Alice Waikle
On Monday, Feb. 7, 2022, my mother, Alice Waikle, passed away in the High Prairie Hospital. She was born on Nov. 14, 1937 and was 84 years old.
In the end it was a ruptured aneurysm in her belly that was the cause. Mom knew that it was there after she had emergency surgery in 2019 to repair an aneurysm on her heart that was so large the doctor asked her why she wasn’t already dead. Yeah, mom was pretty tough, alright!
Mom didn’t always have an easy life growing up, but she was an amazing mother and grandmother. I never realized until recently how hard it was for women in the sixties and seventies until when I was watching a documentary about that time. How she managed as a single mother without even her father around I will never know. Goes back to her being tough as nails.
You never had to wonder where you stood with mom, she would just tell you. It didn’t matter if you worked with her or were her son, if you deserved to get crap from her, you got crap from her!
Mom believed in giving back, and as such was active in the Faust Royal Purple and Faust Community League for decades, and at the end she was knitting prayer shawls for the Anglican Church here in town. In fact, on Monday morning when she called us, she said, “Bring my bag of wool and knitting needles so I can get another one started.” Right until the end she was giving back and working for others.
The doctors and nurses at the High Prairie Regional Health Complex were absolutely amazing and we appreciate it and my mother appreciated all that you did for her.
There has been such an outpouring of kind words and tributes for my mother, that I am quite frankly, overwhelmed by it all. I am at a loss for words on how to express my gratitude. We are going to miss mom here so much, but I know that she really is in heaven right now. Probably up to her elbows in dirt in a garden up there, or a berry patch off the side of the road. Visiting old friends who have gone before and surrounded by all the cats. Not just her cats, all of the cats, because it is said that cats can smell a sucker from a mile away. Mom loved her cats, her garden and her family very much.
I’m having a hard time believing that she isn’t going to come in and give me a hard time about the Oilers, or gloat about the Flames, or ask me if I want a pot of soup for lunch. Yeah, I want a pot of soup, mom!
Her wish was to be cremated and to have a celebration of life later on, so that’s what we are going to do. I wouldn’t want to piss her off and have her haunt me!
Although, I wouldn’t mind seeing her again!
I love you mom!
- James Waikle