The thing about even the most humdrum of moments is that something of life’s larger mystery can come through them. Take this moment in Congo, a father holding his child in their home’s doorway. Neither seemed to mind me stopping. My sense is that both would be okay, even pleased, knowing their photo finally found
The doorways of fatherhood Read More »
Today, for Father’s Day, here’s something about a once-upon-a-time photo. Of course, it’ s easy to be leery of “once-upon-a-time” stories. We weren’t born yesterday, you know. Even so, once upon a time there was a photo with no dad, but a girl named Hannah, a darling Ugandan girl, two years old, sitting tall and happy
Once upon a time a mystery was solved Read More »
In a way we’re all homeless vagabonds, it seems to me, running from one fear or another. In my case, when younger, I ran from home because of issues, and because any young man or woman, even from a fine home, needs to leave
Father’s Day is about celebrating where we come from Read More »
“We’re losing Jonathan.” I blurted out the words in the backyard to my sister during a recent gathering. Jonathan, that’s Jonathan Thomas Froese, is Child #2. The boy. It felt strange to hear the words tumble from my mouth.
Fatherhood is better than gold – Don’t take it for granted Read More »
It’s a happy-enough moment of me and the children in this photo from Father’s Day 10 years ago. But today’s thoughts are about grieving as much as anything. Because it was just another morning with the sun established in the sky when the children’s mother, leaving the house, said what she did. “All our fathers,” is all she said. Her eyes welled up while she hugged me. Her broken
Are we losing faith in fatherhood? Read More »
She’s the Ugandan girl who we left behind in a part of the world where, this weekend, there is no Father’s Day. And even if there was, this girl, our friend, has no father to honour on it.
So while it’s only suitable that so many fathers and children
For Gloria, the fatherless girl we left behind Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, June 18, 2016)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It was my daughter’s first teenage birthday party and the family van was full of giggling girls.
The verdict on the Tim Bosma trial wasn’t in, not yet, when we pulled into the bowling ally across from Carmen’s banquet hall and I said, “Tim Bosma’s funeral was in that hall. And his wedding too.”
Silence fell. One girl said it was terrible what happened to Tim. Then my barely 13-year-old asked, “Why would they have his wedding and funeral at the same place?”
A world where the beautiful and terrible live side by side Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, June 14, 2014)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ The sad truth is that the world is full of Charlie Gray sort of people who have listened to all the wrong voices and spent entire swaths of the only life they have doing things that haven’t mattered to them in the least, and, in the grand scheme of things, have mattered little to others also.
They’re people like in John Marquand’s novel “Point of No Return,” where Charlie Gray, after years of apple-polishing, is finally named vice-president of that fancy little New York bank, the promotion that finally gives him and his family the security they need.
It’s a privilege to be a father Read More »
