An avid dancer, backpacker, and educator, Jodi Lundgren is an emerging poet and is delighted to be a contributor to the poetry anthology Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic. The author of two hi-lo novels with Lorimer SideStreets (Gone Wild and Blow) as well as the young adult novel Leap (Second Story Press), she has also published a literary novel, Touched (Anvil Press). A former Writer-in-Residence at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, she is now a faculty member at TRU Open Learning, where she teaches literature and writing. She resides with gratitude on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.
B.A. (Hons.) – UVic; M.A. – Queen’s U.; M.A. – Concordia U.; Ph.D. – University of Washington
Jodi Lundgren 
Dear Jodi. I read your poem in the Family Caregiver’s booklet. I was the prime caregiver to mom who passed in 2021. She went into a care facility in 2010 from her house in Gordon Head. This poem has spoken to me on so very many levels. Truly depicting not only the angst we caregivers feel, but also the contentment (the mother truly believing in her own mind, that the daughter was her sister) that juxtaposes the scope of emotions. My mother was also the surviving sister of three. She too would traverse Shelbourne street on a daily basis to get groceries or also to visit one of her sisters in care, before that sister passed. The tears flowed when I took her for her driving test at age 80 and she did not pass. It was so hard to watch the life she had, starting to fade. No more driving, having to leave her house to go into (Oh I still cry that day when I watched the ambulance take her away, knowing that would be the last time she would be in her own home) care, and having her siblings and friends gradually pass away from her life. While I no longer am a caregiver per se, I value the Caregiver’s booklet for opportunities to come across something just like this – your poem. I currently am going through generations (my mom’s side was part of a Victoria pioneer family) of memorabilia and boxes of possessions from both my mother’s and father’s family. I am an only child and treasure each and every picture or article I come across, all the while lamenting, how fragile our lives on this planet are. Thank you so very much Jodi. Each time I drive by Mt. Tolmie now, I will remember your words. With gratitude. Glenda Perry.
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Dear Glenda,
Thank you so much for getting in touch. I am so moved by your response to my poem and by the experiences of your own that you have shared. It really sounds as if we and our mothers have travelled some similar pathways! You are so right about the fragility of our lives and the mixed emotions of caregiving. I wish you all the very best with your family history project–it sounds fascinating and valuable. Thanks again for reaching out with your kind words.
Warmly,
Jodi
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