Remembering Helen (Needham) Culbert

This tribute to Helen (Needham) Culbert (wife of Ken Culbert), was written by her daughter, Mary-Lynn Culbert.

January 25^th would have been my mother’s 101^st birthday.  She passed away just two months shy of this landmark, on November 20^th, 2018.  While I grieve her loss, I am comforted knowing that she was ready to embark on her next journey.  

Helen came into a world without so many things we take for granted today.  And she lived long enough to see the world utterly transform around her in ways she could never have imagined.  Her life was filled with many challenges, love, loss, accomplishment, triumph, roads not taken, and some great adventures.  She faced it all with courage, a curious mind, and a wicked wit.  

 

She taught me to appreciate the beauty of ordinary things; to understand that everything is made better by a good meal; to know that anything can be endured if you keep a sense of humor; to realize that women are the strongest things on earth; to be good to myself.   

It’s a strange thing to realize we will all, baring accident, eventually be orphans in this world.  Yet we are never alone, because we carry forward within us the collective experience of all those ancestors who came before.  I know that my mother’s life will continue to inform and shape my own for as long as I live.  While she can no longer travel by my side, she will always be in my heart.  And I will be a stronger, better person for her presence.

Helen (Needham) Culbert and her daughter, Mary-Lynn Culbert, 2010 in Calgary. Photo by Paul Ciglen.