Ten years ago, in June 2003, my daughter Elizabeth Katherine was born. My life as a father began. And life changed, forever. I immediately wrote about it all, what I thought fatherhood might be about, especially as a travelling family with a foot in two worlds. The Hamilton Spectator published those thoughts at that time. Below is a […]
A Father’s Day letter to my daughter – Faraway home is where the heart is Read More »
The truth of the matter is that we choose very little in life. We are born in a certain place to certain parents. We are sent to a certain school. And if we were just one neighbourhood over, if we were just one year older, if that something else had been said to start that
So little time, so few choices Read More »
There were two roads and they diverged in a yellow wood and who among us would not want to take them both? But life is full of decisions that say, no, you must choose one or the other and your very future will depend on the choice. Not just to choose if we go with
The Road Not Taken Read More »
A child is just a child, you say, and when I was younger my own father would make a point of telling us what his father would tell him, namely that ‘Children are to be seen and not heard.’ Some children are neither seen nor heard, true, especially the many orphans – estimates are as
Liz is 9. She’s making a difference. This is her message. Read More »
We’ve heard the story so many times – Jesus died, Jesus rose from the dead – that we think we know something about something, and maybe we do know, if nothing else, a profound hope, the hope of eternal life not on some fluffy cloud playing a harp with cherubs floating around, but a hope of
A different sort of Easter bunny story Read More »
‘Daddy, Daddy!’ It’s Jon. He’s really excited. He’s harvested his potatoes. ‘Look at this one. It’s as big as the ones you see on the shelves in the store!’ He stands at the edge of his garden and holds up a potato. I wouldn’t say it’s huge. But it’s not small either. Not like the
Jon, my son, Mister Potato Head Read More »
Jon: Where’s the cat? Me: I don’t know. He’s on one of his long absences. Jon: At his girlfriend’s? Me: Probably Jon: Why doesn’t his girlfriend ever come here? Enough said. +++ The rabbits, meanwhile, have deliverd seven. Liz sold one to her friend at school; another is being taken by a colleague of My
The cat and his girlfriend – ‘We need our space.’ Read More »
We lose things in our family. Swimming goggles. Socks. Our patience with each other. We’ve almost lost Jon twice. The first time was at our Ugandan university home, which is generally safe except for the snakes and wild monkeys and irritating birds that tend to hang around such institutions of higher learning. ‘So, where is
The day we almost lost Jon Read More »
