Daughter honours late mom by painting pictures of hundreds of restaurants they visited together
While growing-up in her parent’s restaurant, Sharon would look forward to weekdays.
“My mom worked on the weekend,” Sharon explains. “So on weekdays, once in a while, she’d be like, “Do you have anything important (at school) this afternoon?”
If Sharon said “no,” Margaret would say “yes” to skipping school and taking her daughter to another restaurant and having lunch together.
“We used to call it research,” Sharon laughs. “But after we sold our restaurant, we couldn’t really call it that anymore!”
Although Margaret started working as a unit clerk at the local hospice, she never stopped inviting her teenage daughter for lunch.
“During those really turbulent and formative years, that’s when I really got to connect with her,” Sharon says.
Sharon and her mom made countless positive memories over the years, after eating at almost 300 restaurants together.
“It was a lot of skipping school,” Sharon laughs. “But I was an honours student, so it turned out okay!”
Later, things didn’t turn out okay for Margaret’s health. She was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer, before retuning to hospice as a patient. Sharon recalls when her mom was first admitted.
“I remember coming out of the elevator, all her old workmates clapped and cheered,” she says. “(Mom) said it felt like coming home.”
Two days later, Sharon felt like doing something she’d never done before: buying an iPad and making art.
“It was the hardest time of my life,” Sharon says. “Without (art) I think I would have gone crazy with grief.”
Sharon started painting bright pictures of all the places where she and her mom connected over the years. The detailed and whimsical images range from the restaurant she grew up in to the cafes she skipped school for to the drive-in their whole family visited as a “field trip” away from hospice.
“We ordered an entire table of food,” Sharon recalls with a smile. “By then, (mom) hadn’t had much of an appetite for food and when we got back the nurses were like, ‘She ate an oyster burger and fish and chips and ice cream?! How did you get her to eat that much?!’”
It seems Margaret’s appetite for spending time with the people she loved the most was insatiable. And now that she’s gone, Sharon’s commitment to keep painting their favourite restaurants is unstoppable.
“I wanted her to to see how all of those things mattered,” Sharon says, adding how challenging it was for her mom to create a new life in Canada after immigrating from Hong Kong.
“I wanted her to see how much I appreciated all her sacrifices.”
Now, Sharon’s personal paintings are on public display. She posted the restaurant pictures on her website and hung an exhibit of her prints at the Township coffee shop near her parents’ house.
Seeing all the images together is like a smorgasbord of possibilities to inspire other families who might feel hungry to connect.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
'One of the single most terrifying things ever': Ontario couple among passengers on sinking tour boat in Dominican Republic
A Toronto couple are speaking out about their 'extremely dangerous' experience on board a sinking tour boat in the Dominican Republic last week.
7 surveillance videos linked to extortions of South Asian home builders in Edmonton released
The Edmonton Police Service has released a number of surveillance videos related to a series of extortion cases in the city now dubbed 'Project Gaslight.'
Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by U.S. to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.
Pilot reported fire onboard plane carrying fuel, attempted to return to Fairbanks just before crash
One of the two pilots aboard an airplane carrying fuel reported there was a fire on the airplane shortly before it crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both people on board, a federal aviation official said Wednesday.
Manitoba government tables bill to end ban on homegrown recreational cannabis
Manitoba is planning to lift its ban on the home growing of recreational cannabis.
All Alberta wildfires to date in 2024 believed to be human-caused: province
There are 63 wildfires burning in Alberta's forest protection area as of Wednesday morning and seven mutual aid fires, including one in the Municipal District of Peace.