Illustration by Alex Siklos
First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
The Just Busy Living Tour began after my mom got news that changed everything. I came up with the name; she came up with the places. It started as a way to fill the silence that follows hard truths – a kind of defiant optimism, something my mom, dad, sister and I needed in this strange in-between we suddenly found ourselves in. Mom knew that if her time was limited, she wanted to visit her favourite places in British Columbia again: Tofino and New Denver. I wanted to believe that by naming our trips and giving them a little humour and ceremony, that we might be able to make the impossible feel a little lighter.
So, we packed up. Three times.
The first trip was to Vancouver Island – Tofino, which felt like the far edge of the map. My sister, mom and dad, and I – along with my husband and kids, ages 9 and 11, loaded into our cars like a travelling circus: snacks, colouring books, medication, playlists and dogs in tow. We joked that it felt like a tour because every stop came with an audience: gas station attendants, ferry staff, the kind woman at the bakery who made sure we got the right pie from Savary Island Pie Company, the barista who remembered our order when we went back to the same coffee shop for the fourth day in a row.
On the beach, my mom looked out at the Pacific like it was an old friend. The kids ran ahead, their laughter carried by the wind and I caught myself watching her instead of the waves. She looked small against the horizon, but alive in a way that only people who know how precious time is can be.
A few months later, we went inland to New Denver for the second time that year, the opposite kind of wild. Mountain air, gentle mornings, the lake clear and flat. My mom said she wanted to see where the light hit the water in the morning. So, my sister, my mom, and I woke early and sat by the shore of Slocan Lake with our coffees, my kids still asleep inside. For a while, none of us spoke. She just watched the reflection of the Selkirk Mountains dance on the water, like it was revealing a secret only meant for her.
These trips weren’t glamorous. There were days she was too tired to go far. Days I caught myself holding my breath when she winced or slowed her step. There were long drives filled with both laughter and silence, the kind that feels heavy but holy. But we kept going.
Somewhere along the way, the Just Busy Living Tour stopped being a catchphrase. It became a framework for how we moved through this in-between season, one foot in joy, one in grief. It wasn’t an attempt at denial; it was an act of defiance. A way of saying we can still do this. We can still live.
There’s something about being on the road that changes how you experience time. The world feels wider, but the moments feel smaller and sharper somehow. Like the way my son offered her his walking stick when the trail got uneven. Or how she still insisted on paying for everyone’s coffee. Or how, at the end of each day, she’d say, “Well, that was a good one,” like she was tucking it away for safekeeping.
I’ve started to realize that it was never about the destinations. It was about forward motion, about refusing to let her life, or ours, shrink down to hospital rooms and what-ifs. When she said she wanted to go places, she wasn’t asking for an escape. She was asking us to join her in living, not just in waiting.
Lately, she’s been talking about another trip. She’s not sure where yet – maybe the Kootenays again, maybe somewhere else entirely. She says she likes the feeling of being on the move, of seeing something new. I think it’s her way of reminding us, and maybe herself, that she’s still here. That there is still plenty of living to do in this liminal space.
I don’t know how many more stops there will be on the Just Busy Living Tour. And I’m not ready to think about when it will end. But I can tell you this: when my mom decided to fill the time she has left with adventure, she gave the rest of us a map for how to live, too.
And so we keep going, with haphazardly packed bags and forgotten toothbrushes, and laughter spilling out the door. We are just busy living, chasing all the small, magic moments in-between. Because she’s still here. And for now, that’s enough.
Kelly Young lives in Kelowna, B.C.