Past

In December 2023 my husband and I sold our restaurant business. We had been working for 7 years straight with only 8 days off a year, and finally, finally all that hard work had paid off and we could retire. 

We packed our bags and headed to Ecuador, a country we had been researching for about 2 years before, and new that this was to be the place where we would start our retirement adventure.

Hitting the ground running within the first week of arrival we found our forever home and bought it, like the crazy people we are!

We moved in and proceeded to go on daily searches for just the perfect locally made furniture, lighting and decor to turn our beautiful new abode from a house to our home. 

What fun we had! For three months we walked the city, hiked the mountains and sampled all the culinary delights of our new life. It was pure heaven.

Then unexpectedly my husband had back pain. To be fair, this was nothing new, he had had that happen when we owned the restaurant. But then the pain migrated to his stomach. Concerning, but still, we were not overly nervous. We had just started exercising and doing ab workouts so we thought, well hell, he's just pulled a muscle. 

Suddenly he couldn't swallow...... not even sips of water. Wait, what, this isn't normal. 

And so began the tests, the endoscopy, blood work, a CT scan, the works. The results came back: pancreatic cancer stage 4, 4-6 weeks left to live. Our world shattered.

We returned to Canada so my husband could be with family and friends, and there, with all of us, my son, my daughter and my kind son-in-law, we sat by his side as he fought this horrific deadly disease. 

It all happened so devastatingly fast and yet at the same time so agonizingly slow, and on July 28th 2024, my husband passed away at 3am in the morning.

He was gone.

About a week later, pulled out of my chocolate bar laced grief, my neighbour. a massage therapist said, "Hey come on over, I'm going to give you a session. You need a little love."  

And so I went.  I put my face in the hole and for a solid 90 minutes I cried and sobbed and dripped snot onto the floor as she massaged my pain away and made me feel human again. 

But it was what she said at the end of my session that really hit home. She said, "Alison don't you see. You have been given a gift. The universe has set you up. You have a home in a beautiful country. You are financially sound and retired. you have all the time in the world now to do what you love to do,  to paint. don't you see you get to LIVE. So go do it! "

And that's what I've done. I am back in Ecuador painting my heart out creating work inspired by grief, loss, guilt, shame, forgiveness, letting go, and most importantly believing in myself and stepping into who I am meant to be, the artist behind 

Ali Gal Art.

Alive and really living.