WOLF: Remembering Mum, nearly 40 years later

WOLF: Remembering Mum, nearly 40 years later

Published 5:45 am Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Oct. 7 is always a bittersweet day for me.

I’ll cry. I’ll smile and enjoy a flood of happy memories. I’ll phone my sister and lament the what ifs and celebrate the what was. I’ll listen to some old tunes.

I hate Oct. 7 for what it means. I love Oct. 7 for what it meant. I wish I never had to think about Oct. 7.

Oct. 7 marks the anniversary of the day (39 years ago) we lost Mum. She was just 44. Cancer.

It boggles my mind she’s been gone so long, given it still seems like yesterday. We were just kids when she passed away, which I think made it even harder to process. And now, I realize just how young she was herself. Having lost Dad last year as well, there’s an empty feeling that’s hard to explain.

While the lessons imparted and the belief she is somehow still watching most definitely helped guide me through life, I still wish she had been there to share the ups and downs. To grow old with Dad, see and spoil her grandkids and be the always-makes-everything-better emotional force she was for everyone.

I’ve become better at processing those emotions as I get older, but I don’t think it’s ever possible to “get over” the loss of someone who not only gave you life, but was the centre of your universe for the entire time she was alive.

I’ve shared this anecdote before, but I think of it often around this time of year. It was the first Christmas without Mum and I was driving home from a girlfriend’s house, travelling up the Malahat to Duncan. Windows down, freezing my holiday Brazil nuts off to make sure I stayed awake. For whatever reason, the reality of Christmas without Mum just ran over me like a steamroller. Tears just started flowing uncontrollably, so badly I had to pull over. I sat there in the cold, quietly sobbing into the steering wheel, teeth chattering, missing my Mum and questioning the fairness of it all. Then, suddenly, everything felt warm. I looked up and saw Mum, sitting in the passenger seat. I heard “I’m here. Everything’s going to be OK.” And then, whoosh, she was gone, out the open window and off into the sky. I rubbed my eyes, looked all around and wondered what the heck had just happened. My own Christmas miracle. She was there.

I can still feel every emotion from that moment.

This year, I turn to you, dear readers. Virtually every one of us has experienced the painful loss of a loved one.

How did you deal with it? What was the hardest part? What do you miss the most? Do you still “talk” to them? Have you experienced “signs”, believing they were showing you they were still there? When did you know you were going to be OK? What advice would you have for others (mine is simple: get out there and make memories every day)?

I’d love to hear some of your own special thoughts and memories.

PQB News/Vancouver Island Free Daily editor Philip Wolf can be reached via email at philip.wolf@blackpress.ca or by phone at 250-905-0029.