Make the Olympics stop …. please!!!!

Thank God the Olympics are over.  I’ve cried so many times over the last couple of weeks, I’m spent.  Tonight I saw the Dan Jansen Visa ad…have you seen it?  That put me over the edge.  Seriously.

Alex Bilodeau and his brother – incredible.  But Joannie.  Oh Joannie, how I cried for you, and cheered for you and then cried for you some more.  I know what it’s like to achieve the greatest thing you’ve ever done and not had the one person there that you truly want to share it with.  And I cried harder when I saw you hugging and speaking about your dad and realizing that you know what, he’s pretty damn good too.  I openly wept when you got your medal and had that bittersweet look of ‘wow this is incredible, but not as incredible because she’s not here to share it with me. 

Ten years ago this month, I was in Australia at one of my closest friend’s wedding. The week leading up to the wedding was insane.  So much fun.  Oddly though, I couldn’t get in touch with my mom, or my sister, my boyfriend or my friends.  I started to sense something was up but figured they knew where I was.  And they found me.  The morning after the wedding at 7am, the phone rang in our hotel room and the second phase of my life started.  It was dad telling me that my mom had a tumour in her brain and that I needed to fly home.  I’m not sure my hungover state really allowed me to grasp the magnitude of what that call meant.  But I’d been right, they had found out right after I left for Australia and didn’t want to put a cloud on the wedding so they waited until the day after to tell me – and avoided all my calls knowing that I’d figure it out.  Oh my boyfriend, well he’d lost his cell phone so I couldn’t get him – nor could my parents…but that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, seven months later my mother – my support system, my best friend – was gone.  Unlike Joannie Rochette, I got to say goodbye.  We got to talk about our favourite memories from our pasts and her dreams for me for the future.  She said she was totally pissed off that she wouldn’t see me be a mother because she knew I’d be great at it.  I hold that conversation very close and think about it daily – sometimes hourly. 

But I also wonder if I would have had Will had my mom not been taken from us.  I’ve become a different person over the last ten years.  I’m stronger, more confident and more independent then I was before.  I think many of us who have lost our mothers are like this.  You no longer have that person there to say ‘good job’ or ‘you’re making the right decision’.  You need to make those choices for yourself and learn to pat yourself on the back.  If I’m truly honest with myself, I just don’t think I could have handled this whole single motherhood thing without first learning how to handle life without my mother – ironic to think that I’m only a mom because I don’t have my own.

So maybe she isn’t here to see my greatest accomplishment – an awesome little dude named Will – but as my friend Jaimie said – maybe she picked him out – just for me. 

And Joannie – you will survive and be stronger for it.  But make no mistake – it f(*&ing sucks but you will be happy again.  And those of us who have lost our mothers will continue to cry every single time we watch the clip of you on that podium because we get it..we so get it. 

So now the olympics are over…and I swear I’ll get some of my wit back and stop crying all the time…god, it’s just boring!  Oh NOOOOOO – paralympics first.  Crap more kleenex please. 

I leave you with this….a look ahead to the 2030 Olympic games…forward, defence, goal only time will tell for this Team Canada member.  (and I wonder if I’ll cry as hard then as I did when I watched this video for the first time tonight – only tears of happiness – Go Will Go!!!)