The scene is a snowy one and there is a bus travelling down the road. And as the bus roars along, these are the thoughts – you can hear them right inside his head – of the traveller aboard. He’s looking, with all his pain and hope too, out the bus window. “All of life […]
Grieving Robin Williams. His bus rides home. Read More »
By the time I came home that day there were already six vehicles in front of the tiny condo that is our neighbour’s – an ambulance, a fire truck, two Emergency 911 vehicles and two paramedic trucks – but they could have brought every life-saving unit this side of the moon and it wouldn’t have mattered
Celebrating an old life lost. And a young one with joy. Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, May 17, 2014)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ There was a time when a neighbourhood school was a place that nourished your soul. It wasn’t that long ago. I’m not that old.
You’d go to play, say, baseball on Saturday morning or, in winter, hockey on the rink that your Grade 6 teacher lovingly flooded outside the row of windows where even the good students looked out to daydream.
It was a time when you’d walk to school every morning. By yourself. Even when the school bully – her last name was, fittingly, Greenall – went the same way. It somehow even brought out courage that you never knew you had.
Boogeyman paranoia where shadows lurk at every corner Read More »
One day long before anything known as social media was dreamed about, I was the newcomer, new to a certain Ontario town – it was my first newspaper job – and new to a certain life. I needed a bit of friendship, if not guidance and direction. It was a Sunday morning when I walked
Without a vision, the people perish Read More »
I don’t really believe in New Year resolutions or those Bucket Lists either, but I guess if I were to drop dead today I’d be content. More or less. Well, you know, within reason. I realized this right around the time my eight-year-old did a face-plant in the snow while we were skiing yesterday. Jon went down
This New Year, kick The Bucket List. Live the life. Play in the snow. Read More »
We arrived at the chapel to find Timothy’s casket sitting heavy at the entrance. This, yesterday morning when we had walked down the familiar green hill to the chapel, the university chapel of dark wood and century-old brick, a place the children have known as Sunday school for some years, a place now to say
Timothy Mugisha died in his mother’s arms Read More »
It’s morning in Africa and, as often, today started with reading and listening to Brahms while on the cross-trainer and enjoying the brightness of the day’s creation. And here the creation is now Zack, our new Young Dog, plus four new rabbits from Sam and his significant other, plus Bilbo, The Cat’s Girlfriend, so named
Morning in Africa with the animals Read More »
‘This is how you do it, she said, and she put some water in the sink and got some soap and took it all in her hands and showed me how to wash my shirt in the sink. The shirt was short-sleeved and striped blue and white, horizontally, and the sink was in the attic
Cousins and gifts and a different sort of beauty Read More »
