Forty Stories Blog

I am woman phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.
-Maya Angelou

Every woman has a story. This blog series is focused on amazing women over the age of 40.
It celebrates the strength, wisdom and determination that comes from living and experiencing life, sharing those stories
and giving a voice to those who are often such a formidable force in the world but who often go unnoticed.

Cat Myth, “Almost 60” 150 150 Shoshana
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Cat Myth, “Almost 60”



If you live in Montreal’s NDG district, you might have encountered or heard about Cat Myth, who devotes much of her time to support local businesses, women and the people affected by an issue near and dear to her heart, the war in Ukraine.

Cat and I met on a hot, muggy day this summer at a small Sherbrooke Street park where we chatted and watched the many characters who work and live nearby. We had a great time, admiring the many dogs as their owners walked them in the park and we discussed things like her career in photography which she has enjoyed doing for nearly 15 years.

Cat was born in France to Ukrainian parents. She and her family moved back to Montreal when she was an infant, and aside from the time when she lived in South Africa and Botswana for a couple of years as a child, she’s lived here ever since. That early experience helped develop her love for travel. Unfortunately since Covid came she has stayed put, erring on the side of caution. Cat hopes to travel at least within Canada for now.

Getting married as a young woman, Cat worked as a legal secretary to help support her young family. As she got older she felt she needed to go in another direction as it wasn’t something that she felt passionate about. It it was only a practical job that paid her bills. As her kids were getting older, she no longer felt she lacked any other options so she took the leap to return to school to study photography, at Marsan College. As photography had been her passion since she was a teen, when she would capture photos of people and in nature with the Nikon point and shoot camera her father bought her, it was the logical choice. She began to assist capturing events for Studio 55, eventually working as the main photographer and allowing her to transition away from her job as a legal secretary.

Making that change in her life greatly contributed to Cat’s sense of peace and well-being. As well as photography that she loved, she also had a passion for playing the flute which she learned to play while in the high school band. Playing the flute gave her a lot of enjoyment as well as a sense of peace. It helped her get lost in the moment when life was sometimes difficult due to her parents’ divorce, lack of support and other stresses.

Nowadays, Cat only photographs what she wants to, often putting her energy and skills to raise money for causes close to her heart. With various projects and events, she as raised hundreds of dollars to support organizations like United24, an initiative of Ukrainian president, Zelinsky. If you want to support her in raising funds, check out her upcoming event, The Power to Popup. A very worthy cause near and dear to her very big heart.

Carol Aronson, 70 150 150 Shoshana
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Carol Aronson, 70

I met Carol last summer in her beautiful home that she shared with her husband and very sweet dog, Maggie. Since we last spoke, they have sold their home and have decided to move to Ottawa where her daughter and stepdaughter and 8 year old grandson live. They will of course have to adjust to their new lives there,settling in, meeting people, and finding activities they can enjoy but she is up to the task.

Life has been full of changes and challenges which is what we talked about during our chat. Much has been overcome in her recent past, including a surgery and subsequent physiotherapy, and then losing her beloved mother and having her daughter move away to Ottawa. Of course with that much life upheaval, it’s not always been easy but Carol has been working on creating a space where she could feel happier.
After years spent working first as a secretary at Cadbury and CJAD and then in advertising sales at the CHOM/CKGM radio station, she has had to adjust to life as a retired woman and the new life she has created.

One of the important life lessons that Carol has learned in recent years has been in learning to let go.This has been learned as she has worked on decluttering her home and donating things. This has made her feel lighter and more encouraged and motivated as she has cleaned out her space. It allowed her to work on her goals, one of which is aging gracefully and feeling well,, both in mind and in body. Something she should all aspire to do.

Rawda Harb, 42 150 150 Shoshana
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Rawda Harb, 42

I first met Rawda last year when I started doing my Forty Stories blog. After I took a break for the last year I am revisiting her story as the stories of women age 40 and beyond are important to tell and I wanted to continue telling hearing them and recounting them.
What I’ve learned from talking to so many women is how many different perspectives and how unique everyone is. We all have a story to tell and here is Rawda’s.

