Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
What’s her name?Simple questionfrom mother to son –recognizing the love-liftedjoy of his countenance. I cannot tell, said he,you’ll ask too many questions.Do I know her?No, Mom, she’s Somali.And Muslim. I felt my whitenessand all its privilegeslap me, stumbled Of course she is welcome,of course it does not matter. Had no sense of the depthof my […]
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“A store in town has activity books for the kids; can we go?” Now that we’ve expanded our bubble, I’m thinking of ways to entertain the grandchildren. I haven’t set foot in a store for three months. The idea excites me. “Better put on something decent,” I tell Ric laughingly. I pull out a top […]
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“I sleep all night with my eyes closed!” This from our four-year-old granddaughter in response to the question of whether or not she could sleep at our house. We’ve expanded our bubble. It came in response to our oldest daughter’s concerns about her child: “She’s not interested in doing anything, won’t eat, can’t sleep, and […]
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From my place of privilege, I sit and watch George Floyd beg for breath, call out for his mama, and know that I can never truly understand the plight of another, and that I, by virtue of my whiteness, am part of the problem. I have no words adequate enough to express what I am […]
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Ric is taking advantage of warm weather and stripping the deck. I am inside, fighting an insomnia induced hangover, trying to complete tasks with two ranting dogs underfoot. They want to be outside; I want to be in bed. Ric just wants to get the job done. In the background, Andrew Cuomo is telling people […]
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Call it circling, call it dancing, it’s all the same – I end up at the same point. Caught between the idealism of expectation and the harshness of reality. One has lofty goals, the other invites limitations. I once believed, not in circles, but in spirals – a continual movement marking progress. Now, with time […]
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I reach out to Mother only to discover she is missing; she has gone in search of me.The dream unsettles me. I capture the essence by writing it down, then set the words aside, not knowing where to begin. The sorrow lingers. I remember the moment I knew I’d been displaced in my mother’s life. […]
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Nuances of nostalgiajaggedsuccumbingcubesunsuspectingnourishmentmoving and openingI distractWe grappleunder constructionmeaning percolatesthis is lifethese bits and pieces of aresurrectiondragons and time machinesticket stubsscattered. Every week I challenge you with a focus, and every week you amaze. ‘Bits and pieces’ was the prompt this week, and the diverse responses, woven together, created this glimpse of life’s bits and pieces. […]
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“What’s happening with your camera?” I asked Ric on our last outing. He has a new one, and left the old one for repair, possibly passing it on to me. “It’s lost in the pandemic.” “Oh,… yeah.” Processing the backload of photos, I come across pics of my mom from our last visit, before her […]
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By the time she was three, my first daughter, an early talker, had shared that people have colours around them, that I would eventually have three children, and not to worry about those who died, for they come back like she did. “She’s freaking me out,” I told a cousin of mine. “I don’t know […]
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One Woman's Quest II 