In July 2022, my husband Gary and I were on our motorcycles riding back toward Calgary on a gravel road in Crowsnest Pass when I hit a large rock, flipped several times in the air and crashed— sustaining multiple injuries: a serious concussion, several broken ribs, and a separated shoulder. Gary always carries a Garmin satellite GPS when we’re out of cell range, and fortunately, he was able to call emergency services, bringing STARS Air Ambulance to the rescue.

As I was out cold, I remember nothing about the accident, but as I slowly regained my ability to think straight, move my upper body, and play my guitar again, I was moved with gratitude of the people who came to my rescue. Expecting a substantial bill for the air ambulance service received, I was aghast that because STARS is fully a charity service, no bill for their services would ever be sent.

I contacted STARS several times, asking what I could do to help repay them in some way. As a musician, I thought perhaps I could perform at their fundraisers. They said that they rarely held their own fundraisers, as usually outside businesses or individuals set up their own fundraisers, and donated the funds back to STARS.

Then in 2025, STARS was due to celebrate its 40^th anniversary in July, and asked me to perform for their open house event, booking me a few months in advance. I had already been thinking about writing a song for STARS to thank them, but didn’t know how to shape the lyrics.

Then in early June, I learned that STARS’ founder Dr. Greg Powell has just passed away, 40 years after founding the organization. I felt so sad for the people at STARS, but also resolved that this was the serendipitous moment for my song. It would be about Dr. Powell, and the reason he founded STARS.

Me, just after the crash. The t-shirt is eerily ironic! I had 7 broken ribs, a big concussion, a bruised lung, and a separated shoulder. 

The Role of the Violin

Interestingly, I had been learning to play the violin for the previous three years. It was a real uphill battle; I play several instruments, but violin was next-level difficult; it is so easy to be off-pitch, and creating a vibrato by rocking the left hand is not physiologically natural. But perhaps moreover, it was the patience required: I’ve always taken for granted that as a musician I could learn a new instrument very quickly, and within a few weeks sound pretty good. Not the case with violin, as I am still working to get to where I’m comfortable performing it.

Anyway, when I had my accident, I was unable to play for a few months, so it set me back again, and I questioned whether it was worth learning. 

But something about the accident did change my character. I felt it was more important to slow down, and be that patient person. Stop rushing. And these things seemed like the exact kind of character-building that my violin was trying to teach me.

My original objective with the violin was to combine it with my looper. The looper allows me to record and repeat (loop) parts as I’m performing them in front of a live audience. So that means I can play and record a part, and then switch to playing another part to go with it, and layer that in. It’s great for singing my own background vocals, and then bringing them back in when I sing the lead part a chorus, for example. So with a violin, a looper had the potential to turn one violin into an entire string section! 

It took me a couple of years to get remotely close to playing in tune, but one weekend, I decided to finally hook my violin up to the looper and try it. 

Once again, I was shocked at how pitchy I was, but weirdly, looping with the violin churned out about 20 new melodies in one weekend! I had never thought the violin was an instrument for songwriting, and here it was inspiring gorgeous melodies, one after another! It changed my methodology from starting with chords to starting with a beat and a bass line, and then adding violin layers, which sounded so soaringly beautiful (even if they were slightly off pitch), that I was hooked.

Writing “If I Could Fly”

One of the tunes that my violin inspired that weekend was a little 3-beat tune I labelled as simply, “Pretty Little Waltz.” It had no lyrics.

When I learned about Dr. Powell’s passing shortly before the event I was to perform in, I was certain the song should tell his story.

Now, in addition to being a singer and songwriter, I’ve also worked as a business consultant for almost 30 years through a company I founded called Tenato Strategy (Tenato comes from the word tenacity), so I know that the people who start businesses often do so because they’ve personally experienced an acute pain and want to take action by starting a company whose mission is to solve it. I actually expected that STARS story would be about a wealthy (or perhaps well-connected) fellow who had lost a wife or child because they couldn’t get to a hospital in time.