Rawda was born in Lebanon but due to wanting a better life, her family moved to Dubai. She eventually came to Montreal on her own as a young woman and continued her education at Mcgill where she studied science. Years later, Rawda is a single mom raising 2 kids and completing her PHD, focusing on “Post Traumatic Growth”.

She is passionate in her job as an adult education teacher and loves to reach her students in any way she can, through art, teaching outside while sharing food and tea with them and other creative ways. She tries to give her students as much support as she can because she believes that giving support helps not just now but for future generations.

In everything she does, she tries to give the support that she herself needed when she was younger but didn’t always gets. In this way she is applying her studies in Post Traumatic Growth to “see the positive in trauma”. Joining and helping out with many local organizations, Rawda works hard to help people in her community of NDG and beyond. She creates events to collect items to give to refugees and new immigrants through 514CommUNITÉ and is also serving on the board at Head and Hands and collaborating with the Bread and Beyond and Prevention NDG organizations.

A great example of “be the change you want to see in the world” and an awesome women doing great things.

Sheindl Rothman, 63 150 150 Shoshana
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Sheindl Rothman, 63

From the time she was a teenager Sheindl Rothman was very conscious of the environment and our impact on it. When people ran their cars for too long she would ask them to turn off the engine and she would rake leaves and make sure they got composted.

To this day Sheindl and her husband Jack make sure they do what they can to not create garbage and pollution. They are avid recyclers and do what they can to not create waste, a practice which Sheindl took on at a young age to reduce her environmental impact. She has also been a vegetarian for many years, as is her daughter.

All of this supports Sheindl’s main modus operandi, to be kind and to spread happiness. She loves to do things for others and regularly helps those in need. She loves to bake for them and be of service in any way she can.

Now retired from her lifelong profession of social work, she has continued working in the service of others. Since retiring 8 years ago, sheindl has continued keeping busy and has started her own professional organizing company Positive Spaces/ Espaces positifs(https://www.positivespacesmtl.com) where she helps people get control of their clutter and regain their space and peace of mind. This was definitely reflected in her own home that was full of meaningful items yet remained cozy and organized

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Erica Botner, 43 150 150 Shoshana
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Erica Botner, 43

Shortly before giving birth to her son, when she was 7 months pregnant, Erica became a single mother. Her husband, who she spent the past 11 years with, had met someone and started a new relationship. Taking control of the situation, Erica divorced him and set up her life with just her and her son.

For years before her marriage she had developed a lot more confidence in herself, especially since leaving home to go to University. She traveled, worked and was enjoying life but when her marriage ended it was a time where she lost some of that confidence. The breakup of her marriage of course created a feeling of rejection and abandonment and it was difficult for the first few years but she made a stable and loving home for her and her son and began to work on herself.

As a child, Erica realized that she had always strived to be agreeable. Craving the acceptance of her family and her peers, she tried to never rock the boat, never wanting to anyone to be upset or mad at her. As people always considered that a positive trait in her, because it made her a nice, likeable person, she continued that tendency into adulthood. Now understanding that a lot of this behavior has been the result of intergenerational trauma, she has done a lot of learning and healing. She can now express herself in her relationships and in her professional life while still being a kind person. She has learned when agreeableness is a good thing and when it’s not.

Becoming a mother has empowered her to work on her sense of self love, acceptance and trust by being willing to change her environment if she hasn’t been happy or feeling valued.

She is now in a very satisfying job supporting organizations that serve English speaking seniors in Quebec. She also runs her own company (https://www.recreotherapy.com) where she helps seniors and others find meaningful activities to make their lives better.
“Recreotherapy is about finding meaningful activities that help you find out who you are. It helps with self-discovery”. “Finding out who you are is difficult to do when you’re so disconnected from yourself and trying to please everyone else all the time”.
Cleary Erica has been able to extend her lifetime of learning to her passion in her field of work which reflects her kind and giving nature.

Jillian Barnes, 57 150 150 Shoshana
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Jillian Barnes, 57

I met Jillian at her beautiful NDG apartment on one of those rare gorgeous sunny days in March and had a wonderful conversation while her sweet little dog dozed on his cushion nearby.
Surrounded by different crystals, plants, buddha statues and trinkets from her travels, we talked about so many interesting topics the viewpoints that she’s developed in her 57 years.

