Mother and daughter pen (un)remarkable memoir
Documenting a year of grief and hope
September 30, 2024, 9:46 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
There are some years that stand out in the collective memory of a family—for good, bad, and all places in between. For the Corbetts, 2023 was one of those stand-out years; one that would test of their mettle, but also strengthen their familial bonds.
Tenille (who grew up in Moosomin) and daughter Lydia Corbett recently launched their book (un)remarkable: How Cancer and Depression Intertwined Our Stories of Grief and Hope.
“It’s a juxtaposition,” Tennille explained, adding how in the medical realm, the term ’unremarkable’ is a good thing to hear.
Especially when reading a CT scan report and trying to understand that when describing one’s various organs, ‘unremarkable’ is a beautiful word to see.
“Unremarkable is a good thing, and I didn’t realize that,” Tennille said. “I was reading my medical imaging report and a lot of the clinical documents that were coming back to me and some of the reports were, ‘this is unremarkable’ and ‘that is unremarkable’. And I was like, ‘hey, I’m still pretty special’. And I thought that play on words would be intriguing for people to grab the book and go, ‘well, what do they mean by this’?”
Tennille first noticed symptoms of something not being right in late 2022, and by the spring of 2023, she would receive a diagnosis of Stage 4 Endometrial cancer that required surgery quickly. During the same year, daughter Lydia was on her own journey navigating anxiety and depression.
“Starting to write it still in 2023, we still had the time to go and time to write. So it wasn’t like we had a set moral of the story; an ending situation,” Lydia said when asked to describe what made writing her portion of the memoir challenging. “It was difficult, writing about things and not really knowing how it was going to end. So I think that’s why I wanted to include an epilogue. The epilogue is from the beginning of April, and I think that was a good way to give some closure to myself and also to the reader, and I think for the mental health aspect, the epilogue really shows that as time passes, life keeps going. Things keep happening no matter how boring your days might seem, as you look back on multiple months, there’s a lot of stuff that happened.”
Book launch in Saskatoon
(un)remarkable officially launched on Sept. 10 on Amazon with hardcover, softcover, and Kindle editions available for purchase. Since that time, sales of the 327-page memoir have been off to a promising start.
“We had pre-orders for the eBook about two weeks ahead of the launch date,” Tennille said. “It was kind of slow, but I think people wanted to have the physical book, and then we had a launch party on September 11 (at the Brick Loft Event Co. In Saskatoon). Since the book launch party, we sold about 300 books.”
A September book release was especially meaningful, being Endometrial and Uterine Cancer Awareness Month, plus Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. The special commemorations also served as a deadline for completing the book, spurring Tennille and Lydia on toward launch. A portion of sales from each book will be donated to the Saskatchewan Cancer Foundation and the Saskatoon branch of Canadian Mental Health.
“At our book launch party on Sept. 11, we had some fundraising activities. We had a lot of local vendors donate to some prizes,” Tennille said. “We had about 20 prizes, and this week, we’ll be heading to both of those charities, because we’re donating $2,400 each to those charities. Lydia is also donating $2,000 to her former high school, Tommy Douglas Collegiate here in Saskatoon, to the arts programs to help create some opportunities for students within those programs.”
On writing
Initially, the Corbetts planned to publish the book online entirely by themselves, but eventually enlisted the talents of Jennifer Sparks with Stoke Publishing in Saskatoon.
“She was so amazing, she helped to design the interior and get the files ready for Amazon,” Tennille said. “I never really thought about the interior design of a book and how it’s different for an ePub file, which is the Kindle file, versus the paperback and hardcover version, which has to be 100 per cent correct for Amazon, because they don’t do any editing, right? So you have to make sure that everything is 100 per cent correct before you upload to Amazon. So far, the experiences have been really good.”
Writing the book wasn’t something that began at the same time for Tennille and Lydia. While her mom began the writing process in September, 2023, Lydia put pen to paper a couple months later.
“I picked up my writing in November, because I had just started university, so was getting into the groove of that,” Lydia explained. “We had a shared Google Docs document, and we would just write on our own, and then we would try to connect our stories together.”
Collaboration through the shared digital format sometimes prompted ideas, as Lydia attested.
