“I don’t get to call her like everyone else does when they move out from home, and they’re like ‘I’m just gonna call my mom’.”

Laura Rodgers

We often end up in places we never expected. That’s the whirlwind of life. Unexpected turns come at us constantly, but we seldom ask, ‘How did we get here? And what influenced us?’ Our immediate answer is usually to say ‘I never expected I would be here,’ and often, that’s for good reason. 

At some point, everyone takes chances in life, and Laura Rodgers is no different, although the chance she took went almost completely off track from her current course. 

What shaped her

Unfortunately, Laura’s end goal came at a tremendous cost. A cost that would mould her during her formative years, but it also brought her to being a fantastic writer. 

Her mother passed away unexpectedly when Laura was just 14.

For any child, that would be a life-altering situation, but for Laura, it goes multiple steps further. 

She grew up in a homeschooled system, without formal grades, a traditional structure or a public system’s social network to fall back on. 

The loss brought her to a high school system that was foreign to her at the time. Her writing grades were subpar and the pain of losing her mother was still very much alive. 

“I was in that period where nothing else existed except for the fact that I lost my mom,” she said. 

Grief is complicated

Laura now realizes she had been relishing in a relationship that never truly existed.

Looking back as an adult, she says her mother’s parenting style was harsher during her childhood, focused on forming proper values, morals and behaviour. It wasn’t until her teenage years that her mother began to act friendlier and become more nurturing. 

Their final moments together marked the beginning of that transition, but without ever reaching the true end they both intended. Laura recounted a day they spent together as true friends, which was a new and promising world for her. But a few months later, her mother died suddenly, shortly after dropping her children off for their daily activities.

At first, Laura held some resentment toward her mother. She watched her older siblings experience a warmer relationship with her mother, while she and her twin sister dealt with a more authoritarian version. 

“I craved that so bad. I couldn’t wait till I got older and we could start to bond,” Rodgers said. 

As an adult, she understands why her mother took the path she did and hopes to raise her children similarly, in her mother’s memory, feeling the hole her mother left every day. 

Career-altering advice

With her mother in mind, Laura first turned to a career in healthcare as a massage therapist. This was inspired by a single memory, a single sentence her mother uttered without thought.

Laura’s mother complimented her on a massage saying she should do it for a living. 

“I went to massage therapy because I liked massaging my mom, and she said it was helpful,” Rodgers said. She took that to heart and ran with it, still feeling that closeness throughout her career. “I really can’t imagine myself doing any career where people aren’t the focus,” she said. 

However, this career path came with interpersonal complications. She didn’t like it but was torn between staying with it and venturing out. “I thought that was the way and it just wasn’t,” she said. 

Having no one else to turn to during a time when a girl needs her mother most, Laura leaned on her twin sister. “I trust her and I don’t trust anyone else more,” Rodgers said.

Once she received sound advice, she took the leap. Laura has always been a creative writer, writing poetry from the age of 10, but due to her low writing marks in high school, she thought a career with that very skill was out of reach. “I think it’s just almost a miracle now that I’m in a writing career,” she said. 

Her journalism journey

When she enrolled in the journalism program, it was always a means to an end. Her long-term goal of being a work-from-home or full-time mother took precedence, and every decision she made, every decision she turned to her sister for, was to fulfill that very dream. 

Working from home as a copywriter sounded like a viable option to have it all. But another one of life’s mysteries hit her. She ended up loving journalism and shone as one of the best in her class. 

Laura contributed to Humber’s award-winning newspaper and website, which are up for an upcoming Columbia Crown award in March and are finalists in the Ontario Community Newspapers Association’s Better Newspaper Competition. 

“[This program] is so much more work, but I just enjoy it,” Rodgers said. 

Now she’s open to whatever life has to offer and leaves room for her career and life goals to merge seamlessly with her mother always at the core.

“I want to continue to live with nothing holding me back,” she said. “I want to continue to move forward in whatever I do in whatever in life and for now, that’s journalism. I want to excel in what I’m doing. I want to live in memory of my mom because that’s the type of person she was.”

Breaking barriers

This March, we are celebrating women and their stories about resilience and ambition, just like Laura’s.

Join our International Women’s Day Celebration with the former minister of the environment and climate change, Catherine McKenna, at her keynote with IGNITE on March 13.

Together, we’re breaking barriers and breaking the mold!

Get to know other unique student stories. Check out Shivon Francis and a hobby that became a book!

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