MEANINGMAKER

grief

  • the secret to a good life

    In the last week of my life, I hope that my front door sees a steady parade of people who love me and, knowing that I don’t have much time left, they show up bearing cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets and… Continue reading

  • the gift

    Thirteen years ago, on March 28, I left my City Hall job for my first day at a large, international corporation, working in Communications. Every day that first week,  I worried that I wouldn’t find my way back to my… Continue reading

  • the classroom

    It’s been five years since I last sat in this church. Sacre-Coeur: the literal sacred heart of Paris.   The last time I passed through its hewn wooden doors, stretching toward the heavens, my mom had just died. It had… Continue reading

  • remembrance

    As a kid, Christmas always felt like the day that held all of time together. Like a magic blanket that wrapped itself around us all at the end of the year. Life was timeless then. Everything was in the present… Continue reading

  • carrying me still

    On the morning of the day I turned 37, my mother was the first person to call me with birthday wishes. That was true every year. She was always the first to call. Always around 7 a.m. But that year’s… Continue reading

  • the guest book

    In the basement this afternoon, looking for a paint brush, I noticed a clear plastic bin on a low shelf. What caught my eye was a snatch of colour I immediately recognized as a beautiful throw that my dad’s mom, my… Continue reading

  • the wedding speech

    Our daughter got married this weekend and so, naturally, I want to tell a love story. Weddings are most always a love story about the bride and groom. But this is not quite the love story you think it is.… Continue reading

  • the river

    The river is rolling by this afternoon. On its way, I realize, to I don’t know where. As I sit next to it, listening to its song, I wonder why it is that such a simple thing is stirring the… Continue reading

  • something more

    I think that deep down in our souls, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task here. But, in my mind, we don’t talk about the mystical experiences we have enough. I… Continue reading

  • what it will be

    Whenever life got hard, Mom would often say, “it will be what it will be.” I assumed that she meant that things would turn out as they should — good or bad — and she would deal with it either… Continue reading