Faye's Feedback

  When my dear husband Darrell passed away in 2023, I had been working on a life memoir in an online course with author   Wilma Derksen , and some other participants. Darrell became ill with stage four pancreatic cancer, so the remainder of my online course had to be postponed. I was able to complete it later that year. The idea had been to create a life story to pass on to my children, so that they'd have a record of the stages of my entire life. So often children only know what they are told as they grow up. The idea of an art memoir was a natural followup to the original, since I had written many stories about my paintings and the people and places that inspired them. Most of all, I needed a place to tell about my art connections with my boss and mentor Steve Bell, poet Malcolm Guite for the book "Seven Whole Days," and Paul Boge who asked me to illustrate "The Biggest Family in the World." As a child, my older sister June frightened me by telling me that th...

 I believe in a God of miracles! A fraction of a second sooner and the car would have hit my leg...instead it hit the rear wheel of my bike and I went skidding onto the road. The bus driver and two pedestrians came to my assistance, and the woman driving the car itself was so upset with herself. I had been at a four-way stop, the bus to my right, and a car stopped at the left. She was only watching the bus to see what he would do, so she didn't see me start to cross the road on my bike. She went forward and hit me. Another kind lady helped me to get up and I shook myself off, testing all my parts, and a couple of scrapes and a cut were evident, but nothing major. Someone checked my e-bike, and it looked like it still worked, so I ended up riding home the half block left to my house. Gradually, my left foot began hurting, and I figured out that it was probably a sprain. I know, don't follow Google for medical advice, but I found my symptoms, and had absolutely no interest in sit...

 Never in my wildest imagination would I be acting in a play in the 2025 Winnipeg Fringe Festival! But it's true! I have always loved acting. Since being at Kelvin High School, I participated in all of the operettas; one of them in an acting role as the maid in No, No Nanette . In the other operettas, I was in the chorus. I was part of an acting group on the side as well, and enjoyed that immensely. One of the co-participants was David Huband, who is currently a professional actor. At church, I played a clown with my friend Joey for a Vacation Bible School week. We almost started up a business as clowns for children's parties. As often as possible, I volunteered for roles in my church's Christmas productions. The year my first husband died, I was in a comedic role as a choir conductor. Despite my grief, I stayed in the role and it certainly helped distract me and make Christmas a little bit happier. As a mother of teenagers, I spent some time trying out for roles as an extr...

I thought my mom had a mini stroke. The nurse wouldn’t say what it was, but I was sure. Apparently she was tired and didn’t eat much at lunch.  When I picked her up for supper, she was lethargic and had a little trouble talking clearly. She was very cold and her tongue was not working properly. At the restaurant she chewed and chewed her salad without swallowing it except when taking a sip of her coffee. I knew something was wrong, so I took her home as soon as possible. I thought she had bitten her tongue, as it was a bit of blood came out on a napkin. I sat with her for a while, gave her water and held her hand until she fell asleep on her bed with extra coverings.  The next day Uncle Connie (who was a doctor) visited her to check her over. She was still mobile and able to do everything. He noticed that she was a little vacant. The day after that, nurse Danielle called me at work and told me about her episode, sudden fatigue on the way to her hair appointment and she faded -...

While my mother was on a trip to see my sister in Portland, I went to her apartment to sort through her kitchen and take some unnecessary things away. When she came home, I showed her a new telephone and a tidy apartment. She insisted that "they" had followed her to Portland, and that they knew about her trip by listening to her phone calls. On her last day there, they apparently stole two dollars and a pair of her panties. My sister said that the two dollars was found in her purse, but Mom insisted that it wasn't true. So negotiations with her doctor about the possibility of a care home began. Gradually we convinced her to consider a care home, and I began taking her on tours of various options. I began to get discouraged, as she gave all kinds of reasons to refuse the choices. I met my second husband in 2006, thanks to a blind date situation set up by my favourite cousin, Judy. To her, Darrell seemed a lot like my own father, a quiet, steady man who loved fixing cars. D...

Patience needed to be my strongest ally, dealing with the changes and my mother's complaints about the thieves in her new home, who even took her chequebook apparently just for the cookie recipe written on a cheque.  I hoped the new location might assist in diminishing Mom's perceived thefts, but after a while it got worse. She thought that "they" were climbing to her third floor balcony with a rope pulley. The same people were the culprits, and had apparently followed her there from her old apartment.  She called me at home and at work, complaining about things missing or putting me on guilt trips for not paying enough attention to her. One day her ID was gone, and I worried that I'd have to apply for duplicate ID for her, but later found the packet in her purse which was hidden in the oven. Another time her glasses were smudged with fingerprints when she woke in the morning, and she blamed the thieves who brought along a little boy to smudge her glasses. I asked...