Last Sunday was Mother's Day. My mother has been gone for 40 years, but I still cherish memories of her.
She was a registered nurse and she had a beautiful singing voice, and used both skills to better our community. It was a small community - Quadra Island, a sparsely populated, isolated island near Vancouver Island.
My mother was the only medical service on the island. She delivered babies, bandaged wounds, talked people out of suicide - you name it, she did it. No pay. Grateful patients gifted her what they could - cooked goodies, a truckload of firewood. It was Depression time, no on had money.
Then the war came along. Quadra people organized concerts to raise money for the war "help" groups. Mom of course sang for the concerts. She sang some proper songs, some goofy. One of those was "There was I, waiting at the Church, he left me in the lurch." For this, she wore a white flannel nightgown, a lace curtain for a veil, and a cabbage for a bouquet.
Audiences love it, but my brother and I were mortified, we thought they were laughing at her, but they were laughing with her, she was funny.
For years mom sang at weddings or funerals if she wasn't patching people up she was singing for them.
She spent her last years here in Williams Lake with my family. All was well until she had a massive stroke which left her unable to walk or talk. There were no facilities here so she had to go to Quesnel. When we heard of a government-approved couple who looked after old people we brought mom home to them.
They were wonderful and we could visit with her. Mom was as happy there as she could be. She died at 89.
