Yolaine's Memorial Service, by Elaine Scarboro

NOTES FOR YOLAINE’S MEMORIAL SERVICE

I am very pleased to share with you today my personal memories of Yolaine. I met her at a dragon boat practice and my first impression was that she was a calm and private person, but more importantly, determined and competitive.

She suddenly resented being in the back rows of the boat as she had just found out that’s where the inexperienced paddlers sit and wanted to know what she had to do to move up! I knew right away by her accent that she was a francophone, we hit it off immediately, I guess opposites do attract in this case too, she was far more serious and quiet and I’ve always been a Carol Burnett want a be comedienne. She always laughed at my antics, said it made her feel good which always pleased me.

Her calm and faith always impressed me, despite her diagnosis of metastatic cancer in 2005, she continued to be positive, strong and often told how her father was her guardian angel and watched over her from heaven. He gave her strength to fight. Yolaine loved angels, there is even a special room with a lovely fireplace with angels everywhere in their renovated home, barely completed, where she used to go to meditate and regain her inner strength. Every time I see an angel I think of Yolaine.

As someone else so eloquently put it Yolaine spoke her life, not through words, but by action. In 2006 she just decided one day to train on her own and do a half marathon, for those who don’t know that’s 21 kms and she was very proud to have achieved this goal. Very few people knew. She had the same devotion for dragon boating; even the last few years when she was not feeling her best, she would go to practices and smile radiantly, with the pleasure of being in the boat. That’s passion for life, that’s determination.

Last year at the Ottawa dragon boat festival, she was the Busting out Team’s honoured speaker at the flower ceremony. She came with her children to whom she was such a devoted and ever present Mom and spoke very movingly of her hope that her two daughters may live in a world without breast cancer. In the fall of 2007, between treatments, she found the strength to encourage my fundraising efforts for Breast Cancer Action by coming to my Halloween Costumed dance. I saw an angel from the corner of my eye and new instantly it was her, it brought tears to my eyes to know she was there. Kevin could not keep up with her requests for dancing so she danced with the wild Busting Out gang. She had a wonderful time!

In 2008 we had several lunches and time together. I seemed to always have the nack to call just when she got some bad news, or that her morale was low. I think her father conspired with God on that one! Miraculously, I always managed to make her laugh, and I truly feel blessed to know that I could comfort someone with so much courage and perseverance with my comedy.

One of the fondest memories those of us who attended the 2005 Breast Cancer Survivor festival in Vancouver have of Yolaine and the thousands of women there, is the life filled eyes and smiles, the sea of pink boas and a force united in survivorship. Her smile on that photo says it all, she was dancing, she was happy and that’s how she would like to be remembered.

Elaine Scarboro