Category: Family
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The Last Thing
Grief is an oscillation between want and have, between need and want, between here and gone. It does strange things to a person. When my mother died I kept saying to my aunt, over and over, “this must be so hard for you”. A Freudian might call it transference. My aunt finally broke and asked…
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Olfactory Sense
I was cleaning the bed linens this morning, which always is accompanied by a spraying down of the mattress with hydrogen peroxide & essential oils (no, not lavender; I don’t especially like lavender). Into the “warsh”, as my great-step-grandmother would say, with the sheets and mattress cover. I love doing the bed linens in summer…
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Labour
There comes a point when a woman is labouring in childbirth when she says “I can’t do this”. Usually that’s a hallmark of what’s called transitional labour, and it usually means she absolutely can do it, and is likely about to do it with aplomb. Well-seasoned labour and delivery midwives have said when you hear…
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40 years
Some anniversaries we don’t need to remember. My father just called to remind me that it was 40 years ago today that his father, my Gramps, was killed in a farm accident. Do you have a singular day that changed the trajectory of your life? I remember that day with crystal clarity. It…
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I wish I were joking
But I’m not. If I wrote this as fiction my editors would cross it out as too far fetched. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/comedy-holiday-horrors-jillian-bell-1.4960005
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Back to Back to School
A Story of Parenting, Told in School Supplies Kindergarten, First Child: I purchased these school supplies over a year ago, have been awake since Friday labelling every pencil, every marker, every individual crayon, every eraser, and every individual tissue in the box. I have labelled every article of my child’s clothing, and moved on to…