When Stephen Mohan’s son Jasper lost his battle with cancer in 2013, he struggled to find a reason to continue living.
“Grief is a powerful beast,” said Mohan. “I came to several times where I just wanted to end it all.”
The inspiration to write about his family’s journey ultimately helped and became a memoir, Onwards We Go.
Many residents in the community know the Mohan family, who lived in town for eight years, and walked alongside them in their fight to defeat Jasper’s disease, helping any way they could.
“The whole town of Powell River as a community played such a huge role in our journey; they really supported us,” said Mohan,
In the aftermath of losing Jasper, Mohan and his wife Barbra moved to Duncan.
“We needed a fresh start,” he said. “Sometimes it was great seeing traces of Jasper everywhere and other times it was really hard.”
The move has been a good one, however, when they first arrived Mohan fell apart again emotionally, he said. But after being directed to Cowichan Hospice Society, a book recommendation he received there provided inspiration, he added.
“I was reading about a lady who had lost her entire family to the tsunami in 2004,” said Mohan. “Her memoir really goes into how badly she went off the rails. I was reading this and thought, ‘I should write.’”
Mohan started the process and within two weeks had written 60,000 words.
“It ended up being more of an autobiography,” he said.
Mohan had led an eventful, adventurous life, and is also a childhood cancer survivor; he lost his left eye to the disease when he was two years old.
Onwards We Go touches upon the complicated feelings of guilt Mohan wrestled with: that he passed the gene on to his son, and the struggle to continue after his son was gone.
“I kept coming back to Jasper. He wouldn’t want me to give up, and it’s not fair to all the families and kids we saw in treatment,” said Mohan. “They are fighting so hard to live and I was just going to pull the plug when I myself was a childhood cancer survivor? So there was definitely a battle there.”
After completing the book, Mohan was encouraged that if he self-published more of the proceeds would be available for the groups he wanted to donate to: Ronald McDonald House BC, Canuck Place and BC Children’s Hospital. Those groups played a significant role in the family’s journey, he said.
Publishing was a daunting project and involved a lot of online study, but he quickly achieved his goal, he added. It took him 11 months from writing the first words of the book to holding the finished copy in his hands.
After publishing, Mohan said he worried about the reception the book would receive.
“Are people going to tell me it’s good just because they’re my friends?” he said.
According to Mohan, he no longer feels that way. As word spreads, positive feedback grows.
Many comments on the book’s website and social media pages report of readers finishing the book in one sitting, and that it is an incredible story with an important message.
Another phenomenon is connections the memoir is creating. As the book becomes known, people from around the world have been reaching out.
Colleen Simon, a woman in South Dakota who experienced pediatric cancer and has a daughter now fighting the disease, found uncanny similarities between her and Mohan’s story.
“You are like kin to me,” said Simon on one of Mohan’s social media pages. “I want to especially thank you for sharing your heart with all of us.”
According to Mohan, a man in Spain with a similar story also made contact to thank him for writing the book. Mohan said he believes his memoir can be helpful to anyone who is struggling, not just people who have been on a cancer journey, but others who have suffered from grief or a struggle to keep going.
“For a lot of folks, just knowing you’re not alone, that’s a big thing,” he added.
Mohan will read from Onwards We Go at 7 pm on Friday, February 16, at Powell River Public Library.
“We’re welcoming him back as a local author; I expect it’s going to be a packed audience,” said Powell River Public Library adult services coordinator Mark Merlino. "Their story of survival and loss was taking place here in Powell River, too. It’s going to give an opportunity to his friends and others to come out and hear him share the family story. Hopefully it will be inspiring for others who are dealing with similar issues."
For more information, go to onwardswego.ca.
