Another Lost To Cancer: A Tribute To My Life Coach

She was there for me from the beginning of this chronic illness journey. She is the reason I am a Spoonie Pageant Queen. She helped shape the person I am today, a better version of the person I once was. Her name was Shannon. By title, she was my Life Coach. In truth, she was so much more than that to me.

In 2014, when my health crashed and I became severely debilitated by chronic disease, I was faced with what many of you are getting a taste of right now. Overnight my life changed. I was predominantly housebound. I was very sick and suffering greatly. I lost my job, my apartment, my independence, my mobility, my sense of worth, and so much more.

Only for me, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Health care professionals told me there was no cure, no end to this; this would be my life forever. Whether I believed their words is irrelevant because at the time, it really felt like any life that was worth living had been taken from me. Overwhelmed and lost, I went to a very dark place.

Shannon was the one who threw me a lifeline. She understood pain and illness and so we began working together. She was the faceless voice on the other end of the phone line that I poured out everything that I couldn’t share with anyone else in my life. As she coached me, transformational internal shifts began to occur. I started healing different aspects of my life.

We never video conferenced; it was at least one year before I even saw a picture of her. It wasn’t until the finale of the Miss BC Pageant that I met her for the very first time. She believed in me so much that she went beyond what any Life Coach does and financially sponsored my participation in the pageant, taking on extra costs like separate accommodations from the rest of the contestants in order to support the special requirements of my spoonie body. And then she flew in from Calgary so she could be there for the finale.

I will be forever grateful for that 24 hour period. I’m so thankful I got to hug her. Talk to her face to face. Have her meet my family. Thank her for her incredible support. Have her be there to see that crown placed on my head and get to embrace her while I cried from shock.

My heart is broken. It’s painful writing these words. They are words that I wish I never had to write because they mean that she is gone.

They mean that I’ll never hear her voice on the phone again. They mean that the last coaching call we had on February 10th was the last one I’d ever have with her - I just didn’t know it at the time.

She is yet another phenomenal human that cancer has taken away. Another person that I loved deeply who I’ve lost to this treacherous disease. It just doesn’t seem right. She is the kind of person this world needs. Relentlessly strong, deeply compassionate, and utterly selfless.

She was so invested in empowering others to see their worth and potential. She empowered others with the goal of having them be able to empower themselves. Her insight and wisdom never failed to amaze me. She always seemed to know exactly the right words to say or the right words that I could try saying in my own life within my own relationships that needed healing.

I wish she were still here. She had so much left to give, so much in life that she still wanted to do and she was one of those people who would have actually gone for it and done it.

I’m devastated that I’ve lost my coach, my mentor, my confidant, and in some ways, my friend. The one solace I have is that at the end of our last phone call, after I’d shared everything that I had been struggling with and everything I was doing in response, she told me that she had nothing to add because I was already doing everything to look after myself that could possibly be done. I’d taken all my learnings over the past six years and put them into action. Her job was done in that regard.

The motto of her coaching business, Live & Learn Seminars, was “Be alive in your life”. Thinking about moving on without her is painful but I know that the best way that any of us who knew her can honour her life is to live our own according to how she lived hers: living and learning, being present, not taking the precious little time we have here for granted, and using our lives to pour light back into this world.

You’ll be in my heart, Shannon, forever and always. Thank you. I love you. ❤️

Shannon L. Hiebert February 3, 1978 - April 3, 2020