Talking to my dinner plate again
So, it’s that time, Single Daddin’ It, again. As you might recall, this is when the children’s mother is out of country and I am left to look at my dinner plate and ask it [...]
We live with our parents, even when we don’t
(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, September 17, 2016) ABOARD KLM FLIGHT 535 TO UGANDA ✦ I’ve always envied people who could watch their mothers grow old. My mother, I’ve shared previously, passed on when I was in kindergarten. I hadn’t seen her for two years prior to that. Funny to think of it here, half asleep at 40,000 feet.
We’re back
We’re back in Africa (with the cats and dog and everyone else). So is this blog. They, the Ugandans, always call it a holiday. “So how was your holiday?” they’ll ask. It gets too complicated [...]
In honour of my father and his well-lived life
(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, August 27, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It was a different time and place on the day I watched another human being die in my father’s arms. I was just a boy. Bert had epileptic seizures, medically uncontrollable then. Tall and lanky, he’d crumple and fall hard on the floor in the house, or outside under the apple tree, or in places between, shaking, convulsing, rigid as a board. I’d watch. All the time. Bert lived with us.
The good news about the bad news
(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, August 20, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It’s funny how you can give a torch to someone and he’ll light up the world, and give the same torch to someone else and he’ll burn the place down. It’s like love and hate. They’re both consuming fires, but with different ends. (The ultimate difference is that hate is all-consuming, and, like evil, will eventually consume itself.)
An anniversary wish to the music of my life
(The Hamilton Spectator - Friday, July 29, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It's a warm and ordinary day, warm and ordinary enough to run around in shorts and bare feet. The children's mother, your babe, that is your bride, is playing your song. The cats are in front and the dog's in back and the kids are doing homework and nothing much is happening, except this song from the piano in the other room, the piece that makes your blood jump every time.
Playing hockey with Gordie and Mario — sort of
(The Hamilton Spectator - Wednesday, July 13, 2016) SEWICKLEY, PA ✦ Gordie Howe died on the day we played hockey in front of Mario Lemieux’s house. It was one of those things.
Lessons we can learn from Eddie the Eagle
(The Hamilton Spectator, Monday, July 4, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ "They that wait upon the Lord will mount up with wings as eagles; they will run and not be weary; they will walk and not faint." The Hebrew prophet, Isaiah The sad news of the day, or any day, is that the world is full of people who lack hope and basic belief in themselves because they've long been told in one way or another that they'll never amount to anything, that they have nothing to offer, and the sooner they realize this the better it will be for all concerned.
A world where the beautiful and terrible live side by side
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, June 18, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It was my daughter's first teenage birthday party and the family van was full of giggling girls. The verdict on the Tim Bosma trial wasn't in, not yet, when we pulled into the bowling ally across from Carmen's banquet hall and I said, "Tim Bosma's funeral was in that hall. And his wedding too." Silence fell. One girl said it was terrible what happened to Tim. Then my barely 13-year-old asked, "Why would they have his wedding and funeral at the same place?"
Love and courage in a well-lit café
It’s USA Today and a story about Muhammad Ali here at Café Amis, an American-French café on a cobblestone street in Sewickley, PA. It’s a cool spot on a warm Saturday near Pittsburgh, a small [...]
Wrong seat. Wrong country. No phone. No mouse.
So, I just filled out Canada’s most recent census, barely beating the May 31 deadline and thus staying out of jail and fulfilling this duty of those of us living in this great country. Before [...]
Home is a place of God’s differences
(The UCU Standard - Monday, May 23, 2016) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It was in Canada and we were at a campy lakeside retreat, and it was a beautiful summer day and a gaggle of children were playing outside the large window near where we ate. My daughter, that is my adopted Ugandan daughter, Hannah, looked at me with a tear rolling down her cheek. I asked her what was the matter, and, looking down in shame, she said, “I’m the only black person here.”
Tim Bosma’s funeral. A bittersweet day / Tim Bosma, dream house builder. Don’t let your heart be troubled. (Reposts)
Three years ago yesterday the public was invited to a funeral to mourn the death of Tim Bosma. To honor Tim and his memory and to acknowledge the impact his murder has had on the [...]
The mouse and the dishwasher
(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, May 20, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ So it's the middle of the night and my wife walks into the bedroom and says: "There's a mouse in the dishwasher." This is strange even for our household, the sort of announcement that suggests my wife is hallucinating from working way too late, again, or that I'm having one of those dreams.
Israel: a small nation with a very large history
It was Shabbat, the Sabbath, Friday evening, and after a mad frenzy to close the markets and clean the strewn and tossed streets by 6 pm, everything got quiet. This is when I saw them, an Orthodox Jewish father and his boy walking ...
Returning to Hamilton, Ugandan treasure beside us
I will miss the light of Africa as much as I will miss anything. I will miss the water too. This, even as I’ll miss Africa itself, the birthplace of our youngest daughter, the place where the light shines so beautifully on her skin.
A new holiday, just for talking animals. Really.
One day Adam woke up and looked around and the place was his. He saw the animals. “Lion,” he said, in a manner of speaking. Then “lamb.” And so forth. They all had good relationships. They were at peace, lying around together. It was Eden.
Swimming in laughter and tears: Goodbye, Africa
The original meaning “God be with ye” disappeared into the phrase “good-bye” long ago. But this is what I’m now left with, this long good-bye. It’s a prayer as much as anything, this good-bye to Africa. These days I’m swimming in it ...