“We would read each other’s writing, and then we would think, ‘oh, that’s something I have a perspective on; I can write something about that’,” she said. As time passed, we pieced all those together. We also had six big points that we wanted to each write about in our perspective.”
One major point Lydia wanted to tackle was the continued stigma around mental health.
“I’ve noticed with people making comments about it, they are able to talk about the cancer side of it a lot easier,” she said. “Because, when you hear about a cancer story, they say how strong that those people are, and a lot of people, if they make comments, it’s mostly people who don’t experience that day to day. But a lot of people experience mental health more, and there is a lot of stigma around mental health. They don’t really know what to say when it comes to supporting them, like praising them for how strong they are. I’ve noticed that people are praising the cancer side a lot more than the mental health side.”
For Tennille, there was one portion of the book which was particularly difficult to write, or even spend much time with during the editing process that followed.
“The part that I tried to skim over during the reading and re-reading of it during the editing process, was telling the kids—telling my son and Lydia about my prognosis, having been diagnosed with cancer,” she said. “I can get through this surgery, some recovery, and I’m on my way. But to have a prognosis that is so short, and to tell the kids? I don’t ever want to have to go through something like that again. So that was probably the hardest to read over and over again.”
Ultimately, both authors were impressed with the overwhelming positivity received from readers that shared their comments on (un)remarkable.
“I had a vision of a reader in my mind, and I think Lydia also had a vision of a reader,” Tennille said. “You know, we see ourselves in the reader. But people are taking their own experiences and applying it to the stories as well.”
Some readers have aligned with the material in interesting ways from their personal perspectives.
“We had someone reach out who actually could identify or was actually drawn to Shaynne’s and my relationship; my husband’s and my marriage and how strong it was portrayed,” Tennille said. “I wouldn’t have picked that up as the biggest narrative, right? Or somebody who is now my age, but when she was Lydia’s age, her mom was diagnosed with cancer, and so the book was like reliving her life in a way. It’s been really emotional reading people’s response to the book in ways that I never would have thought it would have affected people.”
Another large part of (un)remarkable for both Lydia and Tennille was their four-legged family member, Remy, who first sensed the cancer in Tenille prior to the first doctor’s consultation.
“He was very lovey towards me, very protective, following me around everywhere,” Tennille described of Remy’s actions. “When I would retire for the evening and be on the coach, he would put his head on my stomach, and he’d look at me, and he’d kind of whine and I didn’t pick up on anything. Remy is still very protective of me. I’m still mom, and he has to know where I am all the time! We just found comfort in that he’s a protective and loving part of our family.”
Not to introduce any spoilers, but Remy does get to voice his opinion in the book, adding a lighthearted ray of sunshine and perhaps an insight into the large heart of this caring canine.
Another glimpse of humor in the Corbett household is the inclusion of ‘Lydia-isms,’ which simply add some wholesome fun to the pages.
“Every Gen Z whose parents put all their life on Facebook before they knew it,” Tennille laughed. “The Lydia-isms… they still come, I just don’t document them!”
“You texted one to me yesterday!” retorted Lydia playfully. “They’ll come up in Facebook Memories, and then she’ll just screenshot one and send them to me!”
Event planned for Moosomin Nov. 12
To call 2023 a heavy year for the Corbett family would be a vast understatement, but with those particular 365 days in the rear view mirror, Tennille and Lydia took a moment to reflect.
“I feel like I’ve grown a lot this past year,” Lydia said. “There’s still a lot of things that I’m figuring out, but that can be said for every 19-year-old!”
Tennille’s focus is on the next 24 hours, revelling in the moment.
“I’m doing well with my treatment, and I’m managing the symptoms well,” she shared. “With all the skills that I’ve learned around writing and publishing a book, I’m just looking forward to learning about the marketing of a book and taking one day as it comes.”
The Moosomin Library will be hosting Tennille and Lydia at an event scheduled for Nov. 12. The authors will be on hand to sign copies of their book, plus there will be the opportunity to have a question and answer session during the evening.
“It’s always fun to come home to Moosomin,” Tennille said. “My dad called me today, and he’s very excited to have us come back home, so it’s all good!”
(un)remarkable is currently available in hardcover, paperback, and electronically on Amazon.
