Pearls are for Tears - Happy and Sad

A/N: To start, an explanation of where I've been:

Over Victoria Day Weekend (around May 20th, 2024), I went home to visit my family and meet my niece (Aurora) for the first time. My mom had recently been released from the hospital after a scare with blood clots. They weren't sure what caused them yet, but the suspicion was cancer.

Not long after that weekend, the suspicion was confirmed: my mom had gallbladder cancer. A rare and sneaky form of cancer, it had already spread too far by the time we knew it was there. She sadly passed on June 25th, 2024.

I wrote this as a speech that I gave during her celebration of life. With much encouragement from family, friends, and neighbours, I am now also sharing it here and on my ko-fi page for others to read.

I don't feel right putting the usual call to action type things on this piece, so instead all I ask is that if there is someone in your life you've been meaning to talk to about something or just that you haven't talked to in a while, please make sure you tell them how you feel about them. You never know when your world will be turned upside down and you might lose the chance.

🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛🌹💛

I want to begin this with a passage from the book Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery, a series that is very important to my PEI family and that my Mom and I used to read together:

Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his ring. Anne's engagement ring was a circlet of pearls. She had refused to wear a diamond.

"I've never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren't the lovely purple I had dreamed. They will always suggest my old disappointment."

"But pearls are for tears, the old legend says." Gilbert had objected.

"I am not afraid of that, and tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes -- when Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables -- when Matthew gave me the first pretty dress I ever had -- when I heard that you were going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert, and I'll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy."

I love this passage - probably one of my favourites from the entire Anne series - and lately, it has made me think a lot about my mom and what it will mean to go on without her.

My mom struggled with mental health and she was a strong advocate for mental health awareness and destigmatization. As I grew up, I saw her get more and more comfortable with talking about her own struggle, in the hopes it would help others. I hope she knew that it helped at least one person because it helped me to have her example to follow and to know that I could always talk to her.

My mom knew sorrow, but she never let it beat her. She knew there was also joy in life that was worth celebrating.

The joy she found in reading, which she tried to pass on not only to her own kids but to all the kids that passed through the libraries she worked in.

The joy she found in arts and crafts, which was something she and I often shared. Although I don't think I am nearly as good at cross stitch and macrame as she was.

The joy she found in helping animals. Cats, dogs, whatever she came across. She never liked to see anything suffer.

The joy she found in being a Mom - not only to me and my brothers, but to our friends and our partners as well. Anyone important to us was also important to her and while I haven't always known how to respond lately, the messages I've gotten from old friends and classmates expressing how many good memories they have of her have meant a lot to me, as I'm sure they would to her.

Recently, her greatest joy was in becoming a grandmother, and she welcomed our sweet Aurora with all the love a Nini could give.

It's hard not to feel like this cancer was an exceptionally cruel twist of fate. That in the middle of one of our family's greatest moments of joy, we'd also have to face one of our greatest moments of sorrow. Cancer is a cruel disease, and this one struck without mercy. It's not fair that she won't see Aurora grow up or be here to welcome any more grandchildren in the future. It's not fair that she won't see me get married. It's not fair that while I knew these would still be moments of joy, they would also be tinged with the sorrow of her absence.

I am grateful, at least, that that sorrow doesn't also come with regret. By the time we knew how sick she was, my mom and I had already said all that we needed to. She knew everything about me and my life. She didn't always understand things, but she didn't need to. Her love was unconditional and non-judgemental, all she ever needed to know was that I was happy.

So, while the pain of her absence feels overwhelming now, I will look for her in yellow roses and listen for her in the call of chick-a-dees in the trees - since that was always her nickname for me - and I will try to live my life accepting the sorrow and looking for the joy because I know that's what she wanted for me.

And to my mom, until we meet again, just know that I love you. And give Grampy and Great-Grammie a hug for me.