“Be well.” This is what I said to my students. It was after a recent class. Then they left for the various corners of their lives. We’d just unpacked “Cathedral,” a story by Raymond Carver. He often wrote about broken characters, broken in ways that Carver himself was broken. “Be well.” Then they were gone.
My own funeral? Imagine. Read More »
She was a friend and it was her funeral and we were reminded how life is little more than a fleeting mist.
Moments of her life were shown. Photos. There she is — her name is Wendy — as a young girl. Later, a graduate. Then Wendy the writer and editor, the years I knew her. I found her to be a thinking person who laughed easily
The sacredness of the moment Read More »
By the time I came home that day there were already six vehicles in front of the tiny condo that is our neighbour’s – an ambulance, a fire truck, two Emergency 911 vehicles and two paramedic trucks – but they could have brought every life-saving unit this side of the moon and it wouldn’t have mattered
Celebrating an old life lost. And a young one with joy. Read More »
The two neighbour boys are 8 and 5 and it looks like their father is about to die. It’s this morning. My kids and I walk to school with them and the boys’ mother. The 8-year-old is in Hannah’s class. What can you say? + It’s yesterday evening and we, Mother and I, that is Jean
The valley of the shadow of death Read More »
We arrived at the chapel to find Timothy’s casket sitting heavy at the entrance. This, yesterday morning when we had walked down the familiar green hill to the chapel, the university chapel of dark wood and century-old brick, a place the children have known as Sunday school for some years, a place now to say
Timothy Mugisha died in his mother’s arms Read More »
The children had dental appointments and I was running late and so found myself in the back without a program in hand, a thousand people in front of me, a thousand faces, a thousand hearts, some in black clothing, some not, all coming together for one purpose, to say goodbye to Tim Bosma. We listened
Tim Bosma’s funeral: a bittersweet day Read More »
