Alison Garwood Jones

When I was fresh out of grad school, I moved to Toronto and got a job in a restaurant.

It was the first of many times in my life when I was faced with figuring out where to place my skills and seeing who would have me.

I found it helpful to talk it out with mothers, starting with my own.

During that time, Hyacinth Grenville, girl mom to Delia, Alisia Dale and Deidre, became one of my phone buddies.

Ostensibly, I would ring up their Brampton home to talk to Alisia Dale, her middle child and a recent law school grad, but it never stopped at, “Hi Mrs. Grenville, is Alisia there?” (Historical fact: that’s how communication worked on communal home phones in the 1990s).

Hy and I went at it for half an hour before she passed over the receiver to her daughter.

At that time, Hyacinth was working at the head office of a big Canadian grocer while studying for her Ph.D. Her Guyanese take on life’s ups and downs made me laugh out loud and think of my potential in new ways.

Hy was like a cork bouncing on top of the ocean, never letting anything or anyone push her down. She’d had her fair share of adversity, but she didn’t share her wounds (or even her scars) with me. Her humour and spark meant everything. She believed in me and I believed in her.

This Mother’s Day post is for Hyacinth and her daughters. Last Christmas, Alisia’s big sister, Delia (also my friend), let me know how my illustrated book, I MISS MY MOMMY, was helping her deal with missing Hy:

“For me, it helped open the door to the ‘waiting room of grief’ and sit with uncertainty. It’s a nice reminder that we’re not in it alone.”

I MISS MY MOMMY is available at PenJarProductions.com

Make it your source of comfort this Mother’s Day

The stunning portrait of Hyacinth is by Cheryl Reyes – @cheryldelosreyescruzdecisilino

Printed and shipped with care by Lulu.com