Obituary of Andrea Beryl Stevens

With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of Andrea Beryl Porter Stevens, our irreplaceable mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin, and friend. She left us peacefully on Monday, June 10th, at her home in Hantsport, surrounded by family and friends, at the age of 73.

Andrea was born six weeks premature (shortly after an ill-advised bumpy-country-road trip to Pugwash Point), on August 18^th, 1950 in Windsor, to Don and Dorothy (Demings) Porter of Hantsport. She grew up in Hantsport on Maple Ave, and her community and its people always held a central place in her life - especially her core group of chosen sisters: Linda, Josie, Audrey, Debbie, Lilla, and her life-long penfriend, Lois.

Throughout her entire life, everywhere she ever went, she collected friends - she just loved people. Whether during her twenty-seven year career at Scotiabank and Symcor, or running around the province in summer co-raising kids with the other baseball wives, her ability to form, build on, and sustain relationships across decades was one of her super-powers. Her friends were her wealth, and she was truly rich.

She loved her family fiercely and revelled in family time together - especially at home in Hantsport and at Pugwash Point. It was people, and especially her family and friends that really filled her up, and her glass (in her own words) was perpetually half-full, right up to the end.

She leaves behind her an abundance of family and friends who simply adored her. She is survived by her sons, Jamie (Sean Randall) and Bobby (Karol Halliday); deeply loved grandsons, Lawson and Owen, and their mom, Janice Teale; special grandson, Makai Mahaney; her brothers, Don and Jud Porter (Debbie Lloyd); her former spouse and children’s father, Danny (Jessie) Stevens; brother and sisters-in-law, Brian (Joy) Stevens, Val Kennie and Barb Davis; along with reams of cousins, cherished nieces and nephews (Michael and Jody, and their families); beloved friends, and chosen family, especially Chalene, Dave, Bronwyn and David MacInnis.

She was predeceased by her parents, and brother, Cameron.

Her family wishes to extend our deepest gratitude for the group of incredible, giving, talented caregivers who gathered around our Mom, to help us keep her in her home until the end. Heather, Leslie, Pam, Jo, Carol, Cindy, Jill, Kim, Kailee, Gayla, Tabitha and Haley - all of this would have been impossible without you. Thank you for all you did, and for all the love and care you showed our Mom. She loved each one of you so much.

Radiant and smiling until the very end, in her family’s eyes, she was the most stupendous of mothers; the most magical of humans. She taught us all what she saw as the pillars of a life well-lived:

Family, Love, Friends, Hugs, Kindness, and Hope.

She has always been our centre, our lynchpin, our lodestar, and the hole she leaves in our midst will never be filled.

In our hearts we will always remember and honour her. She will live on in the memories of her family, in the laughter and embraces shared between her friends and cousins, in the songs sung around campfires at the Point, and in the hearts of all those who had the privilege of knowing what it felt like to be hugged by her.