Inspirational Stories « There is hope…for others like me

Painting a picture of memory lane

18 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by liatweiss in About Loved Ones, Updates Tags: art, bontanical, breast cancer, cancer, charity, cute, daughter, donate, donations, effort, fund, fundraiser, healing, health, help, hope, illistration, journey, life, love birds, memories, miniature, mother, painting, pancreas, pancreatic cancer, pancreatic cancer canada, paypal, positivity, stories, survival, survivors, Toronto Board of Trade, watercolours

Sorting through my mom’s art works for the gallery…

… I stumble upon so many memories. Both hers, and mine as well. I discover all her college sketch books filled with study notes, illustrations, messages to her friends, letters she writes to someone just to sort out her thoughts, ideas she will eventually develop into art that still exists in my house.

I find a life drawing of myself that she illustrated when I was 2 years old. Lots of landscape art from places that we’ve travelled to. Detailed notes and cross-section drawings of leaves and other botanicals from her TFN (Toronto Field Naturalists) group that she attended with my father.

Her little miniatures she made out of polymer clay all sit abandoned in a cardboard egg container. They look up at me with cute expressions and fingerprint marks pressed into their bodies that were once formed by the talented hands of my mother. Her cancer was so advanced when she made them that her hands would shake from the pain, slowing down her progress. Each miniature took a day to make, when once it took an hour. She still never gave up.

Then there are the watercolours. The endless watercolours of botanicals, scenes, and landscapes. Rolling hills illuminated by soft sunlight, fresh-cut roses with dew drops gently resting on their petals, orchids so vibrant you want to pick them out of the page, and little Victorian houses that we always wanted to live in.

I haven’t cried much since her death. But doing this is pushing me into an emotional release. I miss her so much more with every passing day. My mom has done so many things in her life, but I want only to remember her as an artist. Her works speak for themselves to immortalize her as just that. It’s what she’d want.

"Love Bird" miniature modelled out of polymer clay

Our world got smaller

29 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment

by liatweiss in About Loved Ones Tags: cancer, care, charity, cottage, donations, effort, feelings, healing, health, help, hodgkins cancer, hope, inspiration, israel, journey, kingston, life, love, mookie, mother, optimism, pancreatic cancer, positivity, stories, survival, survivors, toronto, wife

Standing on a frozen lake with my dog, Mookie, running around them

This is going to be very difficult for me to write.

This post is about my father. He deserves his own special section in all of this because my mom meant more to him than anything in the entire world. She was his world… and it just got a whole lot smaller. Losing my mom was losing a third of our tight-knit family of three. My father is left completely devastated by her death, and the feelings that replace her are excruciating to say the least.

My mom with her sense of humor making my dad laugh

My mother and father met at the age of 27 in Israel. She moved back to the country, from Canada, to recconect with her Israeli roots. That is when she met my dad, waiting for her on the top step at the entrance of a famous magazine editing firm. It was love at first site and they both went on to be co creative directors.

Tragedy struck in 1982 when my mother was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s cancer, still in her twenties. My father stayed by her side through the horrible operation, and chemo treatments, which back then were medieval torture compared to what they are now. He slept in her hospital room for weeks on end with 3 or 4 other patients jammed in there with them. He never gave up on her, and she never gave up hoping.

One couple, one van, a lot of travelling

Kissing on a dock in Kingston

My mother survived her first battle with cancer, only to find out she could no longer have children from the cancer treatment that caused damage to her body. Regardless, my parents never gave up hope and miraculously they managed to conceive me. (ew. lol)

Six years later we all moved to Canada to start life all over again. Throughout growing up I remember how much time my parents had spent together. They loved to go to the farmers market on the weekend and buy fresh produce, or look at antiques. They would go on nature walks together in high park, eventually joining the “field naturalists” group. (They were the youngest couple by 30 years…) One of their favourite getaways was our family friend’s Quebec cottage. We have so many fond memories of that cottage, in all seasons, with my dog Mookie who would swim after us in the lake. My mom would drag my dad all over Toronto, all the time, with new things to do and see. They were inseparable.

