Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
My granddaughter paints a row of red flowers with crosses in between. “Flanders Field” she tells me. She’s six. “Your great-great grandfather, my grandfather, was shot in Flanders Field.” She raises her eyes to meet mine. “Did he die?” “No, but he was injured.” He was crawling across the field when the bullet entered and […]
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It snowed early that year, and those who gathered at the church hall were dressed to keep out the cold, mumbling about the weather, and helping themselves to warm beverages. Seems deaths come in threes, and this was the third of our family members we’d buried in as many months. “Where’s Uncle Charles?” I asked […]
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Wasn’t quite sure if this crowing rooster was whimsical or forlorn, now that the flowers that had previously blocked it have been cut down. Whimsical is lying in the grass with a pink helmet on trying to roll your tongue: This past weekend we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with a family gathering. A full-length mirror provided […]
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Here in southwest Ontario, we grow corn. By August we’ve also a grown an appetite for the taste of peaches and cream corn, buttered and salted, right off the cob. My mother comes from farming roots, but these days all she grows is older. We are all farmers, in a sense – planting our seeds, […]
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Set…Go! Ready, set, go: I miss summer already! Thank you to Nancy Merrill for this week’s photo challenge: Ready, set, action.
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“Sometimes I just wish I could roll back the years and start over.” “Hard to imagine it. Life would have been very different.” Our what if’s are wistful, laced with regrets. Not that we had any power over what happened – we were only children when decisions that would affect us forever after were made. […]
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Delicate is the spider’s web, at least to the naked eye – appearances deceive, though, just ask an unfortunate fly. The sighting of a butterfly, splashing colour with flight – opening and closing wings spreading childlike delight. In the midst of swampy mire, this delicate flower dares bloom; a snow white pop of hope to […]
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I’ll be waiting for you in Heaven, daughter, although the roles we played in life have no bearing here – only souls congregating in spiritual reflection. Still the ties that bound us will be vivid, your mind, no doubt reeling in transition, the turmoil of earthly incarnation still buzzing in emotional swirls. I’ve had the […]
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“I’m not as smart as you. I’d probably be okay if I was smarter.” “That’s not true, June. You are very smart.” “Do you really think so?” My sister and I are doing dishes after supper. June suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. “You got 96% in your nursing program,” I remind her. “Intelligence is not your […]
Read MoreThe celebrations started last Sunday – dinner at a Greek restaurant with the family. It was a double celebration, Sloane having turned six just days before. Then we headed North to a friend’s cottage and had a meal rich with the summer’s harvest: corn on the cob, potatoes cooked with garlic on the barbecue, and […]
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One Woman's Quest II 