Pamela Lawson was a bona fide heroine and had the Canadian Medal of Bravery to prove it. Not that she bragged about it. But On Oct. 14, 1986, as a young single mother, she undertook a high-risk rescue of her son's playmate, who was adrift off the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Lawson was known to bring courage, strength and determination to the rest of her life -- both personal and professional. She achieved her goals even while fighting inflammatory breast cancer for six years. Although she died at age 50 on Aug. 25, she lived as full a life as a woman twice her age -- from running a farm near Duncan while raising three sons (and a youth who needed a temporary home) to earning university and teaching degrees while working to support them. Along her journey, she earned licences as a private pilot and trapper, got certified as a blaster, opened her home to a foster child for several years, read voraciously and worked out math problems for fun.
Her diagnosis with cancer in 2003 didn't stop her from building on her career as a legal assistant -- studying for two years while undergoing frequent chemotherapy -- to earn a designation as a notary public last May and inspiring the rest of the class to request she be valedictorian.
Nothing could hold Lawson back from what she wanted -- or needed -- to do.
When her son James was six, he and two other boys were playing with a rubber raft they had found at Sandspit, on the Queen Charlotte Islands. James couldn't swim but a heavy wind was sending the other boys out to sea. He raced home to fetch his mother, who never needed her lifeguard training more than at that moment.
One boy managed to jump off close enough to reach shore but Lawson, accompanied by the family dog, Ella, waded 230 metres into the bone-chilling water, and swam another 30 metres until she reached the other boy. She was able to catch the rope of the dingy, and struggle against bitter cold, wind and waves to bring the boy back to shore, holding Ella's tail for support as both swam for shore.
"By the time they were near enough for Mrs. Lawson to touch bottom, the dog was exhausted," notes the citation for the Medal of Bravery awarded by Gov.-Gen Jeanne Sauvé. "At this point she lifted the dog into the boat, then towed the dinghy and its cargo safely to shore." At times, she had to put the rope in her own teeth to keep afloat, says partner Lindsay Mandryk of Saanichton.
"She was definitely gutsy," says James, the eldest of her three sons.
Lawson grew up as a tomboy with two older brothers in South Burnaby and Prince George, moving to Victoria in junior high. She fit in wherever she went, says mother Ellen Hempsall.
"She looked completely feminine but was anything but," her mother recalls.
While attending Oak Bay High, she got shop teacher Peter Adlem to stay after class to teach her how to weld -- an uncommon request from girls in that era. She loved cars, was handy with a wrench and enjoyed being a teenage drag-racer on deserted country roads.
"She babied her white 1965 Sunbeam Tiger till the end of her life," Mandryk says, adding that she loved to exercise the couple's Ferrari, too.
Motorcycles helped seal the deal with Mandryk seven years ago, when she moved to Saanichton to be with him. On their first date, he mentioned he had a Harley and there was no way she wasn't taking a ride.
She had so much to live for, including being Nanna to Mylyn, the daughter of his son, Nicholas.
Although she wanted to be a lawyer, she had to turn down acceptances to faraway law schools due to family circumstances, says former employer Parker MacCarthy, who received many compliments over the years about her professionalism.
Despite being a perfectionist, she was easy to work with and treated clients with compassion, says friend Lynn Fallan at Henley & Walden law firm in Sidney. Lawson worked almost full-time despite her cancer, with her trademark "full bodied laugh" making everyone else laugh along. She cried with happiness when she learned that the Victoria Legal Secretaries Association had established a scholarship in her name, Fallan says.
An "incredibly honourable person," she turned down an inheritance from a long-ago boyfriend who died in his 20s, who had listed her as his beneficiary, Fallan adds. She insisted the money be distributed among his nieces and nephews, even though she could really have used it.
Stepdaughter Jodi Pedro met her at age 19 and soon bonded. "She was the mom I needed in my life," she says. "Anything I was going through, she understood."
She recalls the kind of strength Lawson summoned to kickstart a reluctant motorbike during a breast cancer ride, declining to ask anyone's help. "She looked so powerful. I remember thinking 'that is someone I want to be,' " Pedro says.
It was his daughter's grit that father Harry Stevens admired most. "It's too bad we lost her. She had so much more to give."
kdedyna@tc.canwest.com
Pamela A. Stevens was born Jan. 16, 1959, in New Westminster and died at home in Saanichton on Aug. 25, 2009.
Island Lives is a weekly series celebrating the lives of Island people who have died recently. The series focuses not on the famous, but on our neighbours who have led interesting lives or made a difference in their communities. If you know of someone whose life should be celebrated, let us know by e-mail at features@tc.canwest.com or by mail at 2621 Douglas St., Victoria, B.C., V8T 4M2.
