it’s all about Margaret

Mother’s Day is upon us. If you can be with your mother, give her a big hug. If you can’t be with her due to distance or some other reason, get in touch with her by phone or via a visual call if you can. And if your mother has passed, hug her spiritually. I believe that most of us never stop loving our mothers and that they never stop loving us. If that is not the same for you, I am sorry. But please help me in celebrating the wonders of motherhood with a salute to my and every mother who has graced this earth.

honouring our heritage

This post was first written and posted in 2010, as I reflected on life without my mother over the (then) 40 years since her passing. My mother, Margaret, died in January, 1970, from cancer. I update and circulate this post every so often to honour Mother’s Day (which this year falls on May 14th) and hope you’ll join me in saluting the spirit of motherhood.

Back in 2010, I’d had a handwriting analysis and projective personality assessment done by Annette Poizner of Toronto. She stressed the importance of the number 40 at the time of her analysis. It was this post written on Jan 23, 2010 on the fascinating subject of graphology that brought Dr. Annette Poizner into my life. She contacted me after finding my blog via a keyword search. (Blogging has opened so many amazing doors for me on both a personal and professional basis.)

Poizner told me that 40 is an extremely powerful number in our personal development in that we are “ripe” by age 40 and ready to cultivate new skills we may have been pondering for years. We are ready to take on new challenges and forge a new path. She said that it was very significant that I was having certain dreams at the time we crossed paths as they were connected to my mother, who (Poizner believes) had chosen to forge a deeper presence in my conscious life after being physically absent from my side for the past 40 years. And it was precisely 40 years to the day following my mother’s death that I made the blog post that brought Poizner into my life–on the precise 40th anniversary of the death of Margaret Ann Herneshen.

This picture was taken of my mother sometime around 1940 (and colourized by my father.) I recently learned that the name Margaret, actually means “Pearl” in its origins, and only noticed today that she is wearing a multi-string necklace of small pearls in the photo. Synchronicity or symbolism?

I won’t go into details about the personality analysis I received back in 2010, but can say that it was indeed a year filled with people and images that have reinforced my mother’s presence and importance in my life–now more than 53 years since her passing. We never stop missing our mothers. and we should never forget where we come from.

remembering my mother

At the family reunion I wrote about in this post, I met a woman named Doreen Musick, who had been a good friend of my mother’s in her younger years.

Meeting Doreen made me wonder whether I had been named after this lovely woman, as she is the only Doreen I have encountered who knew my mother and father. I am pictured with her below. (Doreen passed on in 2021.)

I then had lunch with Valerie, one of my mother’s cousins whom I had not seen since I was a young child. She contacted me after reading an article I had written in the CAA magazine. Val came to the lunch with an envelope full of pictures of my mother and family from the early years. How enjoyable that was, to go through these pictures and share family memories with someone who knew and loved my mother.

That 40th anniversary of my mother’s passing was enriched with the joy of finding and reconnecting with people who knew and adored her positive nature, love of beauty and nature, infectious laugh, warm embrace and welcoming smile.

As I remember my mother in honour of Mother’s Day and reflect back on her passing, I can only hope that I am half the woman she was, and offer a tribute to all the great mothers of the world who have made an impact on those they love.

This photo of me and my mother was taken at Clear Lake, Manitoba, likely in the area of 1960.

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