Andrew Kelly

So where do I start to explain what she meant to me? I guess, with breakfast.

My mom made the best fried eggs.

Over medium, orange yokes, slightly runny.

Although she was a good cook, that’s not why she made the best eggs.

If she was making you eggs, she was going to make sure they were perfect.

She’d watch the butter melt, carefully crack each egg, watch patiently, test the bottom of the egg for doneness, flip the egg, turn off the heat, and time it perfectly before walking the plate over.

Her attention to detail was akin to making eggs for the king.

Care, love, attention – that’s how she treated me all the time, for my entire life.

All of my memories of my mom are like this. She did what she could to make our lives easier.

My mom’s warmth extended to every friend that I had. This continued into my adulthood, with every new friend I (and me and Venessa) made was added to the rolodex of people my mom would both ask about, and root for.

I’d bring up a friend in conversation like Mark Agbetiafa, one of my oldest and closest friends, who my mom absolutely adored. And she’d respond, in her one of a kind voice, “Marrrrk. Oh, I love Mark. And how is Marrrrk?”

I’ve received so many condolences from friends saying the same thing over and over.

“Your mom was the best”

“She was always so sweet to me”

“She was the mom’s mom”

And she was all of these things.

Growing up, my mom and I spent most of our time together in the car on the way to basketball. My Dad came when he could, and he came to a lot of it, but my mom was always there.

For 10+ years, my mom drove me (and often my friends too) to every practice, game, and tournament in Ontario and across the southeast U.S.

She spent most evenings and every weekend from October to May doing this. Sometimes it would be just the two of us, talking for hours on the long drives. Sometimes she’d be driving me and 4-5 of my teammates, never saying no to driving across the city to pick someone up.

This was such a special time for us. I made lifelong friends and learned lifelong lessons, while she delighted in the company of the other basketball families.

There was one Sunday night when her and I were driving back from a tournament in Niagara in a massive blizzard. The snow was so bad they may have closed the highway – I can’t remember exactly. But we could only see a few feet in front of the car and could only go about 20km/hr on a two lane road through Smithville. It took us forever to get home, and we were white knuckled the entire way, I might have said 100 prayers to her home safely, but my mom could handle it.

When my parents dropped me off at York, my mom was in shambles. I sat in the front seat because she was so embarrassed from crying so much, she hid in the back of the van.

I can still picture her sitting behind the drivers seat unable to summon the words to say goodbye that day because of the the sorrow, pride, and uncertainty that comes with dropping your child off at university.

My mom was a planner, down to every last detail. In education we refer to this as Executive Functioning, a major strength in both of my parents – and one they’ve passed on to my sister and I.

So when she dropped me off at York, she left me with a printed campus map, and she’d highlighted the buildings where all of my classes were.

Beside each highlight was the day and time of my class. I probably responded with something like “Ah c’mon mom, I can do it myselllllf”, but it made her happy to know she was doing everything she could to make my life easier.

My mom was always making my life easier, in one way or another. That’s the role she played in our family for everyone.

We took a lot of road trips when I was younger. She would purchase the CAA Triptik booklet months in advance, committing every page to memory, highlighting the specific route, making notes for options to stop, so we’d be prepared for our drive to Myrtle Beach or Florida. Making sure everything went to plan.

Doting, warm, supportive.

When I got back from university and started working in Hamilton, my mom had all of us close by. My sister had settled here, my mom’s mom (Nan) lived around the corner, and my dad’s parents (Marg and Jack) lived in a nursing home 5 minutes from our house. This became the era of Sunday dinners.

My mom was so proud to host everyone every Sunday. She never made a fuss about it, but it was a production to put on a big dinner every week.

I never thought of the effort it took to grocery shop, plan, pay for, etc…because she would never once complain about it, or even make it known that these things had to take place in order for Sunday dinner to happen.

There was so much love.

So much laughter.

Playing Catchphrase and falling out of our chairs laughing, creating inside jokes that lasted years (Hey Juice!), the cooking competitions that we’d accuse each other of rigging (Did Nan really have the best garlic bread? Did I really have the best meatloaf? Or did someone bribe the judge?)

Every now and then my Nan would say something like this in a half-scolding way, “I hope you know how much effort your mother puts into these dinners”.

My mom would brush it off, because she didn’t want us to think about it. She just wanted to make our lives easier. Happier. Better.

There was a period of time when my mom was hosting Christmas for both her side and my dad’s side, which meant 3 Christmas meals on the same day. On. The. Same. Day.

Breakfast and presents: 6 of us.

Lunch: 20 of us.

Dinner: 15 of us.

A multi-day process, the oven went on for the first turkey at 10pm on Christmas Eve. It cooked all night to be ready for lunch, and the dinner turkey went in sometime in the morning.

Maybe this bit of chaos was why she had an affinity for Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe Christmas stories. You could title this one “Sandi and the Groundhog Day Christmas”.

Except nothing went wrong, or at least we never knew, because my mom never complained or even explained the work that went into providing for her family.

She just wanted her family to be happy.

Outside of the family, my mom worked in Human Resources at the Hamilton Spectator. While she was working and raising me and my sister, she attended Mohawk College in the evenings to get her diploma in Human Resources.

Her experience combined with her diploma opened a new world of opportunities for her.

She landed as manager of Human Resources at a large marketing firm. The new position came with long hours, high stress, etc.

After all of that time, my mom realized that it just wasn’t for her.

Through a twist of fate, my mom started working for the HWDSB.

Starting as an elementary casual secretary, then working in Co-op at the board level, then settling in as Guidance secretary, my mom loved her job.

The friendships she made through the board greatly enriched her life. Even after retiring, the coffee dates and meetups with these friends meant the world to her.

The Guidance office takes care of students when they need help of one kind or another.

Can you imagine a better person to welcome a stressed out student?

Walking in and getting a nice warm greeting from the consummate Mom, Mrs. Kelly.

My mom loved her students.

She told us she thought that one of her students was going hungry, so she started bringing in an apple everyday.

But it couldn’t be just any type of apple. It had to be a honeycrisp apple.

It had to be the most delicious, crispy, $5 a pound apple because that’s how she was. It meant something to her that she provided the most love possible, down to the type of apple she chose.

When she retired, she became a full time grandma (Gran). As you can imagine, it was a role she was born to play.

The amount of love that she held for Tyra, Cece, Dante, and Ruby was amazing.

Out of all of the kids, she spent the most time with Cece as she helped us with child care for a full year. Gran was a Cece-whisperer.

Arm scratches, reading books, making slime, playing play-doh, Cece felt all of Gran’s love. My dad would take long videos of them playing together. Those videos are priceless to us now.

To hear her voice is to know her love. Gran, the Fairy Godmother.

My mom was surrounded by us when she died. Holding her hand is my strongest memory of her last moments. Her hand felt the same as it always did. This memory is etched in my mind and it’s one of profound sadness, but also one of extreme thankfulness.

Thankful that I’ll never forget how my moms hands felt.

These were the same hands that made me the best eggs, that kept the steering wheel steady, that circled my classes on the campus map, that prepared our Sunday dinners, that held her grandkids with such care and wonder.

What can a son say that could possibly describe his mother’s love?

Thank you mom ♥️