Heather Mckeand was just a kid when her calling in life came knocking.
She became the primary caregiver in her family and never let go, a job that would eventually span four generations.
It started when she was only seven, cooking meals for her siblings and keeping order in the house while her father tended cattle on their farm, and it’s never stopped.
Now at age 76, Mckeand is still sharing her love and a lifetime of nurturing skills with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, living together in their Prince George townhouse.
She’s raising four special-needs kids under the age of 12, all the offspring of parents with drug problems, and she’s doing it on her own dime, not depending on government handouts to pay the bills.
She feeds and clothes the kids, makes sure they get their homework done and pays for their medications, their field trips and their holidays, living on her pensions and her savings from years of running a day care, money she thought would be set aside for her retirement.
“The children now that are coming to me are hurt,” said Mckeand. “The grandchildren were already impacted, but the drug addiction in my two children wasn’t as profound.
“So as the years pass that drug addiction and the mental illness that goes with it (spawned more severe developmental consequences). When they’re pregnant they don’t take care of the babies properly and when the kids are born they aren’t taken care of properly. So you get this little human that’s already impacted.
“Now I’ve got a bunch of kids with a whole plethora of issues and you can’t throw them on the government’s back.”
Mckeand and her ex-husband Julian share their house with their grandson, Jordan and his fiancée Madison, and their four great-grandchildren - 11-year-old Eva, who is autistic, nine-year-old Jaymee, eight-year-old Michael and six-year-old Terra, all born with disabilities caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol and/or drugs.
“It’s bedlam, I’m really busy,” said Heather. “We’re doing school things, we’re going horseback riding, we’ve got to do all our events and things you do in the community. My job is to raise healthy children, no matter what our start is. We’re heading for education and healthy children.”
Money is tight with so many mouths to feed and to make ends meet Heather and Julian sold her sports car, their truck, their fifth-wheel trailer, quads and motorbikes.
“We do everything cheaply because I support my own children,” she said. “I don’t get any money from anyone except for child tax and my pension, that’s how we do this. We’re careful and I have to plug them in wherever I can. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I’ve sat in my car and just cried for Heather, because I’m tired, I’m 76. But I’m healthy, I take good care of myself and I listen to music all the time. I don’t care who likes it or doesn’t like it, my music is loud.”
Born in Vancouver in 1947 at the start of the baby boom, Heather was second in a line of five kids Marge and Lou Lyster brought into the world.
“After the war, when the whole country was alive with hope and all that, that was my first breath, so I was predispositioned to be who I am by that breath,” said Heather.
When Heather was just seven, Marge chose to leave the family on the farm near Courtenay and moved to nearby Campbell River. She stayed in touch with her kids regularly but they were raised by their father.
After she left, Heather took on the responsibility of looking after four brothers and sisters. It was a scary environment for her sometimes to try to replace having their mom around, especially at mealtime, and she had to grow up in a hurry.
“When I couldn’t read something in a recipe I just left it out, so we had some mystery meals,” said Heather. “I took care of my siblings, so that’s where it really started."
She went on to have three kids of her own with her ex-husband Gordie before they split up. Heather took custody of her younger daughters, Janice and Denise, while Gordie raised their oldest, Coreen, who left to be with her dad when she was seven.
Heather worked two jobs in Courtenay to stay on top of the bills and was able to do that without having to lean on her parents for money. She worked a waitress, a cleaner, auto detailer and took on an assortment of other menial jobs just to keep their heads above water.
“I was from a very cut-and-dried family - you made your bed, you lay in it - and it was a time that if you had a problem it wasn’t your parents’ problem, not like today,” she said.
Heather moved with her two girls to Edmonton, where her brother lived, and got a job with Blue Heron Support Services Association, working with mentally challenged children and adults with developmental disabilities and brain injuries.
“I really took off on that job, I was support to them and went up the ranks with that because it was such a good fit, I’d been ministering my whole life, looking after my siblings and my kids,” she said.
