Liisa Weedon Memorial

My mother Liisa had many passions: reading voraciously, auto racing and her commitment to BARC and all things car. She was a keen gardener, a great baker and an an unparalleled adherent of the dark art of successfully making Yorkshire puddings. She was born in Finland and grew up in Turku, mainly with her father, after the untimely death of her mother when she was only 7. At 17 Liisa was orphaned, and lost her beloved father Toivo who worked as an electrician, and a security guard, after serving in various winter wars. Most notably, he played accordion in many bands and learned to play my mom's beloved Beatles. She moved to swinging London in the 60's where, as an adorable Mod, she met my Rocker Dad Paul. They arrived in Canada in 1970. After living in Woodbridge for a time, they bought land in Coe Hill where they embarked on an ambitious life of being back to the landers. In the mid 80s my mother moved to Toronto. She worked at one of Canada's early tech companies Gandalf Industries. She attended night school and obtained her BA at U of T. She worked at the Ministry of Health as a spokesperson, and those who know her will chuckle to know she received an award for unusual Common Sense. Not quite sure how the Ministry of Health survived a dose of THAT.

My mom was one of the cleverest people I knew, canny, handy, able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, unbeatable at Scrabble. She coaxed vegetables out of the rocky soil in Coe Hill. She managed stupid chickens and a stupider cow on our subsistence farm. She tried for years to break the stranglehold of Country Fair Prizes with her breads, desserts and pillowcases. Her Chelsea buns remain the gold standard in my mind. She once got herself a job by baking some eclairs. She drove stick. She had zero interest in things like plucking eyebrows. She likely read every word ever published by Tolkien, however obscure. She designed and oversaw the construction of her own off the grid solar home in Tweed. The years she lived there, and the times she was at the Track were the happiest in her life. My favourite photos are of her in her garden with her only grandchild, my daughter Ginger.

Liisa was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos, a genetic condition my brother and I share. It has shaped our lives in many, many ways, though I believe Lily, as everyone knew her, found ways to live well and large very much despite EDS. I credit her with teaching me a lot of crisis management through the many health interactions we had to endure as a family.

What my mother lived for more than anything was my brother. Her dedication and unconditional love for him has endured through the years, and peaked with his tragic early major Stroke which has been attributed to the EDS. With no exaggeration whatsoever, my mom poured everything she had left over after fighting three rounds of cancer into my brother and trying to help him.

While everyone who knows Lily will have an empty space where her piquant and puckish and utterly unique personality was, Oliver will feel her absence and her devoted care most keenly. I believe knowing that he had a little bit more security in an insecure world would make my mother happier than anything. The legacy I would like to leave in her memory is to try to extend as much help to Oliver as I can. A small portion of this GoFundMe will go to closing out my mother's estate but the majority will go to a monthly stipend for Oliver who lives on impossibly small means. Most of this will go to absolute basics like food. I hope we can also arrange for continuing in home physio.

And if you feel like you are missing Lily, light a candle at a Solstice, play some Smetana, or Cream, or Sibelius. She loved fire. I hope she's setting some and sitting by some in the afterlife. Love you, mummy.

Please feel free to leave comments here about your memories of Lily, which I will share at her Celebration as well.

We will send her off on her birthday, June 23, near where she lived. And there will be an online Celebration of her life Jan 20. I will send updates and links to all who would like to attend.