Jillian was a single mom of 2 boys. When she was nearing her 50th birthday she decided that she did not want to be in Montreal when she turned 50. Being a yoga enthusiast, she felt that Bali would be great place to be for a few weeks so she stocked the fridge, packed her bags and left while her 2 teenage boys stayed behind to take care of the house and the pets. “It was a time of pulling away from them. They were growing up and pulling away.” As difficult a transition as that was, Jillian knew that it is “important to understand that they need to do that, they need to distance themselves and pull away from you”. Until the kids were 12, she always knew were they were but after that they starting having their own lives and friends, and she realized she had to say “ok, who am I?”
“I don’t think having children should be your life. We teach them to be kind individuals, to be independant and then you have to let them go, or else you’re going to be struggling”.

2 years after her trip to Bali, her sister sadly passed away at the age of 48. That and having lost her mother at the age of 52 Jillian realized that “life is short. You never know what’s going to happen” and so this motivated her to make decisions that propels her through life on her own terms.
“In a way I feel I am proud of what I’ve done. I don’t want to be living for someone else. I think at 50 I realized I have to start living for myself”.
Realizing all of this, Jillian quit her job to do various jobs that gave her more freedom and the ability to determine her own time. After a year of working more independently, Jillian left to go to Costa Rica. After returning to Montreal, she went back to work full time but realized she can choose what she wants and make her own decisions based on her happiness. “It doesn’t always have to be 9-5 with a pension. Yes, you need to feel safe but it doesn’t always mean you’re going to feel safe. You never know what’s going to happen”..

“Living life, being happy, people might not always approve or they might judge but doing scary things are what makes you grow. You need to get out of your comfort zone and do things that scare you so that you have more strength for when things happen. if you’re always staying in a bubble and staying safe and things happen I think you have less energy to go through them”. As Jillian very succinctly said, “the harder things give you more value”

“The kind of life I want for myself is working less, having time for me and traveling. Time passes and years pass and you have to act on the things you want to do”.

Words to live by.

Shari Ann fleming, 56 150 150 Shoshana
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Shari Ann fleming, 56

Shari was raising her twin boys on her own before she met her girlfriend, Darra with whom she is engaged to be married. At 56, Shari shares a beautiful home with Darra and their blended family of 4 kids, all teens and young adults, plus their adorable dog who was happy to join us for our conversation.

Shari officially came out as a lesbian in her late 20’s. She always knew she wanted to be a mother and despite not having the traditional life she envisioned, she decided to pursue motherhood another way. Happily, Shari conceived her twin sons through artificial insemination in 2004 and enjoyed a lot of support from her community of close friends and family.

Before that time period in Montreal, artificially insemination was mainly only available to married women suffering from infertility. By the time Shari decided to try, it had become more accessible. Being a single, gay woman, a few years earlier it would have been challenging to find a clinic willing to help her.
Getting pregnant did not happen easily but luckily she was able to achieve her wish of having a baby (and ended up having 2 babies!).

Amazingly, years after her boys were born, Shari discovered a website called the Sibling Donor Registry. On this website, children can be matched up to the others who were conceived from a donor. After plugging in the ID number from the file, she found many other children that had been born from the same donor and then she found the donor himself who was happy to be contacted. They were such a big group that they have started a Facebook group so they would be able to know one another.

Eventually Shari was able to meet her donor have her kids meet him. Now, at 17 years old, her boys are graduating high school and do not feel the need to be in touch with him though they always know they can. They have all the family they need in Shari and Darra and the large network of family and friends who support them.




Nafissah Rahman, 42 150 150 Shoshana
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Nafissah Rahman, 42

At 42, Nafissa Rahman is a strong woman, mother, Muslim, community worker and activist who clearly knows who she is.

Proudly sporting her hijab and her gorgeous red lipstick that she was rocking the day of our meeting, Nafissa and I chatted about many topics, including how she has involved herself in the fabric of various Montreal communities, working as an interpreter and helping those in need of support. Working with people from multiple cultures, backgrounds and languages, she is able to bring empathy and understanding to the many people she works with and helps.

