Life is Your Story

My father broke his back last week. He has since been in the hospital recovering although in much pain and enduring several complications that are particularly scary as he moves closer to 80 years of age. My family came together instantly like a task force or for all my Montreal readers, like a group of students revved up for a demonstration, a unrelenting desire to stand by our beliefs, our moral code, our father. What's sad when you get to this stage of life (that being me and my siblings all in our 40s with families of our own, challenging careers, schedules, our own health issues, financial burdens, etc) you have to stand back and pause and deal with the realization that your parents are aging quickly and as this process mangles whatever quality of life they had, you watch them change and lose their independance. It hurts to see them hurt and it's exhausting to stand by their bed and it's disheartening to know that they cannot feed, bathe, relieve themselves...

Towels of my life. 3 yrs old, cold, shivering, running out of the gated kids area at Blossom Pool, my mother, kneeling, open towel, wrap around me, warm, fabric softener scent, hug, love, safe. Guest - friends country house - age 11 - weekend in winter - new discovery - some families have two houses - one for the week - one for the weekend - we don't - here is the guestroom, here is the washroom and here is your towel - large, plush - it may even be new - yes I think they gave me a new towel - welcome. Boyfriend - Me - first shower with someone other than myself - towel on, towel off - all weekend long - fun, exciting, daring - and lots of towels. Grandmother - MS - confined to bed for 30 years - paralyzed from neck down - forehead as in head as in only part of body she can feel - heating up - fever - me 16,towel - cold water - hold gently on her against her forehead - brush of fingers to her cheek - does she know I love her? - does she know I wish I could fix her? - get a...

A s another year expires and another begins its journey, it's the simple things in life that we should appreciate. The rest, well it will come and go and although it will leave an imprint, it won't last deeply and spiritually. Here's to the simple things: - A New Years Eve surrounded by the people that matter to you most in the world and a countdown that is really a count forward of hope and what faith does with it. - A walk in the cold winter snow talking about real things with someone who listens because they care about what you have to say and from where those words come. - Cooking, laughing, hugging and catching the eye of someone across the room who has already caught yours. - Reuniting with family and friends who may be spread across the map but when you are together it's as if you were never apart. - Welcoming a new member of the family - a baby, a significant other, a friend who would otherwise be alone for the holidays and suddenly feels as if t...

We all experience it at some time in our lives. There's this fantastically delicious person - a friend - a co-worker - who you've been hanging out with for years. On the outside, you're cool and breezy having drinks, cooking dinner, deep talks over coffee and wine, a quick lunch and always saying "Goodnight" instead of "Stay". You have kissed their cheeks a million times yet never felt the sensation of their lips against yours. And although there were those nights when you fell asleep together on the couch or even in your bed, both in a drunken stupor or after having comforted one another through a tough time, you have never been skin to skin. Your bodies have never been intertwined and tangled in the glorious and raucous rolling of love making. You've said "I love you" but you've never said "I'm in love with you" and you've listened to all their stories about the spun and spoiled romances that have come their ...

It's already becoming dark outside earlier. It's already Fall. The Jewish New Year is knocking at the door and standing there by it are the souls we have lost in the year gone by. Whenever there is a holiday or a reason for our family to get together and sit around a dinner table I am reminded of how fortunate I am. At the same time, I look for family members, people I have so greatly loved and so very much miss who no longer sit there in a chair conversing, laughing and looking my way. We all lose people we love and when holidays come around, especially the New Year, a myriad of memories flood our minds and churn at our souls leaving us short of breath and weak at the knees. A Grandmother, a sister, a brother, an uncle, a mom, a dad - where have they gone and how do you move forward without them? Scents bring me back. This time of year when I arrive at my parents home and I smell the chicken soup, roast potatoes and my mother's incredible cakes and pies, I can close my eye...

Ethan Hawke. An actor who has played the same part over and over again and I don't think he has washed his hair once. He also smokes throughout all of his movies and although he is evidently not clean, the women love him and you know what? So do I. He's a bad boy. We like bad boys (we is you and me so just nod). When I was studying creative writing and literature at Concordia University in Montreal (where I learned about run along sentences and commas or was that semi-colons or were those semi-colons...I don't know because I never listened and here comes a dash) - there was this guy in my class. His name was well I can't really say his name so I will call him Tray (cause I always wanted to date a guy named Tray). Yes so Tray use to sit at the back of the class with me while our classic literature teacher read Chaucer (very confusing trust me). Trace would roll his cigarettes one by one, licking them closed with his tongue. The first time we spoke, class had ended...

We all start relationships with the best of intentions. We meet someone and they make us feel good about ourselves. They make us feel whole and alive. These feelings are amazing. They are some of the most incredible we have in our lifetimes. However they don't always stay because sooner or later we show our true colours, we argue over the same thing again and again and we lose the physical attraction we have for one another. When all of that takes place, you better have a rock hard friendship to hold up that bridge because a bridge is what you are going to need to get from there to somewhere new, next and better. Think about this - how often do you argue your partner (minimum 5 years together)? How often have you lied about something because it's easier to lie than to have an argument? How often have you said something really awful in the heat of a fight that you wish you hadn't said and you know you can't take back because it will still be there looming ...

Think of your childhood in a flash not at length. Close your eyes. What do you see? I see myself at 7 yrs of age. I am with my grandmother who was in the early stages of a devastating disease - MS. At the time she has a walker but 5 years later she would become paralyzed from the neck down and condemned to a hospital bed. We are on a picnic by a large fountain that shoots up from the mossy base so high that I can see it catch the rays of the sun. My grandmother is smiling and laughing and she affectionately brushes my cheek with her hand and kisses me on the forehead and says "I am very proud of you and I love you." I close my eyes again and I see my dog Buster who passed away last fall just before his fifth birthday from Cancer. This is a constant vision I have of him. He is sitting on the top stair waiting for me to come home. I open the door and there he is just waiting - no matter how long - he waits. He runs down to greet me and pushes me into the wall with...