too, were real. Your joy. Your supposedly imperfect smile (the one that lights up a room, you just do not see it). Your drooping skin and soft tummy. Your freckles, weathered hands, and eye crinkles. You are their one and only. Maybe that day is not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But, one day.

It could very well be too late. Please do not wait. You really don’t know unless you know and usually once you know for sure, time has already betrayed you because it spoke, but you did not listen.

I got a second chance with my mama, by the grace of all things good in this world. I took it. I am so happy I did.

March 2nd, 2025

 went inside my mom’s house today for the first time in months. I didn’t want to, but I had just shovelled the driveway and desperately needed a glass of water. My stepdad still hasn’t touched her chair. It has been 3.5 months and he hasn’t touched the remote or turned on the T.V 

. I was proud of him for keeping her orchids alive. He wanted us girls to take them months ago, but I haven’t been ready to have her things in my house. I still need everything just as it was, and it is.

I had a good cry. My youngest boy held my hand, said he was sorry for my hurting heart, then looked at me and asked, “Isn’t it good to be sad, Mom?” I said, “Yes, it can be as long as it isn’t so much sadness a person cannot carry it. There is beauty there.”

He asked, “Is it too much sadness for you?”

“No, son. It is just enough”

March 13th, 2025

I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago. She said she felt bad that she didn’t get up and speak at her mom’s funeral. Her heartbreak stole her voice. I told her that my mom’s ashes are in a plastic bag on my office floor. The irony. The remains of one of the most important people in my life are in the lesser version of a ziploc bag… on the floor.

My mom was appalled at the thought of buying a casket only to have it cremated with her body.. She was way too frugal for that nonsense. She requested that we put her in a cardboard box. When the funeral home gave us the option of cremating her in a cardboard box, my sisters and I burst out laughing, as the tears leaked out of our eyes and the snot continued to bubble out of our noses. Mom would have been so chuffed.

I desperately wanted to have a piece of jewelry made from her fingerprint. The only option was to have her print captured digitally. I asked the funeral home director if he could take a physical cast of her finger tip and when he said, no, I asked if he could please chop off her finger and give it to me so I could do it myself. It was the kind of humour that would have made my mom laugh and exasperatingly say, “Cassandra!” Though, the funeral director didn’t find it that funny.

We made the funeral home promise to divide mom’s ashes up into five equal parts so we each had a part of her, and Mom made us promise not to put her remains in an urn on the mantle. She wanted to be returned to the earth as quickly as possible. We thought it would be nice to take cuttings from her magnificent mayday tree and spread her ashes under the new roots.

But, May is a ways away yet. My house is full of studio and cottage things. Space is limited. The mantle is out of the question. So, my mom is in a plastic bag, tied up with a knot, on the floor.

Honestly, I do not think she would mind one bit. If anything, she would be thinking, “Yes, that’s my girl.”

If she knows that her ashes are in a bag on the floor, then she probably knows that I think of her every time I eat baby asparagus or strawberries, or anything she loved, really. She probably hears me talk to her in the car. She knows I bought a fresh turkey two days ago because it made me think of her, and last night I cooked it for Rob so I could treat him after a long day, just the way he did it for her for 20 months. She also knows that my gravy was better than his, even though she would never admit it outloud, because she must defend his honour at all times. She knows that I still cry 5-10 times a day, but not in a bad way. Just in a deep-feeling, I miss my mama kind of way.

I do not think it matters so much the words we say or do not say after someone passes, or where we store their remains, or how fancy a funeral is. Everything after a loved one passes is for the living, not the dead. It matters how we love our people while they are alive and I know I loved my mom well.

April 17th, 2025

I know it doesn’t look like much right now, but when my mom got sick, this was my way of giving us something to look forward to at a time we both desperately needed some joy in our lives. I planted tons of tulips in both of our yards, so we would have beauty in the early spring when everything is still brown and yucky.

The pursuit of joy worked. We were sooooooo excited to see them come up. We talked about the tulips every day. Measured their growth. Compared notes. When they bloomed we would sit outside and stare at them by the hour. When I left town, my mom would check on my tulips and send updates.

They brought us such immense much joy, I doubled down last fall and planted 1200 bulbs between our two yards. All of the colours of the rainbow.

These are the first of my mom’s tulips coming up in the sunny patch of her yard. She isn’t here to see them. Yet, I stopped by her house today and this still brought me joy. It reminded me of all of the days of pure bliss last year’s tulips brought. The mornings I got up at 5:30 a.m with the sun just to sit outside on the deck in pure silence and watch the flowers drift in the breeze. Our nightly dinners that ended in meandering through the garden.