Hugging at a friend's Christmas party

A morning coffee on the deck of Quebec cottage

With my mom’s diagnosis in 2008 came my parent’s worse nightmare. They once more had to battle this awful disease, this time being pancreatic cancer. My father’s commitment to my mom through the toughest battle of her life was beyond heroic. She had to be at the hospital at least 2 or 3 times a week. My dad was with her every time. Every blood test, every chemo, every doctors appointment, every transfusion, every operation or procedure. Devotion like that of my father’s is so rare. I know how much he hates hospitals, but his loyalty to my mom surpassed any obstacle.

At a wordworking museum in Kingston

In my mother’s last few days, when she could no longer respond, move, or open her eyes, she was somehow reached by dad’s voice. He asked her to give him a kiss, and when he bent his head down, placing his cheek by her mouth, her lips slowly moved as if to kiss hi softley. She was still connected to him. Even though this is a loss for me, as much as it is for my father, there is absolutely no way imaginable I, or anyone else, can being to understand his pain. He loved my mother more than anything. He stayed loyal, devoted, brave, supportive, and so much more.

This is to honour my father. His love couldn’t save her life, but it gave her hope, and bought her more time with us.

A picture of my parents taken in 2007. 1 year before diagnosis.

If you have any stories you wish to share please email hopefortaly@gmail.com or leave a comment

A beloved grandfather

29 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment

by liatweiss in About Loved Ones Tags: cancer, care, charity, colon cancer, donations, effort, grandfather, grandson, healing, health, help, hope, inspiration, journey, life, love, mother, optimism, positivity, stories, survival, survivors

My grandfather and I were very close my whole life, the odd thing about it though was that we weren’t blood related. I never met my actual grandpa, he passed when my mother was a teenager from lung cancer so I never got the opportunity to meet him. The grandpa I knew married my grandmother in the late 1970′s. I wasn’t the wiser of the situation until I was probably around 10 years old but at that point it didn’t matter. He was who he was. Always there to hang, talk, to grandfather like activities with me no matter what. He was so loving to myself and my brother and sister even though we weren’t related by blood.

His first bout with cancer was in the early 1990′s with prostate cancer. He battled through it and eventually prevailed, much to our joy. About a year ago, in April of ’09 it came back, this time though the cancer had attacked his spine and bone structure. It was a very long and painful battle for him and he eventually succumbed to the cancer in December.

I was his eldest grandson, the only blood related grandson he has lives in Thunder Bay and barely saw him, so I inherited the role of being the man to carry on his lifestyle and teachings. What I always remember is that no matter what the situation and how much pain he was in he would always do his best to act like nothing was wrong. He would try to do this wild attempt at a gangsta handshake all the time, got tough near the end but he still would greet me like that every time I saw him. Still makes me smile.

There is a moment that sticks out in my mind the most from his last few months. He was in the hospital for the last 3 months of the ordeal. He was in so much pain that he would only be able to visit for 15 – 20 minutes at a time before he became too tired and had to rest, during which he would barely speak. At Thanksgiving the whole family went to the hospital to join in on what would be our last meal all together with grandpa. My grandmother wheeled him into the room where we had everything set up and everyone started to greet him and ask him questions. He was very quiet but finally called my grandmother over told her that he was wondering where I was and that he wanted to talk to me. It wasn’t a serious conversation about life, he just wanted to chat. He wanted to know about my job, life in general, the band etc. Out of 14 grandkids he wanted to talk with me, only me. It touched me so much that later that day was the first time I actually broke down about the situation he was in, knowing that kind of moment would likely never happen again. So I look back on his life and see a man who came into a family and was the most amazing grandfather I could know, and I’m not even related by blood.

As tragic as those last 8 months were, they gave me the opportunity to learn more about the man my grandfather was and how the way he lived his life has taught me how to live mine.

Submitted by Mitch Conrad

If you have a story to submit, please email hopefortaly@gmail.com or leave a comment