When I was in University I was asked to write a term paper on a "hero" who had an affect on my life. I thought of all the popular personalities like Oprah and Lady Diana and then looked a little closer to home. My mother was born with Spinal Bifida and has faced many health challenges. Dispite problems with her kidneys, bladder and feet she was always active in the community and always worked to support our family. She was not supposed to have any children but despite doctors orders made it her Centennial Project(1967) to have two daughters in the same year (one in January and one in November). She went on to spend 19 years as the only female member of the local municipal government as counsellor and then deputy mayor, and later to Provincial government as MHA and the first ever female Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly. I can remember many mornings as a child, when I watched her shovel out the car or get ready to go when she was so sick, that I wondered why she did it. Why she forced herself out of bed to go to some volunteer event or to do a favor for someone who needed her. What I realized as an adult is that she did it for the tremendous sense empowerment that it gives a person. I thank God that she instilled the same values in me. I have learned what it means to be like her, to juggle family committments while volunteering with different groups. I have been blessed to find a meaningful career as a Crisis Worker in a transition shelter and know what it means to feel good about yourself because you helped someone else have just a little better day. Each time someone talks to me about heros, I think of my mother. She made me who I am today. Not afraid of a challenge, not afraid of hard work, not afraid of making committments, and most of all, not afraid of being a Jane. |
