I doubt very much if there is a mother on Earth who doesn’t think from time to time, if not regularly, that she could have done a better job at parenting. I know I wish I had done better. After spending time with my four daughters and celebrating the wonder […]

My family and I celebrated my mother’s life on May 17. Family and friends gathered together in one place—each of us taking our last steps with my mother; remembering her bright light, remembering her smile and her enthusiasm. I think the celebration of my mother’s life was perfect, as perfect […]

Everyone likes soup. Right? Well, not everyone, it turns out, but I’ll get to that later. Personally, I love a bowl of soup on a cold, rainy day—soup that gets into your cells and warms you up from the inside out. But not all soups. Oh my, no. There are […]

I protested almost a year ago, on May 25, 2013. And I plan to protest again this year. I had made my placards, laminated them in case of rain, and stood with more than 500 others clad in raincoats, holding umbrellas, or wrapped in plastic under the threatening sky. I […]

Mother’s Day is a day when I feel more like a daughter than a mother. This marks the first Mother’s Day without my own mother. Despite her not knowing me for more Mother’s Days than I care to count, it feels strange to know that remembering her this year will […]

I don’t have many vices, just a few really. Running shoes. Sweatshirts. Storage containers. To name a few. Not that many. I don’t smoke. I only pretend to drink, having a glass of wine every now and then. I don’t steal cars and go on joy rides, or sell them […]

I recently watched a video created by a Dutch father that captured his daughter’s first 14 years in slightly more than four minutes of continuous images of her developing face. The video appears on Facebook and has done the rounds, I would suspect. The idea is a fascinating one—one I […]

I am grateful for Darce Fardy. Is he an acquaintance of yours? A friend? If so, you are the better for it. Darce Fardy is a former CBC journalist. Let me rephrase that. I would declare that when we write, we write until we no longer can hold a pen, […]

I took my children to Marineland in Niagara Falls when Aimee and Samantha were little. We watched the orcas and the dolphins do their circus act, and we got wet when a huge wave washed over the aquarium wall. We laughed and were amazed by the romance of these intelligent […]

I usually don’t tune in to watch the Academy Awards. I sometimes take a peek at the red carpet gong show, and every now and then I watch the opening montage—except last year’s Seth MacFarlane and his particular brand of bullying in the name of entertainment turned me off completely […]

The 50-year mark has just passed since the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Undoubtedly, most of us are well aware of this fact and tuned in to “The Night That Changed America,” a CBS-hosted look back on the Beatles, who they were, and where they came from. […]