Before long, she had another mouth to feed when she took custody of her first grandchild, Maggie, whose mother Coreen was unable to care for her. Rather than see her institutionalized, Heather stepped up to take her in.
“Coreen, my little hero, had a drug problem and she tried so hard to get out of it, but she kept having pregnancies,” said Heather.
Denise, Heather’s youngest daughter, idolized Coreen and went to live with her, and during that time she also developed a drug addiction which she carried into motherhood. Her kids were about to be taken into care by the ministry when Heather opened her home in Swan Hills, Alta., to her other two grandkids.
“I said to the social worker, ‘guarantee me that they will have a life where they are safe,’ and he said, “I can’t, the child welfare system is broken. I do know these children don’t stand a very good chance within the system.’
“So then I’m obligated. If you can’t do it I’d better do it because this is my family.”
Already running a day care, Heather and her second husband Julian became legal guardians to Coreen’s children Maggie, Curtis, Stephanie and Jordan, as well as Denise’s kids, Jayleen and James.
When Julian got a job with Carrier Lumber 30 years ago they moved from Alberta to Prince George. Jullian agreed to provide for the family, working at his job while Heather stayed at home to raise the kids, and it worked.
“I owe him for that, because there was a whole new string of children coming that I wasn’t aware of (at the time they moved to Prince George),” said Heather. “I would sit there and go, ‘you might have another 20 years of Heather time, once you get these little suckers raised.”
Although Julian and Heather are legally separated, they remain good friends and are still living together.
Denise got her life back on track and quit using drugs and was able to take back her two children, who lived with her until they became adults. James and his partner were into drugs and unable to look after their three kids, all under the age of three, all born with disabilities. After some more soul-searching, Heather applied through the courts to become their legal guardian and for the past six years they’ve been living with her.
Heather’s grandson Jordan, Coreen’s oldest, was born three months premature with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. He was deaf, blind in one eye and had paralysis on one side. Heather worked with him constantly as a baby, pressing his legs up into his chest until he could sit and crawl on his own. His eyesight remains impaired but he had surgery at BC Children’s Hospital to restore his hearing.
Now 26, Heather refers to Jordan as ‘my hero.” Despite his cognitive issues he races stock cars and holds down a full-time job. He’s overcome his disabilities to become a role model for his nieces and nephews in their Prince George house.
“He’s such a good kid, he does not do drugs, doesn’t drink, helps his nana all the time, he’s the male father figure to all these children and if there’s a problem in the house, he fixes it,” said Heather. “He has a fiancé. He works full-time, he owns a car he makes payments on, and since he was 17 years old he’s paid me rent and he’s never been two seconds late.”
Her oldest daughter Jay (Janice) Lang is a bestselling historical novel writer who lives in Abbotsford.
Heather is proud of the fact all her great-grandchildren, despite their disabilities, are keeping up with the classroom peers, all working at par with the other students academically in their respective grades.
“They’re beautiful children and they aren’t resentful, they don’t feel sorry for themselves,” she said. “My children are really connected to me. They’re really good kids.”
When Heather goes to Ron Brent Elementary School to pick up the kids or interact with the teachers she carries the same responsibilities as the 20- or 30-something parents she sees there, but she can’t hide her age and the unique family situation that has become her life.
“I’m no different, I’m bathing my kids getting them ready for school and those are my children now and I’m doing exactly what you’re doing, only I’m dragging an old body, that’s the only difference,” she said.
“I’m busy, but I’m grateful every single day. They’re not in the ministry’s hands, they’re not with their parents who are using drugs, they are safe today. You have made that happen, be grateful you have a healthy body and grateful that your mind is somewhat stable."
When she thinks back on her life she truly believes her future as a loving and loyal matriarch was predetermined.
“With that first breath I took, I got all the good stuff and that’s how come I’m here at this end. You have to have gratitude for what you are given, otherwise why are you here?”
