KITCHENER — In her memoir, Florica Batu Ichim recalled learning the terrifying reality of leukemia, a disease that would likely take her life before her baby, Matthew, was old enough to start school.
“We both cried feeling sorry for our children. We cried for ourselves. We cried because there wasn’t anything else left to do,” she wrote. “I was a mother and I could not afford to die yet.”
At only 42 and nursing an infant, Florica wasn’t about to leaver her family, her life, without a fight, a fight she finally lost Sept. 4 after living with chronic myeloid leukemia for 23 years. “It’s going to be the biggest shock of my life when we bury her,” said daughter Christine Ichim, a PhD candidate and leukemia researcher who made headlines in 1996 when she rollerbladed across Canada to raise money for the Canadian Cure Campaign.
The family was well aware of their mother’s illness, knew the prognosis had never been good, but somehow it seemed she would live forever, her strength of spirit was that strong.
Even at the end, while in intensive care as her organs began to fail, doctors called in the family several times to say their goodbyes. Yet Florica somehow found the strength to rally. “She really, really wanted to live,” said Christine.
Florica is best known as the matriarch of the Ichim clan, six children who managed to make headlines numerous times: Christine and her brother Thomas for their accomplishments as researchers, Julian as a political activist. The two boys also dabbled in politics.
Christine said their mother taught them to be free thinkers, to use education as the great social equalizer given they came from poor beginnings.
“My mom was the cohesive force,” said Christine. “She encouraged us to study and she was always hands-on.”
Florica was one of seven children, raised in communist Romania. Her father was a tailor, her mother a homemaker but a strong woman who lived to 93. Florica met Dumitru at a poetry reading, the two drawn together by a love of Romanian poetry. Both were published poets.
Dumitru completed his PhD in theology and was granted permission to study in the U.S. while Florica completed an economics degree and took a job conducting bank audits.
For Dumitru, having a taste of freedom in the West gave him the courage to leave Romania, finding a posting in a small Romanian Orthodox Church in Kitchener where he was soon joined by Florica. They were free, but money would always be an issue. The church had few resources and Dumitru was forced to take a janitorial job at what is now Grand River Hospital.
Together, the couple raised six children in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment shared with Florica’s mother, Victoria Batu. The space was cramped with the adults sleeping in the bedrooms while the children lived dormitory style in the living room amid sparse furniture. Christine describes their childhood as surrounded by books and learning, largely at the hands of their mother, whose keen interest in science encouraged her children to conduct all sorts of experiments in the family kitchen.
“It was very rambunctious in our house,” said Christine, as a way of understatement.
Son Matthew added, “We were poor, but that didn’t stop us from going to university. She never bought herself dresses, there was no furniture.” He was particularly impressed with his mother’s determination to encourage other women to talk about cancer. “She said to be proud of who they are, not to hide behind wigs or cosmetics,” he said.
Florica was so determined to survive to see her children grown that she was up for any treatments offered, and there were plenty. “She got in on all the clinical trials,” said Christine. “It was like a race between the disease and science.”
Christine and Thomas joined that race, researching cancer at an impressively advanced level from the time they were in high school.
Florica visited holy places in Europe looking for healing, and found at least a new inner strength. In summarizing her mother’s life, Christine writes, “My mother could appreciate how beautiful knowledge is, how beautiful nature is orchestrated. She believed in truth, and discovery, and the beauty that comes in understanding the way things work.”
In her memoir, Florica wrote, “Cancer is a life experience. Unwelcome, yes, but it is something from which to learn from: so many questions and answers and sometimes unknowns. Sometimes it is happiness, sometimes it is pain, sometimes it is hope, and many times it is fear. I do not exactly know what it is and what it is not, but one thing is certain: it is never boring.”
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