My last post which is to my Mom

Hello everyone,
I was not sure how to end this blog and it came to me last weekend on Thanksgiving. I thought it was only fitting to have my last post to my Mom. My courage. I know many of you never met her so if you would allow me...I would like to brag to all of you about my Mom.
Doreen Grace MacKenzie was born on November 26, 1929 in St. John, New Brunswick. She was the oldest child of Gertrude and Harold MacKenzie. After spending part of her childhood in St. John her family moved to Halifax then on to Toronto. My mom went to Vaughan Road Collegiate and was dating a football player when one night...on her front porch....he tried to kiss her goodnight. She threw him off the porch. The next day...she was now known at Vaughan Road Collegiate as "Muscles MacKenzie". My dad went to Vaughan Road also and he too was on the football team. He had never met my Mom but heard about the story of "Muscles MacKenzie". He too thought the fellow my Mom was dating was no good, so he thought to himself..."she must be one pretty smart girl and I gotta meet her". So he did and their courtship began. While they were dating, my Mom had offers to model and won Miss East Coast however on June 15, 1946 at the age of 18, Doreen Grace MacKenzie married Joseph Burnham Woodyatt, 19.
My great grandmother....Mary Jane...was convinced that my parents got married because my mom was pregnant. To this day, no one in our family ever knew if my great grandmother was relieved that my brother Bill came along four years later or mad....because she was wrong. Five years after that my brother Jeff came along. So while my brother Bill was 15 and Jeff was 10, in 1964 I finally came along. While I was growing up, for the most part, Moms were at home. I think we were a lucky generation because of this. I remember my Mom's sense of humour. One of my earliest memories of this is when we lived at Bayview and York Mills. I can remember my Mom saying to me one day "I have always wanted to throw a pie in someones face". At the time I was about four or five. The target was my brother Jeff, 14 or 15 at the time. I remember it was a coconut cream pie. I distinctly remember my Mom telling me where to stand in the hallway while we waited for Jeff to innocently walk through the front door after school. I can remember her giggling with the pie in her hand. The front door knob wiggles, the door opens and my brother is barely through the door and WHAM...out of nowhere....well actually from his mother....is a cream pie in his face. No reason, no explanation just the sound of laughter. Most of it coming from my Mom. She was apologizing and laughing all at the same time. She was even laughing as she was cleaning up the whole mess in the hallway. Yup, that was the sense of humour my Mom had. She loved pranks and practical jokes and no one...not even family....was safe.
Our home was the home to many of my brother's friends and mine. My Mom had a special knack of making you feel welcomed as soon as you entered the house. You never had to worry about calling to say you were stopping by for Christmas dinner. She had enough food to feed an army at any given moment. We would have 20 people over for Christmas dinner and she would always insist on cooking dinner on her own and if you dare trying to do the dishes afterwards she would shue you out of the kitchen and insist you sit in the living room and relax. My mom would always join you...after all the dishes could sit until tomorrow and they did. You didn't cross her. Especially, when she was hosting parties.
I was about 15 years old and we were in the car one day and I remember this moment like it was yesterday. She turned and look at me and said..."I have done my best to raise you to be a good person and I will always be your Mom....but now...I also want to be your friend". She was. My Mom was one of my best friends, and would be for the next six years of my life. I lost more than my Mom, I lost one of my best friends too.
My Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1984 and went through chemo and a full mastectomy. We would go to her chemo treatments at North York General and then afterwards go for lunch and do a little shopping. This was back in 84/85 before they had all the medications they do now for nausea. Even back then I knew that her courage was something special. As someone in their 20's you know something about cancer but hear the worse. People being so ill from the treatments, losing their hair and retreating from their lives. Not my Mom. I never saw her sick. Tired sometimes but never sick. She lost some of her hair but never enough to wear a wig. I never heard her cry about the disease, I never heard her ask "why me" and this was the same disease that took her younger sister, Jean, in the early 1970's. I know that what she taught me then, was my courage on December 19, 2002 when I went for my first treatment myself. I know she was with me then and I went for lunch, after the treatments too.
There are moments too, when you see your parents for the first time and see their mortality. When you realize that they will not live forever. For me, it was Thanksgiving Day 1986. My Mom, Dad and I were leaving our house to go up to my brother Jeff's for Thanksgiving Dinner. We lived at a townhouse at the time and there were six steps down to leave the townhouse and then another six outside the house to get to the driveway. It took my Mom about 45 minutes to get down the stairs. She knew what she had to do but she just could not get her feet and legs to do it. My Dad and I had to help her down the stairs. I knew at this point I was going to lose my Mom to breast cancer. She was not going to live forever and she was going to lose her brave battle. This picture here is from Thanksgiving in 1986 at Jeff's house. The little baby she is holding is my nephew Mark who is just one month old and the little guy at her feet is my nephew Bryce who is 19 mths. This is one of my favourite pictures of my Mom. I love the look on her face and on Bryce's. She loved to be around her family and this is probably one of the last pictures taken of her. My Mom passed away, five weeks after this picture was taken. She lost her battle on November 19, 1986 at the age of 58. (The picture is at the bottom with the others)
It is sometimes when people are at their weakest that you see them at their strongest. That was my Mom going down the stairs that day. She knew what was happening, we all did. She was just determined to get down those stairs and spend the day Thanksgiving with her family. Ironically enough, I live in the same house now that picture was taken and last weekend I took a moment and sat in the corner and thought of my Mom. I thought of her courage, her grace and her dignity and thought to myself I was very lucky to have a best friend like that. I was lucky that this best friend .....was my Mom.
So to my Mom...thank you for being my courage each and every day.
Leave your mark. My Mom did.
So this is it. I have finished my blog and I think it has come full circle. Thank you for reading it and allowing me to share with you my great adventure. Thank you for the kind words you have said to me about it. Thank you for your support each and every day. Thank you for your donations. I hope that you feel that it will really make a difference in the future. I do . It really has been a blast !!
With love and thanks to ALL OF YOU.
M.J.