Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
“What do you have planned for when you’re older and less able, Mom? It would be good to have a plan documented…” This from a family group chat when I mentioned that my 95 year-old aunt had fallen and broken both legs. Although I’m 66, the addition of a disabling disease makes this question more […]
Read More
How do we face each day? What determines outlook? Is it personality or lived experience that colours perspective? Current circumstances have limited my range of activities, including those I do to distract myself. I forgive myself for any feelings of drudgery, and yet, despite ego’s self-pity, I find my natural curiosity pokes it nose into […]
Read More
The children were decked out in their finest, and polished in their performances. An Easter event combining Ukrainian tradition with Canadian touches. It was a thank you for the volunteers who help the children with homework. I was the MC. Rounds of applause and smiles all around and then it was time for tea, coffee, […]
Read More
In response to my middle daughter cutting off contact, and once I got past the hurt and humiliation, I decided that it is closeness, not distance, I want to harbour in my family. Hence the family dinners. Once a month, same Sunday, I invite our kids to a home cooked meal. My husband suggested that […]
Read More
Clouds, like the hands of some higher being, hold up the sun, obscuring her radiance. I’ve travelled this road before – a dirt path, unfettered by progress – where tombstones mark time and trees bear witness. A mist covers the land, and I have not yet deciphered the omen in it. Still, I will push […]
Read More
The lesson I learned, post divorce, is that letting one person dictate my well-being was ludicrous. Of course, it took me a while to get to that understanding, as I had poured all my hopes and dreams into that one man for seventeen years. I am reminded of this lesson today, with the current threats […]
Read More
Well we made it home, but our luggage continues to travel…apparently, it is lost in space. My body is grateful to be back in the comfort of our own home. Travelling with health and mobility issues takes its toll. This trip proved more challenging than we imagined, and it was wonderful at the same time. […]
Read More
We are slipping away Tuesday, on a plane to the Caribbean. Will be there by the time this post goes to publication. It’s our close friends 50th wedding anniversary and we are honoured to help them celebrate. In the meantime, our fifth granddaughter is due to arrive any day, and the kids have reminded me […]
Read More
Historically marginalizeddisability biased –a privileged minority Women’s inequalitysocioeconomic –oppression excluded Cultural relevanceunderrepresented – diversity victim Ethnicity, gender (female)sense of belonging –male-domination systemic Indigenous communityinstitutional trauma –polarization hate speech Advocacy banned (Every word in this poem, except banned, is from the list of words forbidden in research proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation (USA) as […]
Read More
I try not to pick favourites amongst the many birds that grace our backyard feeders, but there are just some that always manage to take my breath away. The red-bellied woodpecker is one of them. This beauty is anxious and tends to fly away at any movement from inside the house, so I have patiently […]
Read More
One Woman's Quest II 