I likely will not get to see either of our tulips bloom this year. I will be away teaching. My sister has promised to send updates. I may not get to experience them myself, but my neighbours will, and my husband and his parents, and anyone who walks by with their dog on the way to the park. Children will stop and pick one or two. My son’s teacher will probably pause for an extra minute and take in the colours like she did last year.

We do not always create beauty and magic knowing we will be the benefactors. I think it is important we create beauty anyways. Maybe that is the point.

May 25th, 2025

My 23-year-old boy asked me to hem his EMS uniform today. It reminded me of the time my mom caught me fiddling with a loose button on my coat. She was just air lifted to Edmonton with a new diagnosis of acute myeloid Leukaemia and she was fighting for her life. Is your button coming loose?”, she asked. “I can fix it for you.”

I wanted to say yes because I wanted to be mothered just one more time, but I gently declined instead because her hands looked like this.

I told my boy I was no sewing expert, but I would do my best. He stood over me watching carefully and said, “I want to see how you do it so I can do it myself next time.

I was fumbling, not really knowing what I was doing (it took an embarrassing number of tries to thread the sewing machine correctly 

) and definitely not doing the best job. “You know who be so good at this?”, I asked.

“Grandma?”, he replied.

“Yeah.”

Still, I was happy to mother, especially for my boy that doesn’t seem to need as much of it these days. He was absolutely beyond thrilled over my sub-par sewing. 

It made me wonder how many times my mom felt like she was fumbling through life not knowing what she was doing and I was looking at her starry eyed like she was the leading authority on absolutely everything. I can’t ask her. She is in an unfortunate plastic bag on my office floor. But, I imagine it was often.

That is more comforting than it sounds. 

Aug 1st, 2025

My mom in 1971 

. I am so grateful I got to live before AI created a world of fake everything and in-phone filters and apps erased everything that reminds us it was real… and so fucking hard, and so beautiful.

My mom was in love with being alive. She had the hardest life of anyone I have ever known, but she loved it here.

Every day I think, gosh, I wish I could call her. See her. Hug her. Laugh with her. I would take 1 minute today. Just one. I can’t imagine what I would do with a thousand. That’s a level of rich I can’t comprehend anymore.

My son is a paramedic and he saved a life last night. His patient was gone. He told me, “Mom, he was already in heaven”. The way he said that. Those words; they sucked the air out of my lungs. My boy brought him back. Can you imagine? If only I could borrow the mama from heaven for just a moment.

If you have a mother that is alive and loves you endlessly, you are one of the richest people in the world and I am so very elated for you. Sometimes I sit and marvel at people in your position, watching grandmas show up for their grandkids basketball practice or mamas visit the local greenhouse with their grown daughters. Sunday brunch together. It’s magnificent, really. Astonishingly fortunate. Almost incomprehensible to some.

Aug 14th, 2025

I asked the universe for a big life.

The universe whispered back in my ear, “I can give you a big life, but you will have to suffer.”

Joy in equal measure to pain. Love in equal measure to sorrow. It’s a tale as old as time.

This cottage started with 3 decades of pure longing. I spent my entire life searching for the feeling of my childhood farm. Not all of it. Just the magic bits. A house that smelled of wood and baked bread. Trees that sound like the ocean in the wind. Sandy loam I can dip my hands into. Wild flowers that bring the bees.

Most people would look at my life and say I was raised with nothing. No electricity. No running water. No money. No frills. No extras. But, I had the freedom to run barefoot across hundreds of acres. I was raised by the forest and lived on wild berries. I had wild prairie skies in my lungs and dark starry nights in my eyes. I learned how to grow my own food and preserve it. I learned how to work with the land, not against it. My mother knew how to locate water beneath the soil using copper rods, and in the winter she would sheer the sheep, spin the wool, and make the socks and mittens that would keep us toasty. My father was a beast, sure. He battled his own demons. But, every night I would kick my blankets off my body when I heard my mom walking up the stairs because every night she tucked me in and kissed me on the forehead.

This land ended an obsessive search for the perfect property. I knew the moment I swung one foot out of the car for the first time. It stepped onto a carpet of bluebells and arnica flowers. I bought it that same evening.

This build has been one of the hardest periods of my entire life, and I don’t make that statement lightly. It started with our builder backing out on us (and several other families) a week before our build start. He was hired on by another company in town and something bigger came along. “This happens in construction all the time, you just aren’t used it because you are not a builder”, he said. I could feel my husband sink into the floor. We had a log package waiting to be assembled, slowly twisting with the change in weather. Log builders are not easy to find, especially last minute. We had to bring a couple of guys in from B.C. Triple the cost. Triple the time.

It dragged on so long, they let us know in December it was getting too cold and they needed to get home to their families. They couldn’t finish the framing. The same week, I called my mother from New Zealand to check on her as I was headed home and she told me she was relapsing.

