These past four weeks, I have not cried. Haven’t shed a single tear. Not when presented with missed opportunities, lost experiences (and financial reimbursements), and the monotonous daily grind. Not when discovering that the worst was yet to come. Not when reading heart-breaking accounts and watching soul-ripping moments. Not even when I could not see …
“Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is.” – Anne Frank Can you imagine writing this piece of literary goodness, this lovely gem of hopeful kindness, while …
When September days arrived this past school year, I again faced the reality that I was staring down the homestretch with my precious second oldest. As when my very Oldest was in Grade 12, my only son, it was again, a bittersweet milestone to be reached. I (as mama) was so proud and so grateful …
When I was nine years old, the bottom fell out of our family’s world with one, horrific phone call. The call that changed everything—it came on a December day, just before Christmas. I remember very little about the date—the common, everyday moments leading up to the call. But I will forever have imprinted in my …
Fighting the dark. Filling the empty spaces. Finding light. First, fighting the dark. I felt a cloud of darkness pushing in around me. Felt it for days. Heavy, ominous: it started with the light-hearted feeling of having done something helpful and hopeful, but left me feeling pinched for air, as if being suddenly choked by …
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are …
Resilient. A word fraught with deep meaning and much complexity. For me, it signifies that one is faced with challenge and is able to withstand. It is about weathering the storm. Withstanding the pressure. Rising after the fall. It is how I feel most of the time, if I were being truthful. I often think …
Life is filled with so many hard ‘little and big’ lessons. Some we learn through watching and others we learn by living. Today was a busy day which had me again rushing out the door coffee cup and papers in hand. After a crazy morning followed by a solid lunch hour of choir practices, I …
It is hard to understand the whys and hows of human relationships. Sometimes these interactions astound and touch my deepest parts for their tremendous propensity to kindness. And yet sometimes they disappoint beyond what mere words can express. Why are our connections with one another so prone to such wild swings of the pendulum? For …
It’s August. And as it happens to be my holidays, I am knee-deep in summer lovin’. I have paint spatters on my legs from the fresh coat I applied to the veranda this afternoon, a good book waiting for me on the couch and the idea in my head of a glass of iced coffee …
I stand beside her, tipping the muffin tray ever so slightly so that the batter will have that much more of a chance of making it into the hollow. She is intent on her task: lifting two ‘full-to-running-over’ spoons dripping with banana cupcake batter up and over the side of the porcelain bowl, toward the …
I remember the Christmas I was about seven or eight years old. I wanted a Cabbage Patch doll. It was all I really wanted that year, to be honest. I had made that much clear to anyone who was listening (Mom, Dad, Santa….God?). I think I dreamed about her, my doll: those chubby cheeks, that …
