and in agreement with christian dior, prestilux was able to try to add other brands--so, to build upritical mass so that we became more significant on the canadian market with time. - and... something tragic happened. of course, i know the story because i've read the research. something happened. - yes. actually, when we first started the company, we practically had no business, so the employees were essentially: my father; my mother, who had never worked in a business before--she always had taken care of the family; then i had an uncle that was semi-retired that had agreed to help us out with the accounting; and finally another employee that was basically looking after the wares site, packing and shipping; and the kids were coming after school, helping out with packing the orders when christmas came. but, let's say 18 months after the company was started, my mother became ill. she had cancer, and it was a quite strong cancer of the spine, and she lost the use of her legs and was hospitalized for about a year before she passed away in 1973, so we were only three years old at the time