Host of 'Experiencing Canada' shares memories of late mother
To mom, with love.
My mother and I enjoying a laugh at her favourite restaurant in Blacks Harbour, N.B.
The final episode of season 2 of Experiencing Canada airs tonight on The Weather Network. It just so happens that it’s the one in which we feature New Brunswick, the province where my late mother was born and raised and where I myself grew up after moving back from Newfoundland at a young age.
I knew the air date would be May 10th but only came to the realization last week it would be on Mother’s Day, and it just feels so serendipitous to me.
I’d been thinking about her the entire time we were filming the episode and about how, as a proud New Brunswick artist, she’d be happy I was working on a project like this after all her encouragement that led me to my career in television.
It’s been seven years since I lost my mother to an aggressive form of cancer at the age of 63, and I think I’m finally beginning to come to terms with it.
It was back in May of 2019 that I was setting up my tripod at the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, for their annual press conference releasing the outlook of the upcoming hurricane season.
I attended the conference every May and always looked forward to it. This would be the last one I’d attend in person.
The last photo I took at the Canadian Hurricane Centre before leaving. (May 2019, Dartmouth, N.S.)
As I squeezed my tripod into the crowded media gallery and set my bulky Ikegami camera onto the tripod head, I heard a ding on my phone. It was a text message from my father to our family group chat: “Come to the QE2 emergency room as soon as possible. Mom is here, and I’ll explain when you get here.”
I’d never broken down my camera setup more quickly. Everyone in the room was wondering what I was doing—the press conference hadn’t even started yet. Breaking weather news? I wish.
I raced over the bridge and into the emergency room.
My dear, 63-year-old mother had walked in feeling a bit dizzy. Within 2 hours and after a single scan, she was diagnosed with cancer. She had about 3 months to live. All out of the blue. It was the most shocking and devastating news imaginable. She had just retired and moved to Halifax from New Brunswick to be closer to her grandkids.
Yet, as always, she was sitting up in her hospital bed concerned about how this news would affect us kids and not herself.
I can’t think of a holiday, family gathering, wedding, or event where the most excited person in the room wasn’t my mother. She had four of us kids, 2 boys and 2 girls, and lived for those moments we could all be together. She raised us with unconditional love, and nothing was more important to her than spending time with family and letting every one of us know just how much she loved us.
In our early years as a family, she couldn’t have gotten much sleep. She kept us all fed with home-cooked meals every night. We were well dressed; the laundry machine never stopped, and there wasn’t a thing she wouldn’t do for us. She read stories to each and every one of us before bedtime that helped set us all on a path to be successful at school at an early age.
My mother and I enjoying a moment in the sun at the Halifax Hospice.
On top of everything she did for her kids, she was an educator and artist. She worked in early intervention with families at risk and taught high school at First Steps Saint John. She was a metal and jewellery artist graduating from the N.B. College of Craft and Design.
A ring designed and made by my mother, metal artist Ruth Jarvis Coleman.
She always kept up to date on current news and loved to talk politics. Her sense of humour was unmatched.
After I graduated from Dal with a sociology degree, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
We had a long conversation, and she encouraged me to get into journalism. It was something that I’d always loved but wasn’t quite sure I could make a career out of, but without her encouragement and that conversation, I wouldn’t be here writing this today.
One of the segments on the Experiencing Canada New Brunswick episodes is a look at Acadian culture through the lens of Akadi Lumina, an immersive, nighttime outdoor trail in Bouctouche, N.B. My mother loved Bouctouche and spent many summer days in a cottage on the beach there.
The board I wrote mom's name on at Akadi Lumina in Bouctouche, N.B.
As I walked the trail with the film crew rolling, I learned it's an Acadian tradition to introduce yourself as the son or daughter of your mom or dad using “a” between your name and theirs. They even had a board where I was able to write my mother’s name, Ruth, before embarking on the trail. It was a meaningful moment for me, and I can’t wait to share it with you tonight, on Mother’s Day. This episode is dedicated to her.