He cried when he was born. Mom had said so. But don’t all newborns cry? Leaving warmth and safety for the cold, bright world? He cried in his cot before going to sleep. Yeah, Mom had told him that, too.… Continue Reading
I was sitting in Café New Orleans on Toronto’s Yonge Street one cool autumn day, watching the foot traffic flow north and south, nursing a coffee, my thoughts diffuse. Except for a young couple sharing a quiet tête-à-tête at a… Continue Reading
“Danny, it’s a well-known fact that a man needs a good watch to have a good time,” my pun-prolific dad had said when I graduated college. For years the velvet-lined box lay buried in the back of a dresser drawer… Continue Reading
Gaz rings and tells me he needs a lift — he’s out near St Andrews and he’s hit a kangaroo with his car. “It’s a write-off,” he says. I roll my eyes and leave a half a can of beer… Continue Reading
Posted on December 5, 2023 by Wife of Devoted Packer Fan / 3 Comments I’ve been making sugar cookies for my husband Bob since I was a seventeen-year-old blushing bride, pregnant with what would have been our first child. I… Continue Reading
Sally had been marching up and down this steep hill every day since finishing work. Her route started and ended at the holy well. An ancient stone structure with a black caged roof, fronted by a cracked drinking fountain and… Continue Reading
It’s hot and humid on the last day of August. It’s even hotter inside the small dance hall in Santa Rosa de Aguan, the village on a peninsula bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the front side and the Aguan… Continue Reading
The thing about dipping a headless chicken in a vat of boiling water is you have to get the temperature just right. Too cold and the feathers won’t come off; too hot and the skin starts to peel. You sort… Continue Reading
“Dad? Can you hear me? Do you know if he can hear us?” “I always say to my patients’ families: assume they can. Even if it doesn’t register so well, assume there’s a comfort in hearing your loved ones.” It… Continue Reading
From the closet, I remove the wedding dress my mother made for me thirty years ago. I wanted a form-fitting bodice flaring into a three-tiered ruffled skirt. She sewed a basic bell-shaped gown. You slip into the dress. I zip… Continue Reading