Work In Progress

Eighteen years ago today my life changed forever.  At 7:11 AM  I held in my arms a wee, pink, bundle with peach fuzz hair and ten little fingers and ten little toes.  I was oblivious to the intern doing my stitches (until he asked the resident if they looked ok...that caught my attention for a second----yes please, do they LOOK OK!!!!) as I stroked his lips, his ears, his cheeks, his feet. I was in awe that this 7 lbs wonder had only minutes before been living safely inside me and was now out here in the big wide world and it was just the two of us.  My marriage had dissolved when I was four months pregnant and my life purpose crystalized when my doctor asked me if I was feeling like I might hurt myself or someone else as I sat crying in her office after my husband left.  The tears dried up immediately. I was having a baby. THAT child and I were priority number one...I dismissed her as absurd. I had never felt stronger...

I remember hearing in 2010 when Clara Hughes became one of the faces of  Bell's ‘Let’s Talk’ campaign to help raise awareness and support for those suffering from mental illness.  She signed a five year commitment to share her story of struggling with depression in hopes of erasing the stigma of shame metal illness can generate. On the heels of Olympic success, her broad smile had been on every Canadian television and it was the perfect moment to share her message ---people would be listening. I was listening!  And then I promptly forgot about her...because I thought it had nothing to do with me.  Just recently, Hughes spoke to more than 1,100 spectators at the London Convention Centre for the seventh annual Breakfast of Champions, a fundraiser presented jointly by St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation and the Canadian Mental Health Association London-Middlesex. She described her early experiences with drinking, drugs and ditching school...