This Mother’s Day, six Canadians share what their moms were like at their age | Canada Voices

It’s easy to think of our moms as just our moms. But as we get older – and as we approach the age they were when they had kids and raise our own children – many of us inevitably start to look back and think about who they were as people and what choices they made.

This Mother’s Day, we asked readers to share what their moms were like at the age they are now – and how their lives were different or the same. From bonding over baseball to sharing a love of books, here’s what they said.

My mom was a busy career woman in the Philippines at the age I am now and headed the Canadian operations of the bank where she worked. It enabled her to visit me, my sister and our families in Canada. She went to Winnipeg on her own and then, we went to Quebec with her to visit the bank offices. We had fun and enjoyed our road trip. I was a homemaker and put my career on hold to take care of my family. My mom was supportive of my decision.

My mother and I are both independent, strong-willed, hard-working and compassionate. We are cancer survivors and resilient. When she was my age, she was very active in nation-building and community events. She did a lot of work for the less privileged members of our society. Despite her many pursuits, she always made time for her family and was a loving and doting grandmother. – Ria Llanes, Makati, Philippines

I’m 72. Have had a benign tremor for a decade. My mom’s tremor also started in her early 60s. We both loved children, baseball and reading. Every morning, I called her. Every morning, we laughed at the same things and were annoyed by the same things. As she grew older, I shopped for her groceries, picked out large-print books and made DVDs of her great-grandchildren. In her 90s, she began to tell me ancient family secrets.

She’s been gone for several years now and I still want to talk to her every morning about last night’s Jays game, some crooked politician or whatever the grandkids are up to. So I do, just not on the phone. Love you, Mom. – Kent Williams, Toronto

My mother, Anne Melnychuk, was 25 years old when I was born.

When my son, Thomas Lawson, was born, she drove weekly over mountains from Clearwater, B.C., to Vancouver to look after him while I returned to work.

It’s approximately a six-hour drive, and she did this for eight months! I worked Monday to Thursday when I went back to work so she would come out Sunday and drive back home on Thursdays.

This picture is of my son at age 25, the age when she had me! Me, at 61 years old, the age she was when she was driving across mountains to look after him, and my mom at age 86. I love the full circle love of this picture! – Sue Melnychuk, Vancouver

When my mother was my age now, she had been retired for 23 years. She spent 10 years with my father living in Florida until my father had a stroke. She was quite frail from having been the primary caretaker for my father. She was, however, still spry enough to be a cottage grandma to her grandchildren. She finished her travelling at the same age I am now with a trip to see her youngest son before he died.

She and my father were wonderful parents to me. In retrospect, I think our characters were more similar than I thought at the time and I have become the primary caretaker of my own spouse. Thanks, Mom (and Dad). – Charles Goodbrand, North Vancouver

I think my mom, Laura, was finding herself in her mid-50s. She was always a working mom, but at this age she was really able to focus on her accounting career and she was also finally getting some respect for her experience and knowledge.

She was starting to develop some hobbies and interests outside the family, like swimming and yoga. She was always bragging that she was the most flexible in her yoga class.

Sadly she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in her 70s. But I think she had a few good years of freedom and independence. – Irena Zhivov, Toronto

My own mother was dead at the same age I am now, which is 56. She died shortly after her 55th birthday. Diagnosed with cancer at 50, just two weeks after retiring, my mom struggled to complete some of the dreams she often voiced, like going to Hawaii. We travelled to Las Vegas together in the last year of her life. Exceedingly frail by then, she was accompanied by her then-elderly sister and her two daughters.

Before she became ill, my mom was warm, funny, a great baker, sometimes short-tempered and, of course, loved. She was a wicked card player, too. My mom was also always an avid reader – not of high-brow literature but of steamy Harlequin romances.

Last year, I became a novelist, not of romances but suburban thrillers. I’ve told parts of my mom’s stories through them, and think she would be pretty stoked to see my books in print. – Crystal Quast, Waterloo, Ont.