Upon returning from a trip away from her home in Halifax, Victoria Richardson, a fourth-year history student at Carleton, remembers hearing the phone ring and knowing exactly who would be on the other end.
“Are you home yet?” her grandmother, Joyce, would ask from the other end.
“My grandmother was always very aware of where everyone was and was always very involved in our lives,” Richardson said in an interview.
Richardson’s grandmother, whom she called Nanny, passed away from complications with breast cancer April 3.
Joyce was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, Richardson said. However, after two years and extensive treatment, she went into remission. It was only a couple months ago when doctors realized the cancer had returned and it had spread to her bones.
On June 4-5, Richardson will be participating in the Weekend to End Women’s Cancer benefiting the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation.
Over the two-day period, Richardson will be walking a total of 60 kilometres along with the other participants, spending a night camping in between.
Richardson signed up for the event at the end of January and since then, she has felt overwhelming support from her friends and family, she said.
“I was fortunate enough to be able to tell my grandmother I was doing this. She was all about it and she was telling all of her friends,” she said.
“We are all very proud of her for her efforts in volunteering,” said Richardson’s father, Kevin, in a phone interview from Halifax.
Richardson said her grandmother was always a strong, independent and very strong-willed woman, a trait her father said she seems to have inherited.
“Once [Victoria] decides she is going to do something, she goes ahead and does it,” her father said.
When Richardson started fundraising for the event, her goal was to raise $2,500, a goal she has now surpassed, she said.
“I checked [May 14] and it was at $3,360,” she said. “I have gone way over and it has been awesome.”
Richardson said she was able to do most of her fundraising with the help of her father and his siblings.
At Joyce’s funeral, Richardson’s father and his siblings asked for donations to be made to Richardson’s campaign in lieu of flowers.
“I was touched to be chosen for that,” Richardson said. “Everyone was so supportive and have said that they are happy to feel like they are doing something. We are all working together for a goal in memory of her.”
Even before her grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer, Richardson had been involved in raising money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation through her high school in Halifax, she said.
“I went to an all-girls school and I was head prefect, like Percy from Harry Potter,” she said, laughing.
Her school did a lot of fundraising and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation was their charity of choice, she said.
“We’re all girls, we all have boobs, you gotta take care of them,” Richardson said.
When her grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer, the cause became even more important to her and closer to her heart, she said.
This past summer, Richardson said she was fortunate enough to get a job with the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation with the Tour for the Cure, a mobile unit that traveled around to all the Atlantic provinces to spread awareness about breast cancer.
“I always want people to have more information,” she said.
On a personal note, Richardson said she is looking forward to the sense of accomplishment she will feel after participating in the walk.
“I think it will be really hard, but I know all the participants are there for a really important reason, so I definitely think that will keep all of us going,” she said.
In preparation for the walk, Richardson said she has been walking as much as she can.
“I have also been working on a really good iTunes playlist,” she added.
The weekend will also be very emotional for her, especially since the walk falls exactly two months after her grandmother passed away, she said.
“It’s going to be an awesome weekend,” Richardson said.
“My whole family will be thinking of me and we will all be thinking of my grandmother.”
