In October I made an appointment with Devyani, she is my parents financial advisor at Scotiabank. I needed to meet with her to review some issues.
Devyani asked me “how is your mom doing? I haven't seen her in awhile” I told her my mom was at Bridgepoint, she’s bed ridden after having suffered another stroke months earlier. I said She is in good spirits and doing well, as well as can be expected.
Devyani said to me I’ve never seen anyone like your mom. She would call me when she had an issue getting into her bank account on her laptop.
On occasion I couldn’t get back to her in the morning as I would be with other customers or in meetings.
Your mom would appear in the afternoon with a walker and laptop... My mom would travel all the way from her condo at 278 bloor to the branch west of yonge on bloor.
Devyani said She doesn’t like to wait around, does she, She is a strong determined woman!
My mom was direct, she had drive. If she wanted something done, it was going to happen. If she had something to say, it was coming out.
…. I didnt always appreciate this character trait. But once I matured I loved this about my mom, what a strong role model.
During the 70’s she got involved in the women's movement and made us very aware that men and women were treated differently in society and at work. Men had the plum jobs/careers women not so much. She was an advocate for the feminist movement.
We grew up on Roe Avenue and it was the perfect street for young kids. All the traffic was local, no speeders cutting through the streets, and everyone knew each other. We knew the people in our neighborhood, not just next door. Dotsy, Jeff Folkins, Wendy and Bev Daniels, Charlene Kelly we all lived on or near Roe Avenue.
Road hockey, riding bikes, hide and seek, a little kick the can.
We spent a lot of time playing on the streets and front lawns of Roe Ave.
You know that's not the common practice today.
My mom didn’t like the idea of Driving Schools with novice drivers travelling down the streets of Roe, because we were constantly playing on the street.
Rarely did we look both ways before running across the lawns to get home free.
One day, she rushed outside as a driving school car was making a turn up Roe avenue. I didn’t hear exactly what she said to the driver or the instructor. I'm certain it was something very direct, something like... You can't drive on this street, there are too many kids playing on the street.
It didn't take long for the driving schools to get the message and find another street.
As a kid, I dreaded when my Mom and Dad went traveling overseas. Not because we didn’t like the kid sitter, or couldn't survive without .. We all feared the adventurous food my mom would cook upon returning. She loved to travel overseas to places like Turkey, Israel, Russia and others, when it was most desirable by many to go to DisneyLand.
She believed in adventure and challenging conventional thinking. Fried green bananas, pork and apricots and many others.
In the summer of 1972. We had a massive garbage strike in the city of Toronto. Thousands of Bags of garbage were ported to parks, city arenas, public tennis courts during the strike.. It was filthy and disgusting. Cockroaches, mice, rats, racoons had a buffet bonanza..
Bags and bags and bags of garbage.. Back then all waste was put into one garbage can.. Food waste, batteries, chemicals, paint, glass, tin cans, paper, packing materials …… everything
My mom was determined to make a difference.
Together with her neighbor, Joan Folkins they formed a partnership called Pollution Solution. The objective was to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill by separating tin cans and glass containers from general waste. …. To Pick those materials up, and sell them to companies that would pay for the raw materials
Based on their proposal The city of Toronto issued them with a $20,000 grant and they went to work. Flyers were distributed in the neighborhoods about the program telling them how they could get involved and participate … and many did. Joan and Doreen hired a driver and rented a truck to pick up the goods which were put road side. A driver would pick up the goods and take them to the various glass and metal companies that would purchase the raw material.
2 bins were designed, made and set up at Bayview/Eglinton and Yonge/Lawrence where people could bring their
material and deposit it in the right section. Brown glass, green glass, clear glass.
The program was so successful that the city of toronto adopted pollution solution and rolled it out across the City. It was the genesis of todays recycling program in the City of Toronto.
On December 2012 my mom was awarded the Jack McGuinnis Environmental Spirit Award for initiating Pollution Solution together with Joan Folkins by the Recycling Council of Ontario.
It was presented by The Minister of the Environment. We all attended the award ceremony and were very proud to Mom recognized for her creativity and drive.
Jan 20 2021 my mom and i went to Costco for some items. I remember the day as it was the day Joe Biden was getting sworn in as the next President of the USA.
While we were still inside the store all nice and warm walking towards the exit, we saw the costco food vendor we said to each other an icecream cone would taste good right now.
We pick up 2 cones and walked towards the car. It was.-5 outside We said to each other we better eat this outside, we don’t want to spill any ice cream in the car. So we hung around the car until we finished the cones. We laughed at each other eating ice cream in January.
We both said we would do it again 4 years later on Jan 20 2025.
Unfortnately that won't happen, but Jan 20 will come and it will be another reminder to me of the driven, creative and determined mom that I love.
Thank you mom
