Sunsets and sea stars, sailboats and sand, Wheat fields and corn rows, thick forest lands, Raindrops and snowflakes, thundering clouds, Silence and thanks being given out loud. Caterpillars, steam trains, comets in flight, Sea lions, antelope, bats in the night, Strength grown in weeping, steel forged in loss, Passions retreating… Read more…
With thanks to CS Lewis, I am in Narnia. It is my own private Narnia on the borderlands of the city. It is my frequent refuge, my quietude. It is the place where rolling hills begin to settle gently, becoming sprawling, impossibly vast plains, where coyotes, moose and many, many Read more…
I am healing. I tell myself this. I tell myself this again and again. These three words rattle, bouncing like marbles on cold tile in the half-lit hallways of my once cloudless mind. They scurry, they scatter, they disappear without reason for hours and for days, but I am healing. Read more…
We shouldn’t have moved. It is not true but it is her truth, the one that resides deep in these gravel-laden fissures of her soul. It is her way of making sense of my little brother’s death, of his choice to leave the way he did. She believed that letting Read more…
It was waiting for me. The Poetry of Walt Whitman. Oddly enough, I had been thinking of Whitman during my distracted ramble through the bookshop, and there on a shelf lay pages of poems, as if placed just for me. A few books (only three or four) far to the Read more…
Already I am lonely, even though she is not yet gone. It is the loneliness of the future and oddly, of the now. There are days on which I imagine the undisturbed dust in my heat-turned-down house that remains far away. There are Mondays, Tuesdays, and other named days on Read more…
It happened slowly. It may have begun five or six years ago, well before Dad’s rattling breath slowed and then stopped beyond midnight. It may have ended not long ago – humbly – in and beside a hospice bed. And yet, in the mysterious way of these things, it will Read more…
How is it possible to have so many things, so many memories in a small, one bedroom apartment? How is it possible to have brought a collection spanning nearly 70 years to this final waypoint? And why? Because. Combat. Battle. Memories. Treasures. But it was never really about the things. Read more…
Even after it is finished, there is still that which remains unknown and undone. She is gone, and the room is silent except for the distant murmurs of people yet living: trays, wheels, snippets of words, soft soled shoes. And yet, somehow she is not gone. Lois lies in repose. Read more…
His name is Jeffrey. Oh. That’s nice. Any particular reason? No. Just Jeffrey. It came to me. Hmm. Jeffrey is the ten inch tall Christmas gnome I purchased to add a little more cheer. He resides on the pony wall between the galley kitchen and the tiny living room. He Read more…
We drive. We drive to experience the sun. We drive to pass the time. We drive so that Lois won’t sit all day. We drive to talk. We drive to while away the time in companionable silence, with no need of words to get in the way. We are on Read more…
She tries to sneak past me every day! It’s a game we play. One of the aids in Mom’s building smiles as she tells me. We are in Covid times and the staff do regular temperature checks of every member of their little community – staff, visitors and residents alike. Read more…
When I look out the window, I see it. It looms large across the creek. It raises an eyebrow. It bends an ear to listen and then to laugh at our surprise. In an irony that could only be conjured by the Heavens themselves, the rest of Mom’s earthly possessions Read more…
I am back on the Bluffs. As long as Mom remains relatively well, and before the snow brings sure, icy death to these sheer cliffs, this has become my place of refuge, much like my own private Narnia on the borderlands of Calgary. I am here because of John Keats: Read more…
She is bent to 90 degrees. She is standing over her walker, hovering, swaying slowly like an ancient willow fluttering by the water’s edge. It is as if she has forgotten where she is, forgotten that her walker has a seat on which she can rest. It is as if Read more…
Boost! Boost! Boost, boost, boost, boost… BOOOOOOOOOOST! The focused, ferocious, rapid-fire salvo is followed by a pause, an indrawn breath, and finally by a siren-like, Oscar-worthy finish. But it is not a show. It is not a moment of levity. Lois and I are not laughing. I am confused, frustrated. Read more…
She turns to me from the comfort of her lift chair, from the depths of pillows and blankets that keep her warm these days. What about humility? What about it? What do you think it means? Oh, that’s a big one. Yes, it is. What do you think it means? Read more…
Tell me again about the tattoos you have on your arms. Okay. What do you want to know? How do they relate to being Christian? Well, the Tao is also known as the way, the eternal, unknowable way that cannot be named. She nods. Mmm. Okay. Keep going. She delivers Read more…
You’re not going up to the bluffs again, are you? I nod. She raises her eyebrows. I remember that she can’t see me nod. Her macular degeneration has already stolen her gardening, her driving, her books, even the well loved faces of friends and family. I must pay attention or Read more…
It’s the old folks who will trip you up. They have enough sunsets behind them that they will ambush you hard. You’ll never see it coming and when it arrives, it’ll knock you into next week – the place your mom threatened to send you if you talked back like Read more…