A former Trail teacher has found her greatest lesson in life is motherhood, and has produced three unique subjects in the process.
Stephanie Bell counts her blessings each day and tries to live in the moment with her children – Anson, 5, three-year-old Sawyer and six-month-old Elyse – knowing that this is the most precious time of her life.
“You don’ think you can love anything as much as you love your children, you really don’t,” she said. “It’s a relationship you don’t have with anyone else and what they bring to you is nothing someone else can do for you.”
While she considers how lucky she is every day, this weekend’s Mother’s Day is about stopping life’s busy schedule and appreciating her family.
“Everything that people say – ‘it goes so fast, they grow up so fast, enjoy it while you can, they’re only little once’ – you realize is true,” she said from her home in Glenmerry.
Raised in Trail by her parents Keith and Gale Smyth, Bell has long felt that family is the most important value in life.
When it came to having her own children with her husband Corey, she decided to leave her career as a teacher to raise her children and manage bookkeeping for her husband’s heating, ventilating and air conditioning company.
“You start living through your kids and become a kid again,” she laughed. “Everything is exciting to them and they view the world so differently.”
She hopes the bond she shares with her children will only grow into the friendship she has with her mother.
“Anybody who knows my mom, thinks that she is fabulous,” said Bell. “She may be only four-foot-10, this itty-bitty little thing, but her strength is amazing.”
A day after she gave birth to Elyse, the newborn had an obstruction in her bowel and the family was rushed to the B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, where Bell spent five weeks.
When her mom came to stay with her at the hospital, she felt a sense of relief and reassurance.
“Even as an adult, I need my mom,” she said.
“It’s that unconditional love and knowing that if I need something, she’s there for me.”