When a bell rings in Chelsea Summer's house, it means it's time for some much-needed self-care and plenty of hugs.
Summer, who is a Cochrane resident, is a wedding planner and travel agent whose career is centred on making one of the most stressful and overwhelming days of a couple's life a memorable and adoring memory. Her life and health would be up-ended by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic enveloped the world, she was forced to call clients and cancel their weddings.
"It was pretty hard. Tears were shed and shared with clients. It's an extremely emotional event, to begin with, let alone having some people cancel it two or three times," Summer said. "It was devastating. But a lot of my clients were very understanding."
In fact, some of her clients became life-long best friends with Summer after "I Do".
"One of my favourite wedding memories would be one of my first clients," she said. "I was pregnant at the time and she was just so wonderful to me. We became really good friends. She was just so grateful for everything that I did and she actually ended up working for me in the long run
But as wave after wave of COVID-19 stretched on, Summer and her son felt the devastating toll it took on their mental health. Summer, who is a domestic abuse survivor who suffers from PTSD and a traumatic brain injury that was inflicted by her former partner on her, made COVID-19 all the more wounding.
When Summer was sitting in her office one day, trying to map out her next steps, wondering if she would even have a career to go back to if and when this pandemic was over, she reached out a touched something. What she had in her hands was one of the bells that were used in weddings to “Ring for a Kiss”.
"I had a couple of these in my office because I would give them away to clients when I first meet them and get to know them in our first initial meeting, so I had a bunch of them just sitting around and I thought what am I going to do with these? I don't know if I'm going to be a wedding planner anymore."
Summer explained that the bells are used at wedding receptions to make some noise and to also denote to the newly wedded couple, the crowd expects a kiss.
"One day, I was feeling bad for my son and sitting there and I rang the bell and it was just an intuitive thing to say, 'you know what, we're gonna just do hugs every time one of us rings a bell'," she said.
But it wasn't just the ringing of the bell that began to calm her soul. It was the art she began to create with the bell.
"My mom is an artist and so I've always kind of been inclined to art," Summer said. "So one day I decided, I'm going to paint the bell and I painted one. My son wanted to keep them and so we kept ringing these bells that I started painting. I went to a market /trade show and people would comment on them and I start telling the story about how it was important for my son's mental health and to know where he's at but to also know when I'm struggling."
Summer said that she left her partner after a life-altering incident.
"That one big incident caused me a lot of mental health issues. I'm not the same person that I used to be that, that's for certain," she said. "And I want other women to know you can get out. I want other women to know that they're not alone."
According to a 2019 Statistics Canada report, approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner, while a 2018 report stated 44 per cent of women reported experiencing some form of psychological, physical, or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes.
This is why 10 per cent of the proceeds from each bell Summer sells will be donated to domestic abuse survivors.
"My goal is to bring awareness to mental health issues for both children and adults. I want everyone to know that there is help if anyone wants to reach out and talk I’m so there for them," Summer said. "I’ve had several families reach out and thank me for the positive changes in their homes because of the bells."
Summer will be offering delivery for anybody who wants to buy the bells on her Etsy website. She can also be contacted by email for more information on her other artwork.
Asked when Summer last rang the bell, she did not hesitate to answer.
"Oh gosh, we rang it this morning," she said.