Coming from Bangladesh as a young girl, Nafissa grew up amongst the Bangladeshi community in Montreal’s Little Burgundy but feels just as much a Quebecer.
She grew up speaking French and shifts from being very local, to her strong identity as a Muslim woman and a Bangladeshi. She uses that privilege and the strong sense of who she is to bring awareness to the rest of Quebec society and the many cultures that contribute to our lives here. Even though her Hijab and her skin tone make her stand out, she does not let that stop her from using her strengths in promoting diversity and inclusivity.

Nafissa ran in the last municipal Election under the new Mouvement Montreal political party and despite being new to politics and part of a new party, she gained a very respectable 1400 votes in her district of Little Burgundy.
When asked what her plans were now that she is in her 40’s, Nafissa states that her plans are “to be engaged”, stating how she loves to do various trainings and take part in everything. “you have to come to the table in order to voice what you have to voice. When you want to bring change, policy making is where you have to be.”


Melanie Guimont, 44 150 150 Shoshana
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Melanie Guimont, 44

The whole year leading up to turning 40, Melanie was reflecting of this upcoming milestone birthday and where she wanted to be in life. The following is our conversation about living her life in the way she wanted to live it as she turned 40 and since.

“The whole year I was 39, it was as if I was already 40. I went through so much internal reflection and really took the opportunity to say, ‘what have I done in my life? What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to be?’ because it’s only getting shorter and there’s only so many years left. So I spent the whole year really thinking about it decided to start going for it, not in the way you do when you’re in your 20’s and just jump into it and be impulsive but with more purpose. I’m so much more mindful of my decisions and what I’m going to do and how I’m going to spend my life.
It was all about boundaries for me, learning to build those boundaries and how to maintain those boundaries and just doing what I wanted to do.”

As she reflected on her life and the good place she was at it in she talked about realizing that she really enjoyed living on her own, on her own terms. “I love living alone, I love spending time by myself. I need it to recharge. I’ve been living alone for 10 years.”
Melanie is in a relationship with a wonderfully supportive man but they live independent lives,

“One thing I’ve realized in the last couple of years is that I wanted everything. I was always of 2 minds. My sister and friends were starting families and I wanted that too but then I didn’t. I also wanted to quit everything and travel the world. I really wanted totally opposite things and was trying to figure that out all the time. I was paralyzed by choice and because I wanted to do everything so I ended up doing nothing. I don’t regret everything though because I’ve learned so much. Would I have been the same person today if I didn’t go through that?

I’m a little more mindful today of what I don’t want and that narrows down what I do want and that makes the choices a little easier. “

On speaking about her relationship, Melanie discussed their upcoming travel plans. She of course had to do what many had to do the last 2 years since the Covid pandemic, put her travel plans on hold. “I know I want to travel so I’ve made the conscious decision to do that”.

Now that she’s able to she is going to resume living her life to the fullest. I think after all this time, we’re all ready for that.

Cherine Hamam, 55 150 150 Shoshana
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Cherine Hamam, 55

I first met Cherine on May 8th, which happened to be International Women’s Day. What a beautiful way to start this blog series dedicated to women. We opened up our conversation by talking about women. She says that “that’s something that’s always been with me, the importance or women in society”.

During our chat, we spoke a lot about her life that has been very much determined by herself. Raised by loving, supportive parents who immigrated to Canada with her at age 2, her mother instilled values of independence from a very young age. Cherine witnessed her running a successful business, and that inspired her to believe she could do that too.

Surrounded by strong women, she has learned to never feel that her life depended on anyone but her. She never felt that being part of a couple was essential to her happiness. She was able to make her own happiness. Always being open to being in a relationship and having a family but never meeting the right person, she decided to take her life in her own hands and become a mother independently. At the age of 38 she become a mother to a little boy and has happily raised him on her own into manhood.

Now that her son is growing up and not needing her as much, Cherine is able to focus on herself. As she said, “it’s no longer first and foremost about my kid, it’s about my life now”. At the age of 46, she went back to school to study Osteopathy and is now busy building her practice (http://www.facebook.com/cherineosteo) and focusing especially on helping women feel their best.

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