This photo was taken on a sunny day in 2018 at the Coliseum in Rome. Charlene had gone off to find a bathroom and while I waited, sitting with my back against a stone wall, I looked out at this giant cross. A man crossed in front of me and, after admiring it for a… Continue reading easter sunday
Tag: forgiveness
glory days
Tomorrow night in an American stadium when I see The Boss step on stage, I'll briefly think about the guy who bullied a couple of us on my high school bus when I was in Grade 9 and 10. A jock from the football team for whom the rules that bound the rest of us… Continue reading glory days
on longing
A couple of weeks ago, Richard Gere spent a day just up the street from my City Hall office filming scenes for his new movie called ‘Longing.” It’s an English remake of a critically-acclaimed Israeli film that premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2017. In it, Gere plays an aging bachelor who discovers that… Continue reading on longing
the only one
Tucked away in the corner of a little Italian place that, after the sun went down, was dim like a mine shaft and just as cold, we sat discussing the living we’ve done over the last 30 years. The two of us, middle-aged women now —whose bodies have performed a miracle or two since we… Continue reading the only one
the world still to come
TRIGGER WARNING: Overdose, Death A friend of my son’s passed away unexpectedly on the weekend from a drug overdose. The cause of his accidental death is not being said in hushed tones, the way it once would have been. It was shared openly today in his obituary. He was 22. He’d visited our house a… Continue reading the world still to come
#lovewhatmatters
This story was originally published July 20, 2022 by Love What Matters, a digital platform dedicated to finding and amplifying the daily moments of kindness, compassion and love in the world that so often get overlooked. I was stirring a cup of tea as we sat around the kitchen table at the end of a… Continue reading #lovewhatmatters
about mothers
This is the thing about mothers…. Even as a small child some of us will understand that our mothers have secrets. Longings and hidden sadnesses. Silent sorrows and quiet pains. Some of those things will only ever be told to daughters. And, in that way, we’ll be bound together for eternity by them. Some of… Continue reading about mothers
a brilliant wreckage
I left a brilliant wreckage. A white-hot, smoking tangle of family and love and hopes and forevers – the shatter of which was so great — at least in my mind — that after the words were out, there was no longer any sound. And in the wake of it, I told myself that the… Continue reading a brilliant wreckage
i’m still here
She kneels down next to me and presses her palm to the side of my face. The softness of her. Her hands always so warm. She leans close, pressing her forehead to my cheek. And we stay that way for a minute or two. I’m still here, she says. All you have to do is… Continue reading i’m still here
baggage claim
I couldn’t have known it that night I found myself laying on the carpeted floor of the basement in our old house on Catherine Street – with the land line pressed hard against my ear – that you and I were having our coming out at the same time. It was the dead of summer.… Continue reading baggage claim
MeaningMaker 