I’m trying to remember when I met my mother. She met me on the day I was born, and we spent the next week together. Fathers weren’t welcome at deliveries then, so Dad dropped her off at the hospital and she went in and had her first baby. To top it all off, the world was in the midst of — wait for it — the Asian flu pandemic, a global pandemic of the influenza A virus. A vaccine was released a couple of weeks after my birth, and the rapid deployment of same helped contain the virus. All that to say, the hospital allowed no visitors, and because a birth meant a stay of nearly a week, poor homesick Mom was on her own with me. Naturally, I have no memory of this.

When I was born my mother met me, but I have been wracking my brain to remember when I met her. Technically, that first meeting was mutual, but is it truly a meeting if I can’t recall it? Photos tell me we spent formal time together, sitting with my father and with various grandparents in generational poses. In other pictures, disembodied hands bathe me and cradle me, and I sit in front of a Christmas tree. Parental folklore tells me we spent time together walking the circuit of a small upstairs apartment in the farmhouse where we lived: around the kitchen table, down the hall, around the living room, down the hall, and so on, and so on while colicky me cried. He

I realize memories are fickle and unreliable, but I like mine a lot. It’s probably a sign of age, or more likely because there is little I need for Christmas, but I wish for these impossible things this year.

1.              I wish my parents would go to Massey Hall in Toronto (what a grand-sounding name) to hear Handel’s Messiah again.

What I do recall is crowding around Mom the next morning, anxious to hear the details of their evening out. She would tell us about Lois Marshall, the perennial soprano soloist, who sang like an angel, and my childish mind was in awe as Mom described her, always called by her first name, as if she were a friend. I imagined how beautiful she must have looked in her long gown, crossing the stage using crutches, because she’d once had polio. I’d never seen anyone use them and I was a bit envious.

I want them to get dressed up after supper and go out, leaving us — with whom? I don’t remember, although having someone else stay with us was as unusual as our parents heading to the city at night.

When I was twenty, I performed The Messiah with a large choir, and whenever the soprano sang her solos I thought of Lois.

SERENDIPITY: Something lovely that one has not been looking for.

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Last summer I had a lot of fun writing a short story, “My Tree of the Week”, and it appeared in The Star, a daily publication in Toronto, Ontario. It was a bit of a thrill to see my piece in the Saturday paper, but a greater delight was yet to come.

It’s fun when people comment on my blog posts, but the tree story generated a first. A note from someone I hadn’t seen in fifty years came to my inbox and I couldn’t have been more delighted.

I’m going to digress for a moment. Please bear with me. Continue reading “Serendipitous” →

Can I brag on my son for a bit? I’ve written about Andrew before: here, and here, and here. He certainly has his challenges, but he’s made huge strides since those stories were written, and I mean that quite literally.

Although he was in the Multiple Exceptionalities class in high school, Andrew joined the main stream cross country team. I can’t remember how or why that happened, but when I picked him up after the first practice he told me he’d run 5k. “What?” I exclaimed. “How often did you have to stop to catch your breath?” He looked at me like I was crazy. “I didn’t stop, Mom. The coach told us to run 5k, so I ran 5k. Some of the kids stopped but I just kept on going because I listened to the coach.” I was pretty impressed. Continue reading “Bragging On My Boy.” →

It’s Sunday March 22, 2020, and a lot has changed in the past week. In just seven days we’ve moved from hand-washing++, and social distancing, to “Wow! I sure hope this doesn’t get as bad as it is ‘over there'”, to realizing that it certainly could.

I work in an ER and last week I spent bone-chilling hours outside in our hospital’s COVID Assessment Clinic. When people presented with symptoms or exposure risk I was disheartened by the number implying they wouldn’t take our advice to self isolate at home.

Inside, I’ve seen the mock situations, and real-time transportation of patients with suspected COVID — a parade of porters, security, and environmental services — accompanying the gurney. You can be sure there are way more on the way to the ICU. My stomach rolls when I think that our hospitals could be impacted like Italy’s are, and yet, that is entirely possible. Continue reading “This COVID thing.” →

** NOTE: Written before masks were mandated. **

I know these words aren’t going to change anything, but they have to come out.

I needed a few things from the store today, and because I had a bit of cabin fever (non-COVID-19 variety) I hopped in the car and drove to our small town of Uxbridge.

The first stop was at my favourite small green-grocer’s where business is usually brisk but never overwhelming. But today — holy no parking spaces, Batman! — it was crazy. Carts were FULL of fresh fruits and veg, and aisles so crowded there was hardly a way to get through. I grabbed my few items, and then, wondering if I was a bit nuts, headed over to Walmart. Continue reading “COVID-19. Stay calm.” →

I made marmalade today. I hope I don’t embarrass my mom by saying this, but I’ve never made jam in my life. Except for the occasional batch of quick-set strawberry freezer jam, which always turns out, jam-making isn’t a skill I’ve chosen to hone. Recently, though, I saw a friend’s post about marmalade preparations, and when I asked for, and received, the recipe I thought it must be a sign.

A sign?

Of what??

A sign that I should pick up some luscious fruit from our little local grocer, I guess. I spent a day gazing at them, imagining the golden goodness they’d be when I finally filled my jars with marmalade.

Continue reading “Mmmarmalade.” →