February 2026
Family: Weathering Life’s Storms Together
Reflections on Loss, Love, and the Unbreakable Spirit
When most people think of family, they imagine bustling kitchens, laughter-filled living rooms, shared meals and well-worn traditions. For me, family is something deeper—a force that persists through the howling winds, the solitary hours, and the tangled shadows of midnight. Much of my life has been spent alone, wrapped up in nature’s unpredictable embrace, scaling mountains at unsociable hours and sometimes fighting off spider webs in the dark. Yet, even in these loneliest moments, my thoughts return to those who shaped me.
February stirs a flood of memories. It’s the month my little sister Carolyn was born. She and Mum were inseparable—a bond so strong that, even now, it hums quietly in my heart. Losing Carolyn at the age of 29 shattered Mum in a way I can scarcely describe. I remember how devastated I was when I lost Mum. But to witness a mother grieving the loss of her child is a sorrow that language cannot fully hold. Mum lost two children—her firstborn, Deanne, died long before I ever came into the world. Then, decades later, Carolyn, her youngest, sick for most of her life, slipped away just days before Christmas on the summer solstice of 1999.
Mum herself left us on the last day of winter in 2019, twenty years after Carolyn. I often think about what it takes to keep moving forward after such heartache. What I admire most about Mum and Carolyn is their indomitable spirit—their fierce, stubborn refusal to give in. Mum was a single mother who battled through hardship and uncertainty. There were times when we had nowhere to go, no roof over our heads, but Mum never faltered. She worked any job available—a cleaner, a tea lady, whatever it took to keep us fed and safe.
Carolyn inherited that same resolve. Despite her severe disabilities, she paid her own way through university, and eventually worked in a halfway house to support intellectually disabled youth. Even as her health declined, tethering her to an oxygen machine and the confines of home, Carolyn never lost her impish wit. She and Mum would join forces, delighting in teasing me for my forgetful ways. Their laughter was a testament to resilience—a defiant spark that refused to be snuffed out by circumstance.
Through all life’s ups and downs, their example has been my anchor. If there’s anything I’ve learned from Mum and Carolyn, it’s that storms will come, often without warning, dragging us into tangled brambles and leaving us battered and bruised. But if you ride out the tempest, if you keep fighting—even when you’re tired, even when you’re afraid—life has a way of righting itself. You emerge on the other side: scarred, perhaps, but standing, wiser, and changed.
Family, for me, is not just about blood or shared history. It’s about courage in the face of adversity, the unspoken understanding that we carry one another through life’s hardest moments. The memories of Mum and Carolyn live on in the way I persist, the way I find humour in hardship, the way I keep moving forward—alone, sometimes, but never truly without them. In the end, we are shaped by the storms we weather, and the love that endures long after the storm has passed.