When I looked it up, I was very surprised to learn that STARS’ founder was a doctor. And that his compassion came not from seeing his own family member pass away, but from seeing the pain of others who had lost loved ones. As a young man, Dr. Powell went to Vietnam and saw how helicopter air rescue gave precious minutes to make the difference of life or death, so he wanted to bring that to Canada, where he’d seen many people die needlessly because they couldn’t make it to a hospital in time, given Canada’s many vast and remote population.

I was also amazed to realize that starting an organization and raising millions of dollars would not come naturally for a doctor. Scientific people I’ve worked with over the years can barely tolerate being in selling or fundraising roles. And STARS was a colossal endeavour – one that would involve fundraising, politics, rallying volunteer help, and probably thousands of sleepless nights. So with that dizzying challenge, he must have had very, very deep compassion for those families whose loved ones died needlessly, simply because they couldn’t get to a doctor quickly enough. I had no doubt that if you asked his wife, there were particular faces of grieving wives, husbands and children that kept him going. I also guessed that if he had a wife, she too must have been all-in on the dream.

So my only conclusion was that Dr. Powell must have had to persist relentlessly with STARS, despite that.

So given my difficulty on the violin, that “Pretty Little Waltz” melody was his.

Imagining how important his dream was, I put myself in his shoes for a moment. Whenever a patient arrived too late, he would have seen the faces of their loved ones, and been heartbroken that he couldn’t have saved them. He would have had that ringing sadness in his heart saying, “If only I could have been there, to fly them  – they would be alive right now, and I wouldn’t have to see their families ripped apart.” That’s why the biggest feeling, that “if only” feeling I had to get across was “IF I COULD FLY”. The melody I’d written, naturally rose to the word “FLY”, with the violins coming in, and somehow it fit perfectly.

The song lyrics then came together quite quickly, telling the story of who he was; starting out as the young boy who wanted to be a doctor, and who witnessed air rescue in Vietnam. Then progressing to the doctor who was working in the emergency room. In the bridge of the song, “armed with a dream, and a hope and a prayer” the song transitions, making the dream into reality, as “he found a way to take to the air”. The bridge also references his passing away after “40 years service”, but that he’s not really gone, since he’s in “all our STARS”.

In the final verse, I wanted to show that his dream was realized and that the whole STARS team is carrying on his legacy.

STARS 40th Anniversary Event and Meeting Linda Powell

The STARS 40^th Anniversary Open House was on a hot afternoon in July, and it was held in a hangar where several helicopters were on display. My husband and I brought my guitar, looper, harmonicas and all the usual percussion, and played background music all afternoon. I had told STARS that I’d written them a song, and the event organizer was going to introduce me at one point in the afternoon, however, since timed groups of people were touring one after another, there wasn’t really one right moment to stop and do it, and the whole afternoon was nearly over. So I just threw the STARS song into my set, and I didn’t think that anyone really heard it. I had brought a copy of the lyrics, and since they had Dr. Powell’s flight suit on display at the event, I snuck over and tucked a copy of it in his left front pocket, as my little gift to him.

But in fact, one of the STARS communications team, Lyle Aspinall, had heard it. He came over and asked me about it, and I confirmed that I’d written the song for STARS about Dr. Powell.

Lyle said, “There’s someone you have to meet, and would you play it for her?” Then he introduced me to Dr. Powell’s wife, Linda Powell. I was amazed to meet her, and Lyle found a quiet spot away from the rest of the open house activities. I chatted to her briefly, and then played the song, just for her. As Lyle is on the communications team, he made sure to videotape that little performance, Gary also did so. Linda was overwhelmed by the song, and I could see her emotion as I sang it, so I was very glad that I made it through without crying myself. We shared hugs, and it meant so much to me that she had heard it.

I later posted it on Facebook.

My crew – Ken King (Paramedic), Stuart Carson (Flight Nurse), and John Carson(Pilot Captain)

Recording the Song

Sometimes when I write a song for someone, they say “thanks” but never really want to hear it again. I decided that if I heard from Linda or STARS again, and only if they really wanted it, then I would make a recording of the song.