My husband took on the build so I could watch my mother die in slow motion 5 hours from home. I died with her. I didn’t mean to. It just happened. So, in the process of building a new sense of self that could accommodate inhaling my mother’s last breath under the most tragic and painful circumstances of all time, there was this.

In addition to one delay after another, and what felt like a thousand broken promises, we have had 5 water leaks, 3 due to faulty plumbing, two torn out two sections of ceiling as a result. We have had two septic floods. The first from suspected tile dust and debri being washed down the utility room drain, causing a blockage, and the second from a broken back flow preventer as a result of the first “fix” as well as a crushed pipe. We had to excavate the back yard to replace the septic pipe. Our septic guy took care of us. Said he has never seen a crushed sewer pipe. Lucky us. 

The biggest let down, by far, was hiring the wrong drywaller for the job, despite checking what he said was his actual work in person. Had to hire two different crews to fix what he and his hires destroyed.

My husband fell off a ladder dislocating one arm and fracturing his opposite wrist, rendering him completely unable to use both arms. I started working at the cottage 16-18 hours a day trying to fill both of our roles.

Half of our shingles need replacing. They were installed in the winter and warped. Thankfully the roofing company is on it.

We have 5 colonies of bees living in the roof. Thankfully not honey bees. We have decided to let them stay. We will seal up the teeny weeny gaps after they vacate in the fall. It is their forest after all. We had a wood pecker in the house pecking our logs. We have had countless baby Robins to work around. Pigeons in the shop. You name it. Did you know pigeons are protected in Alberta? Me neither. Our first test being stewards of this land. I think of my mother often. I must work with the land, not against it.

That all being said, we are nearing the end. The cottage is stunning. The air is clean. It smells like wood and flowers. The problems have been dealt with.

I have learned that I still have a spicey temper when I have been lied to enough times or feel wronged. I have also learned that I can handle challenges that come my way with a decently large measure of positivity and grace if I have not been lied to repeatedly or wronged. 

The house shines with character and life. There have been astronomically more earth angels that contributed to this build than people who have let us down. I must remember this, always. Not to mention, I had a contract with the universe that dictates I must suffer. So, it is fair, I suppose. Every time something bad happened, the universe seemed to have a solution, and I still think it all worked out the way it was supposed to. It has been a test. Whether I failed or passed is not for me to decide.

Just know this, Thistlewood Cottage is my soul in material form. I thoughtfully curated every inch of this space, even what you don’t see. It is constructed with the highest possible quality materials. The insulation is rockwool. The HVAC purifies the air. The wood, soffit, and trim was borated and stained on all sides and at every cut, before being installed. The base was all primed and double painted before being installed inside the basement. Dimple barrier was installed around the entire foundation to help keep pressure off the foundation. All of the light switches were hung at waist height so children can reach them. We used us many local products as possible, and most of the materials are Canadian. The windows were made in Alberta. The logs are from BC. The faucets were made in Ontario. The fireplace was made in Quebec. Cabinets and railings were made right here in GP. The arches and fireplace mantles were made locally. Garfield from Glaana’s in Beaverlodge upholstered the furniture and made the drapes (he is an earth angel for certain).

The house breathes. It was built to last. The materials are natural. Real wood. Real stone, real stone tile. Incandescent lights (a hill I was willing to die on, just ask my electrician). Textiles pulled out of the basement of a decommissioned Belgian textile mill. A front door that was carved by hand. Vintage treasures from past lives. All with their own stories.

Next year, when the other studio space is finished and this house is totally complete, I would love to have you here for an open house. 

 Just wish my mama could see it. When I had the grand opening for my first studio, my mom was absolutely over the moon. Proudest mama in the world. The next morning we went for Sunday brunch. We were all chatting about the night before. My mom burst into tears as she said, “It goes so fast and life is just so precious.” Isn’t that the truth.

September 10th, 2025

The most meaningful photos of my entire career. The final portraits of my mother and sister. A gift drenched in love and tenderness. So incredibly intimate.

Movies and t.v shows would have us think that the ultimate intimacy is falling in love and having sex. Nah. The deepest intimacy a person can possibly experience is watching someone you love more than life itself die in slow motion and trying to love them enough for all of the lifetimes you will never get to experience together. It is the sudden pressing understanding of time that is alchemy that illuminates the importance and depth of that love with a radiance that blinds a person to the trivial. The tenderness that is born from an unadulterated desire to soak it all in, even though it hurts like hell.

I washed my mother’s body. I spoon-fed her when she was too weak to lift her arms. I told her it was okay to go even though I desperately begged the universe in private to let me keep her here. I inhaled her very last breath as she ascended into heaven. My soul transcended time and space to be with her one more moment. That is the highest form of intimacy.

These images of my mother and sister…. How can I possibly sum up what they mean in words? I cannot. The images speak for themselves.