I loved Aunty Kathy. She was my mother’s older sister, so she was like a second mother to me while growing up, and then even after I became an adult. During holidays in Ponoka, summer visits to Gull Lake as a kid, I would run to her just as quickly as I’d run to my own mom. Normally I was bound at the hip to Scott, and so she treated me (and probably all her nieces and nephews) like one of her kids. Like all the Byers siblings, she was warm, easy-going, exceedingly generous, and just always so very kind.
I’m very sad to living overseas and not able to join my family at the Remembrance of Life ceremony today or the burial tomorrow. So I’m going to list a few of my best memories of this wonderful woman here.
My earliest favourite memory is hovering around the red kitchen table in Ponoka where our beloved Gram, my mom (Bette), Aunty Kathy, and other aunts and sometimes uncles hovered through the day, cooking, eating, drinking Gram’s thick coffee, and catching up on news. Scott and I would sneak under the table, trying to eavesdrop, and thinking they didn’t know we were there. Older cousins and siblings would enter with different needs (usually food). I have no recollection of a sharp word ever directed at any of the Byers grandchildren, from Kathy or anyone else. Only love.
My second treasured memory is from a similar kitchen table, but this one at Aunty Kathy and Uncle Roy’s cabin at Gull Lake, where we gathered in later years. There was a wall facing the table where Aunty Kathy had an art display: colouring book portraits of her cherished grandchildren, (coloured by Emily, if I remember properly?) taped to the wall. She loved that wall, and adored her grandchildren who she’d describe to me, one by one. Our mom and Kathy would meet at Gull Lake in their later years, read novels and relax together. Cleaning out our parents’ house recently, we found a baggie of keys with Aunty Kathy’s handwriting on it, saying ‘Kathy’s lake keys’. Sharing her peaceful cabin with sister was just so very Kathy. Almost always, Uncle Mac and Aunty Marie would make a point of joining the sisters at Gull Lake. During one of the times when I was there, Aunty Kathy and I dashed out alone to Bentley to replenish the bottled water. She was 80, and fiercely determined to load the 20L water bottles into the shopping cart herself. She would not let me help with the weight. Her argument was that ‘so that she knew she could do it alone’. She managed it without a problem. That was a wonderful afternoon.
My third memory was the last time I saw Aunty Kathy with her siblings. This was on a trip she made out to Edmonton with ‘little Kathy’ on the summer of 2019, for my parents’ 60th anniversary. By then, this had become a long journey for Aunty Kathy, but she was a forever loyal sister. Aunty Kathy’s memory was slipping by then, but her love for all her family was still as strong as ever. I've attached two photos from that day on this site: one of the two sisters (her with a protective arm), and another with Uncle Mac, Aunty Marie, Uncle Dick, Aunty Eleanor, and my dad, Al. So many years of being a family.
Heartfelt condolences to our Staniland cousins and to all the grandchildren who all took such good care of their mother/grandmother. We all loved Aunty Kathy very much, and we always will. We were all so very blessed to have her as an aunt. May she rest in peace, forever. And may we all carry a bit of her strength, kindness, generosity, and wisdom with us though life.
Nancy Wachowich,
Aberdeen, Scotland, 09 September, 2021
