A Mother’s Day Tribute
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Mother’s Day
May has always been a special month for the Boyd family.
Not only does Mother’s Day fall in May, but so did Janet ‘Jessie’ Boyd’s birthday. To celebrate, the Boyd family had an annual tradition.
“We had this double celebration where the immediate family would go out to Hastings Park and rent the high-class tables,” says her son, Derek Boyd. “We would tidy up once a year to do something special for her.”
Jessie would look forward to the family event for months.
“She felt sorry for grey horses, so she would bet on any that had grey on them, even if they had bad odds,” recalls Derek. “If we lost $400 we didn’t care, we had fun.”
But this year the Boyds won’t be visiting the races. Jessie Boyd passed away in March after battling a lengthy illness.
“It wouldn’t be the same without her.”
Jessie Boyd was born in Scotland, and immigrated to Canada in 1967 with her husband and young son. The family chose Maple Ridge as their home, and the town would be where Jessie would spend the rest of her life.
“She had been here for so long, I always said that she could run for Alderman just from the Bingo votes alone,” says Derek.
Jessie was a housekeeper at Riverview Hospital and a janitor for the school board before a heart attack forced her into early retirement 15 years ago.
“While we were cleaning out her house last month, there were all these hand-drawn posters that had been done by children that read ‘To Jessie, greatest janitor in the world…’ They must have loved her.”
In 1999, her son began to integrate Jessie into his sports radio program.
“It began with broadcasting the voicemails that she would leave me. We used to have this thing called ‘The Top Five Calls of Mama Boyd,’” says Derek. “Then she began to get recognized on the street from her Scottish accent.“
Soon ‘Mama Boyd’ was calling in as a regular personality on the program, and would debate athletes that her son was interviewing.
“There was this one time that Grant Connell, Canadian Wimbledon Doubles Champion, was on the phone, and so was my mum. She asked him why women tennis players get paid the same as men when they only have to play the best of three sets as opposed to the men’s five, and Grant was stumped. My mum loved Grant Connell, but she wouldn’t back down. She was a stubborn Taurus.”
Jessie was an avid sports enthusiast, and a dedicated Canucks fan.
“While on the radio, she had no problem asking the questions that made us cringe,” says Derek. “Once, she even asked Mark Messier why he was given the Canucks captain over Trevor Linden, and if Trevor was mad about it or not.”
Jessie was a caring and friendly woman that would never refuse a chance at conversation with anyone, but would also never pass up an opportunity to make someone laugh.
“She had the gift of putting smiles on faces. I inherited my sense of humour from her,” says her son, who bases much of his livelihood on comedic routine. “That’s what we did best. We were funny, and we were funny together.”
Jessie claimed that her last 15 years were the best of her life. After a divorce from her husband of 32 years, she regained her confidence and began to live with a new, independent outlook.
“She was outgoing and fantastic. We had this awesome mother-son dynamic; we’d fire comedic routines between one another constantly.”
When Derek became engaged, Jessie was thrilled.
“She was so happy that I’d found someone. She could leave peacefully knowing I was rock solid with my fiancé.”
The past two months have been hard for Derek and his family, but he is determined to recall his mother with smiles instead of tears.
“It broke my heart to write the obituary, and I was dreading the eulogy; but I ended up talking for ten minutes. I joked and smiled in remembrance of her,” says Derek. “I am who I am today because of this woman.”
