A Letter to My Mom

I've been trying to figure out how to write this for a while now. Not because I don't know what to say. Because I know too much of it and I don't know where to start.

So I'll start where you always told me to start. At the beginning.

You built something from nothing, Mom. In 1992, before anyone had a name for what you were doing, before there were frameworks or regulations or Google searches that could explain surrogacy to a nervous couple at a kitchen table, you just decided that families deserved help and you showed up. That's it. That's the whole story of how this started. You decided. And then you did.

You built the foundation. The values. The structure. The non-negotiables that had to be solid before anything else could work. You were Canada's first. And you built it the same way you built everything. With your whole chest. Your whole heart. No half measures. No looking over your shoulder to see if anyone was watching.

I was watching. I've always been watching. Since I was four years old I was watching you.

I want to tell you what you passed me. The secret sauce was always yours. But somewhere between watching you at four years old and stepping in fully in 2016, you passed me the bottle. And I've been adding to it ever since.

I want to tell you about the refund policy. You would have fought for it too, Mom, I know you would have. The idea that a family could pour their whole heart and their whole savings into this journey and then have life fall apart on them and feel trapped — you would have hated that. So I changed it. I made it so they have somewhere to land if life does what life does.

I want to tell you about the magic spark. About how a surrogate reads a profile and stops because she finds the same favourite movie or the same childhood pet name and she calls us and says "those are my people." You taught me to see that. You taught me that the foundation matters but the click is everything. I just finally found the words for what you already knew.

I want to tell you about the fries, Mom.

I figured something out recently. The McDonald's thing — the surrogates getting fries after transfer, the way it spread through the community until now thousands of families do it without knowing why — I finally traced it all the way back. To our dentist. To the 45 minute drive. To you handing us a cold chocolate milkshake after a filling because something medical had happened and McDonald's was how our family got through things.

You brought that with you into surrogacy without even knowing you were doing it. You took your surrogates out after their transfers because that's just what you did after something hard and important. You fed them. You sat with them. You let them breathe for a minute.

And it worked. And you said it was lucky. And now it's everywhere.

That's so you. I hope you know that. That is so completely you.

I need to tell you about Cameron. Your first grandchild. Cameron Ashton Roland, the light of your lives. The one you wrote about on the website like he hung the moon. Because he did, didn't he.

He's 20 now Mom. Coming into the business. Learning as we go, honestly, just like I did with you. I need to teach him more. Get him more involved. Pull him in the way you pulled me in — gently at first and then all at once when life made the decision for us. He's a good kid. A really good kid. And he has been such a steady big brother to Erica through all the hard times. And Mom, there have been so many hard times without you here. More than I know how to say in one letter.

And Mom. I need to tell you about Erica.

When she arrived, the adults became chopped liver. All of us. Just quietly accepted it because how could you not, once you saw her. She was your first granddaughter and you loved her with everything you had and she absorbed every bit of it.

She was nine when we lost you. Nine years old. And somehow she has your hands, Mom. The ones that reach out before you even ask. She puts her arm out at a curb without looking up. She already has my cane before I reach for it. She carries things without making it a thing. Just appears, steady, ready, one step ahead.

I don't always want the help. You know how that feels. But she's going to do it anyway because that's what she learned from you without either of you knowing that's what was happening.

I know what it feels like to be on the other side of that kind of love. I did it for you. In 2016 when I moved close to the hospital so I wouldn't miss the call. In 2017 and 2018 when I ran everything behind your back so you could just live, so you could just enjoy whatever time you had without worrying about the business. You didn't always want the help. I know that. But I was going to be one step ahead of you anyway because that's what you do when you love someone.

Erica learned it from the best.

I need to tell you one more thing and I want you to hear it from me directly.

People say I'm running it into the ground. That it's not what it was when you were here. That I've changed things, broken things, let things fall that you would have caught.

Here's what I know, Mom.

You built the foundation so solid that even after everything — and there has been a lot of everything — it's still standing. I nearly died in 2024. Did you know that? Aortic blood clot. Life flight. A recovery that took months and left permanent marks. And the business was still here when I came back. Because of what you built. Because of the foundation.

I'm not running it into the ground. I'm building the second floor. And every surrogate who gets a McDonald's gift card in her transfer bag and doesn't know your name is still, somehow, being taken care of by you.

You built the foundation. And the secret sauce, Mom — that was always yours too. You just passed me the bottle. And Erica is standing at the bottom of every curb with her hand out making sure we both keep going.

And I'll tell you something else I've been sitting with.

I'm 43, Mom. I feel like I know nothing. Like I'm starting from scratch every single morning. And then I remember: you were 43 when the company incorporated. You were figuring it out at exactly the same age I am now.

How did you know what to do? How did you know which way to turn when everything felt impossible?

I think about that a lot. And then I think: if you were here, I probably wouldn't be going through this in the first place. You would have seen it coming. You always saw things coming. You trusted the right people and you knew in your gut before anyone else did when something was wrong.

I haven't always had that. I've trusted people I shouldn't have. Been burned in ways I'm still not ready to write about publicly. People who took what I shared in confidence and used it as ammunition. People who stood close enough to look like family and then chose a different side when it would have cost them nothing to choose mine.

I'm still learning why I do that. Still learning when to hold the door open and when to let it close. Still learning that not everyone who says they love you actually means it the way you meant it.

You meant it the way Erica means it. Quietly. With your arm already out before I asked.

I don't know when I'll learn to only let those ones in.

But I'm working on it Mom. I promise I'm working on it.

And while I'm being honest with you Mom, I want to say something to the people reading this too.

The Google reviews. The Facebook groups. The threads. I see them. I read every single one. And some of them are from real people with real frustrations that I am actively working through. I own that. These last two years were hard and some people got caught in circumstances I couldn't always control.

But some of what is being said about me is downright disgusting. Things that are not only untrue but deliberately cruel. And the people saying them aren't signing their names. They're hiding behind anonymous posts and forum handles while I am right here. Ten toes down. Full name. Full face. Not hiding behind a single filter.

If you have something to say about me, say it TO me. I will always be honest. I will never give false hope. I will give you the hard answer before I give you a comfortable lie every single time. That's what you taught me and it has never changed.

My door has never closed. It never will. 💜