Mom

Of all the things cancer takes from a person, I think the most painful is time. 

When someone you love is sick, you realize that so much of the stuff in our lives — whether it’s possessions, or money, or our careers — none of it matters if you don’t have time.

When I saw my mom in the summer of 2023, not long before she passed, all I wanted was a few more days. 

Just a few more. Hours, even.

More mornings on the lake. More afternoons watching her with her granddaughters. More nights with her in the stands at my games. Just more time. And in a way, I felt selfish. Because we did get more time. She was originally diagnosed in 2014 with melanoma, and I had nearly seven and a half years with her after that. She saw me get married, have kids, win a Stanley Cup. I feel so lucky to have had all that happen in front of her. I do. But I still just miss my mom. It’s been two years since we lost her, and I wanted to write this story for her, but also for everyone battling cancer out there.

So if you don’t mind, I want to talk about Lana Manson for a little bit. And about all the things she taught me.

I gotta embarrass you a bit here, Mom, I’m sorry.

Or maybe she wouldn’t be embarrassed actually, because her karaoke was pretty good. But I can still picture her, and most importantly, hear her, belting out Shania, or Miley, or J.Lo. She’d dance around our garage and if you weren’t singing at the start of her performance, she’d make sure you were at the top of your lungs by the end of it. She was so much fun. She made everyone feel welcome, and loved. And at home. She felt like home. And she made our house a special place. We had a cabin on Christopher Lake, just north of Prince Albert, in Sask. We spent most of the year in town, and weekends and summers up at the lake. Dad played in the NHL, and when he retired he started coaching the Raiders in the WHL right after. He was pretty busy with all that, and so my mom was in charge of a lot of what me and my three siblings got up to.

There’s an eight-year gap between myself and my two youngest siblings, who are twins. And then I have another sister who is three years younger than me. So the tasks around the house were always different. From dealing with high school drama, to changing diapers, to feedings and practices — my mom’s work ethic was just second to none. My dad’s too. Both of them made a great team and, looking back, it’s incredible to me what they could get done.

When you’re a kid, right, things just sort of happen around you, you know? Things are clean and dishes are done and your clothes are back in your room and you just show up and do your thing. As a parent now, I see what it took. And I’m so grateful for my mom and who she was, because it allowed me to be a kid, to find my passion.

Christmas times in Canada were some of my fondest childhood memories. My grandparents didn’t live too far from us, and we’d go up to their place early in the morning. My grandpa would make this amazing rink for us. All my cousins played hockey, so we’d put on two or three pairs of socks, all of our hoodies, and just lose track of time. It was the best. I loved a lot of things, though, and hockey was just one of them. Snowboarding also really spoke to me. Just the freedom of it. And at one point, when I was 12, I told my mom I wanted to quit hockey to spend more time on the mountain.

I think that was tough for my dad, because he did such an amazing job helping me develop as a player, and pushing me in just the right way, and I think he had a good talk with my mom.

I remember her coming back to me and saying “You’re not quitting, Josh. Snowboarding will always be there. But give it another year. You’re not a quitter.” 

I don’t know what they saw in me exactly, or in my game. I kind of just kept barely making teams and sort of scraping by. I had no NHL dreams or anything like that. But they believed in me, in who I could become. That year, there was a new coach on my team, and I really clicked with him. I started to have fun on the ice, in a way that I didn’t really know was possible. I saw the game in a completely different light. 

I think about that time in my life pretty often, and I wonder where I’d be if it weren’t for my mom.

Somewhere along the way, her work ethic became ingrained in me. And at each level I pushed harder and harder. It got me through juniors, through college, into the draft and onto an NHL roster. But this story isn’t about me. It’s not about my journey. I want this to be about awareness. I know people might read that and sort of shrug it off. Everyone knows about cancer, man. My point is this, though: Cancer impacts nearly everyone in your life. Everyone knows someone, or has experienced it first hand. And the progress we’re making in the fight against it is real. And it’s because of the efforts of the people who work in research, who work in the hospitals — who do the work behind the scenes. But those people can’t do their jobs without funding. And it’s more important than ever that we stay supporting these causes, because more people are being impacted than ever before.

And because we all want more time with the people we love.

I have this photo from down on the ice after we won the Cup in 2022. I’m still in my Avs gear, and I’m with my family. My mom is holding my daughter, and that moment … it just means everything to me. To see the smile on my mom’s face, to have her granddaughter in her arms, that’s what she cared about the most. Family. I remember after the final whistle, and we all rushed the ice, I looked up to the crowd and saw my parents, my in-laws, my wife, my sister — and their faces will be etched in my mind forever.

To me, that moment was possible because of all the donations, all the fundraising people do for cancer research. That’s the real life outcome right there. That’s why there’s galas and 10ks and rides for the cure and all sorts of incredible initiatives. It all matters. You can buy time. We all can.

In the end, those extra years we had, they were some of the best of my life.

When she was really quite sick and getting close to the end in 2023, I remember telling her, “I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose you.”

She looked at me and said, “Don’t cry. I’ve made it this far and haven’t cried yet.”

She was really, really strong. All the way.

I tried to call her every day that year, and she would muster up the strength to talk and to speak with all my siblings and family. She made me feel safe. She was fighting for herself, but also for everyone around her. That’s just who she was. That’s my mom.

I see parts of her in me more and more every day. She’s there in the way my wife, Julie, and I raise our daughters. She’s there in how I approach my career. She’s there in how I enjoy every single day. She believed in living life to the fullest, in feeling. And I’ll always have that as a part of me, too.

Since her passing, I’ve really tried to get more involved with the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer program, and through it, I’ve met so many incredible people. Survivors, men and women still in their fights, doctors and researchers. I think — and I want this to come across how I mean it — that I have a level of empathy that I didn’t before. I can sympathize more, I can understand more. And when I don’t understand something, I want to. I don’t know what it’s like to do months of chemo, or to do dozens of rounds of radiation. But talking to people who have done it, or are in it, it’s continuing to deepen my understanding of cancer. From there, I try to do my best to use the resources that I have to help in the best way I can, which is to raise money. 

Shaking hands and being supportive and being there for people is an important part of the fight, don’t get me wrong. Cancer is deeply isolating, and nobody deserves to feel alone in their battle. The funding and the research though, those are our weapons. That’s how we beat this. And so that’s my fight.

We can’t be afraid of cancer. We can’t be afraid to talk about it, or to get screened, or to support the people we love. We just can’t. So the next time somebody you know is sick, visit them. Let them know they aren’t alone. Donate. Talk about it. Keep fighting. We’re strongest when we’re together, and heading toward the same goal.

If seeing my mom fight cancer has taught me one thing, it’s this: We are all stronger than we could ever possibly know.

Thank you for reading.

—Josh