No, this isn’t the song about The Day the Music Died, although she liked that song & she liked Buddy Holly. She did sport a beehive and had black rimmed cat glasses at one point in time (I’ll get the pictures and share them at a later date), she was in her late seventies, she lived in that era! The 60s were her jam.

This is about November 23, 2025. That is the day I watched my mother slip away. Her chest stopped moving, the light slipped from her eyes, and her spirit – her chi – her katra – left her body and moved onto the next plane of existence. She was with her family. Two of my brothers, my one sister, and myself. I know my other brother and sister were with us too, the distance too great to be covered in the short window we had before we knew it was time for her to go.

I had received several calls overnight from the many doctors who had been caring for her. She had to have emergency surgery, which we were aware of. She had been in the intensive care unit for the previous ten days for complications from her cancer surgery at the end of October. Strong enough to have the surgery, but with any surgery, there were risks. However, she came through the surgery fine. Her blood pressure was a little sketchy, but it had been since day one and the first surgery almost a month before.

Then she had a small heart attack. Her body having been through too much. It was a clear sign, after all the complications, that she was being called home.

How do you say good-bye? Mom wasn’t a force; she wasn’t really larger than life. Mom was just eternal. She was always just there. When you needed her, when you wanted something, when you needed a hug. She was there. Always there to answer your call, reply to your text, when you needed somewhere to go. Mom was there.

If the coffee wasn’t on, it soon would be. If her smoke wasn’t in the ashtray, it soon would be. If her hair wasn’t done, it soon would be. For everyone who knew her, she may have been grumbling under her breath about something, but you knew soon enough, you’d be welcomed into her home.

I don’t understand this. I don’t understand how she cannot be here. I don’t understand how she went in, was cured of her cancer (the surgery she had was considered ‘curative’ and the pathology she had came back ‘clear’, the cancer was gone from her body) but yet she is dead. A stupid twist of fate, a stupid complication took her from us. I want to point fingers and lay blame. But all the explanations and decisions made make sense. All the protocols and facts make sense. But none of it makes sense. Not in the least. It makes me angry. I want to stomp my feet and yell. I get moments of such intense anger I start crying. Then I cry because I am so intensely sad because she’s gone.

Then there are moments of acceptance. Where it is almost ‘okay’, where this is the new normal and I realize her pain is gone, she is okay, and I am okay. But then I think about it all over again and the cycle repeats. Is this grief?

https://www.trinityfuneralhome.ca/obituary/zonya-elizabeth-sabourin/

I do want to thank her care team at the University of Alberta Hospital. Her surgeon, Dr. Jacobson – who is an amazing human being for reaching out to us and checking in whenever he could and after she passed. Drs Hudson and Fung from the Intensive Care Unit for caring for her every day she was in the ICU, and all the nurses and staff in the ICU for doing all they could to look after her and us while we were camped out there with her.