October 3, 2017
___________________________________________ My wife and I saw both our kids off to University last month, our first taste of the ‘empty nest’. Naturally our thoughts turn to our children’s next stages of life. We hope that we have prepared them well, but as anyone who has either had or been a parent knows – parenting is never over. Rather we trade the worries we had when they were young for the worries of life’s next stage. During each stage we delude... View Article
March 1, 2017
——— My parents immigrant story is not an uncommon one. Arriving post war with nothing, they worked, saved, worked, and worked some more. Canada provided them with the opportunity to get ahead, which did not exist in Europe at the time. By the time their youngest of five came along – me – much of the heavy lifting had been done (according to my siblings) and my parents had begun to realize what was for them the ultimate accomplishment –... View Article
January 18, 2016
My wife started a family tradition when the kids were quite young. Each New Years Eve, we would sit together, and jot down on our respective pieces of paper our personal goals -resolutions if you will- that we had for the coming year. Twelve months later we would repeat the process with the added amusement of reading what we had written the previous New Years Eve. The cramped jar has become a testament to my personal shortcomings, as a review... View Article
November 1, 2013Mine is a family of first generation immigrants. My parents, like so many other Canadians, and the majority of my relatives, arrived in Canada shortly after World War Two. New immigrants of that time, as is probably still the case today, cleaved closely to each other for support in a strange new land. When they had kids, those children spent many holidays together with their cousins. My memories of childhood are of a close knit extended family. I loved when... View Article
November 1, 2011 Recently I’ve encountered more and more reminders that I am shifting from one generation to another. I look at people twenty years my junior and think that still ought to be me. Then I’ll catch a glimpse of my children walking through the house and think that I cannot possibly have kids that so closely resemble adults. Though my body reminds me otherwise, I still feel like I should be in my twenties. Yet the reminders that... View Article
