Jephina Lueche

There is only one video of my grandfather’s voice. One, for the entirety of time.

I grew up in my grandparents’ house in Scarborough. I came home from the hospital when I was just two days old, and I’ve lived in that same house ever since.

My grandparents raised me. My grandfather was the first male influence I had in my life. When he passed away at Scarborough General in 2014, it was the first close death I had experienced. I had a hard time at university that year.

Then, in 2020, my grandmother passed away at Birchmount. It was the height of COVID, but the hospital allowed five people to be in the room. I was there beside her. Hours before she passed away, my grandmother was on FaceTime with my son. She waved at him for seven minutes from her hospital bed.

Those are the kinds of memories you never forget.

Scarborough’s hospitals hold some of the last memories I have with my grandparents. My family has always gone there for care. Whether it was me, my son, my mom, my dad, or my sister, that’s where we went when we needed help. We really did get great care, and I’ve never taken that care close to home for granted.

When I was 23, I was pregnant and single. I had just finished university, and I had other plans for my life. Instead, I cried every night. I worked ten-hour shifts on my feet at a restaurant and prayed every day for the light at the end of the tunnel.

People had already made assumptions about what my life would look like. Young mom. Not married. Not established in her career.

But here I am. I made a way.

Eight years later, I’m still making it happen. I had a community that rallied around me, and being from Scarborough shaped so much of who I am and helped me navigate one of the most difficult times in my life.

It has shaped the work I do today, too.

After my grandmother died, I realized that the Hakka language my grandparents spoke to me would never be spoken in my home again. The recipes my grandmother passed down, the stories my family carried, the little things that make a place feel like home, I realized I needed to preserve them.

If I didn’t talk about them, write them down or capture them on video, one day they could be lost. I think about that one video of my grandfather. It’s the only one I have where I can hear his voice.

That’s why I believe our stories deserve to be told, captured, and remembered. Not just for us, but for the generations that come after us. I still live in the same house where my grandparents raised me. Now my son lives there with his grandparents, too. The cycle is repeating.

He goes to school here. He loves it here. When people ask him where he's from, he tells them Scarborough.

That's what this place means to me. It's home.

My best friends are still here. So is much of the community that rallied around me when I needed it most. When I think about Love, Scarborough, I think about loving home. Being present. Remembering where you come from and carrying that with you.

Healthcare is part of that home, too.

My grandparents needed these hospitals. My family has needed them. One day, any one of us could need them again.

And when that day comes, you want great care to be close to home.