Tag Archives: mom

Mary Irene Hjorth Doubt

Mary died on December 28th, 2025, with her daughter holding her hand. Her last days were filled with her three children, daughter-in-law, grandchild, great grandchild (and twin great grandchildren about to be born), companion and co-conspirator in epic fun, and the beloved Chloe, German Shepherd. The qualities of kindness and imagination were with her to the end, and she is loved and remembered and still inspiring family, extended family, and friends spanning Canada, the USA, Sweden, Finland, and Australia.

Mary is also remembered by many former students from a thirty-year teaching career in Trail (Montrose Kindergarten), Nakusp, Balfour, Princeton, Nanaimo, Nelson, Sicamous, and Celista. She pioneered the whole language approach to learning reading, instituted a daily ‘health hustle’ in her classroom, nurtured a garden with her students, and her class at North Shuswap elementary won the “Kids are Authors” award with their book The Shoe Monster. Her colleagues will remember her as energetic, and direct in her views and opinions. She enjoyed performing and volunteering in little theatre, attending concerts, plays, the symphony, and the ballet whenever possible, meeting artists and visionaries and collecting art, and talking politics. She travelled widely with a very small suitcase and a large sense of adventure.

Though not untouched by worries and sorrows, Mary lived a vivid and interesting life and believed in the stars. In the beautiful words of Antoine De Saint-Exupery:

“You – you alone – will have the stars as no one else has them – …

In one of the stars, I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night…You – only you – will have stars that can laugh!”

There will be no service at Mary’s explicit request. In due course her ashes will join that of her husband, Ronald Charles Doubt, in a spot along the Pend d’Oreille River which holds much joy and wonderful memories for all of the Doubt family. All who believe in the stars are welcome.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Here is one of my earliest memories: in kindergarten one day we were playing a game that involved hopping on one foot, and I could not do it. I should explain that my mom was the kindergarten teacher and I only a four-year old, though the others were five. Anyway, my mom suggested I stay home with my dad the next day and practice hopping, which I did. I am pretty sure I learned how to hop on one leg, although I don’t actually remember that part – but I have always remembered my mom’s teaching that one can do anything with a little practice, and thus far in my life, this has proved to be true.

My mom pushed me always to do better, most of the time with a nudge, but occasionally with a fierceness that made us clash. When pushed too hard, I would simply have a temper tantrum, as the family story goes. As I grew older though, the lesson of setting my own boundaries made life very simple, most of the time. I was not caught up in the pressure of my peers at school and elsewhere, but made active choices as to my actions and behaviours at a very young age. I certainly got into trouble as a teenager, although most of this was by refusing to follow the herd. I do remember being mystified that my friends had to hide their behaviours not acceptable to their families – if I chose to do it, my family knew. Honesty was a deep-seated value in my family and deeply integrated into my psyche. There may be a few details missing, but my mom knows every mistake, every misstep, every bad choice and consequences I ever made, and she still loves me. There is a wonderful beauty in such a relationship…Maybe that is why I have always thought of my mom as my best friend, and tell her everything. It is a very different mother/daughter relationship than the one ascribed to sentiment and popular culture and the rather puerile notions of mother as madonna.

Anyway mom, I love you with the same shining light of those four-year old eyes: you will always be my best friend, even when you push me past my limits and piss me off. There may well be a few more temper tantrums: you taught me well. Still, if I got to choose, I would do it all over again, for there is a wonderful beauty in a relationship with such naked honesty. A wonderful beauty. Happy Birthday.

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