Within a couple of days, Linda sent me a beautiful email requesting a recording of the song. So I set up a session with Kit Johnson, a local, Juno-winning producer, musician and performer. Kit has a small but well-equipped home studio and has recorded many of my projects for me in recent years. 

 Kit took the rough version of my singing the song for Linda, and made tracks of guitars, bass and percussion that I sang along to. Then I wondered about the violin.

As a novice violin player, I knew my own violin would be too pitchy to sound good enough for the recording.  So as I’ve played accordion for several years, and found it beautiful, I tried an accordion part instead. 

Although accordion was beautiful in its own way, it wasn’t the sound I had in my mind, and it still wanted violin, even though I knew my own skills weren’t even close to ready.

Recently, I had broken a string on my violin, and went to get it repaired at VA Hill, a violin shop in Calgary where met violinist named Kristof Sokuski, who had recently moved to Canada. Working at the shop during the day, he was a trained both in classical and jazz violin, which I knew was a rare find. He played my violin briefly in the shop to give it a test drive after changing the string, and I never forgot how beautiful he made it sound.

I was thrilled when he was available to do it. I gave him my recordings, with and without the accordion part, so he could use what I had in mind to make a violin part. 

The studio day was magic. Kristof was spot on; his sound was magic. I asked him to play a few additional sections and add solos in the intro and after the first chorus; he was able to improvise them, arrange them on the spot and create that sublime orchestral sound of several strings in layers. One special thing I specially requested was the final trailing high note at the end of the song.

His violin part was so good, I then re-recorded my vocal, and it gave my singing a whole other lift.

Kristof Sokulski and Kit Johnson in Kit’s home, studio where I recorded the song

Releasing the Song

I hadn’t intended to release the song publicly, because I thought if it were exclusive to STARS, then they could better maximize their use of it to fundraise. 

But Lyle saw it differently; he said that STARS would be proud to have me release it online, and I was very happy to do so. 

I needed a cover image to use for the song, and thought about using one of the photos of me with a STARS helicopter. But then I felt that the song wasn’t about me, it was about the dream of stars. I wanted one with a bright red STARS helicopter flying above. Lyle invited me to use one from the STARS library; interestingly, the one I chose was one that Lyle himself had taken! I was very proud to use it.

Performing the Song

I have had a chance to perform “If I Could Fly” in a few shows since writing it. The first time was at the STARS 40^th event where I played it for Linda Powell. I was then honoured to play it for the STARS crew that rescued me when I shot my VIP (Very Important Patient) video for STARS. We all went in the hangar, and sat around the helicopter. I got my crew members, Ken King, Paramedic, Stuart Grant, Flight Nurse, and pilot Captain John Carson) in for a group hug and was an emotional performance too. It meant so much to me that they seemed to really love the song.

Each time I sing it, people from everywhere who know STARS come to tell me that they absolutely love it, and that it really connects with them.

Someday, STARS might rescue a really well-known singer and nudge them to do a fancier, more elaborate version of the song for them. I’ve told them if the rescue a Michael Buble or Celine Dion, they have my full blessing to re-record it. Likewise if ever STARS ever wants to use or re-record it in any other format for their future use. It’s my gift to them.

What’s Ahead for STARS and Jacquie Drew

STARS’ Home Lottery’s team has reached out to include me in an upcoming television commercial to promote their STARS fundraising Lottery for a new home; this will give away a new home built by an Edmonton family-owned homebuilder, Concept Homes. They’ve also asked me to speak at their upcoming launch of the lottery event. 

My answer to STARS is always a yes, because song or no song, I still feel so indebted to them for rescuing me that night in July 2022; my husband still thinks about it every day (after having nightmares for months). We are incredibly grateful to still be here.

I am a proud and joyful wife, a mother, a grandmother, a business owner, performing musician, and songwriter. STARS rescued me, and this song is one that I am perhaps most proud of.

And I am persisting in my violin. If Dr. Powell could launch STARS, I can learn the violin. 

I have a show coming up in December, for which I’ve invited a lot of the STARS folks. There might be a few seats left; and especially if you’re a STARS supporter, I would love to see you there.

TO DONATE TO STARS: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/140582