Whatever He Says

I have discovered that the road to high drama or comedy often starts out as an innocuous trail of breadcrumbs. Such was the case recently, when in the middle of cleaning her kitchen cupboards my friend Susan texted me with the wry declaration that she was married to a condiments hoarder. “Dozens and dozens of packets of soy-sauce, ketchup, and sundry containers of salad dressing, vinegar, etc.,” she wrote. She thanked God for small mercies--at least Ron didn’t save the packets of salt and pepper, but she said that she could not suggest throwing any of the collection out. Ron had said defensively that the last time the kids were over, he had given them all little ketchup packs to put on their French fries.  “At that rate,” wrote Susan, “there’s no way we will be able to use them up before the end of the next decade! Then there are all the other little packets…And every time he gets takeout…there are MORE!” “Oh, dear,” I texted back, adding that I had used up my ...

I had spent Wednesday upstairs, emptying, cleaning and organizing cupboards, while from the kitchen below the distant whine of an electric screwdriver drifted up--new cupboard doors were being attached to our still sturdy, old cupboard frames. The bathroom cupboards were next to be renewed once the kitchen was finished. Without thinking, I emptied the contents of a clear plastic jewelry organizer onto the bathroom counter-top, so that I could wash and dry it--and instantly the chains of four necklaces formed a pile that became tangled around each other and two red coral earrings. More haste, less speed, I thought, with a sigh. I  tried letting the chains loosely fall apart in my fingers, as much as they would without tugging. Mum had taught me how to do this when I was a child, and I remembered how n o matter how tight the knot in a thread, or how hopelessly knotted a chain was , somehow,  she was always able to undo it; just one of her special talents! I  managed to...

Words--they can be regretted; explained; justified; or apologized for, but never retrieved—and that’s the very thing we often long to do. Once careless, hurtful words are expressed, like homing missiles, they find their mark with terrifying precision and devastation.  And there is no tenderer landing place than a human heart or soul. A sure signal of the need for silence is anger. “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret,” wrote Ambrose Bierce, a 19 th century journalist, who ironically often stirred up a storm of hostile reaction through his writings. Perhaps he spoke from bitter experience. Unfortunately, anger is exactly when words tend to come--“fast and furious". Some of the words I regret the most were spoken to my father. They were true, and it’s not hard to justify them, but they caused him pain. Three months afterwards he died. I would give much to take them back. He was 81 and very deaf due to the effects of war and...

I've often felt out of step with our time-pressured, outcome-measuring society, and never more than now.  I find myself at the end of cashier's lines, as the next person's items start piling up before I've packed and removed my bags. I feel slow as I put away my receipts, while quickly around me the world speeds on. Today I went through a Tim Horton's drive-through and the Tim's card I had loaded with $20 the week before, registered no cash, due to some kind of issue that I will resolve, but in the meantime I needed to pay for the tea I had ordered. After only a few seconds of searching, since I carry and use little cash anymore, the cashier waved me through without having to pay. I have a feeling that had to do with the fact that I was holding up the line behind me.  Later on I went to pick up some colour swatches from our local paint store as we are painting our kitchen and bathroom. I had a list of colour numbers, as I had done some homework on the st...

December 31st...a day to look back before looking ahead; at where I didn't do as well as hoped, and where I have changed for the better (in my experience, with God's help.)  I opened the small pink patterned note book in which I chronicled this year's challenges and victories, its pages secured by a knot, promising confidences kept. I found on the fly-leaf, a conversation I recorded because it encouraged me, and I share it here because it is perfect for this day above all: It was September, and our granddaughter Tippy was living out her dream--an art student at  Sheridan College . She and her class-mates were instructed to draw a picture that represented themselves. Then, anonymously, the drawings were made into a slideshow for the class to view and analyse.  When Tippy's drawing came up, some of the students commented on the strokes, saying that they indicated that the artist was confident and strong. As Tippy recounted this to our daughter Brenda later, sh...

About two weeks before Christmas, a call for help came from Daisy, a friend and respected member of the community  of  Mishkeegogamang , a reserve 2000 kilometers north west of Toronto. She told us that m any of the 200 children who attend  Missabay School  in the growing community,  needed mittens. Since the temperature up there that day was -27 F, the need was obvious. As soon as the need was made known, initially via Facebook, the response was swift. People's hearts were touched by the need and bags of mittens and other donations began to be dropped off for the children.  The next thing was getting the items to the faraway community. Our friends Holly McCleary and Susan Stewart decided that they would drive the precious cargo themselves  between Christmas and New Years.  They set out early the Thursday morning after Christmas and made the distance in an unbelievably short length of time, driving in shifts through the night--2,000 kilometers...

I read the story over lunch a few days before Christmas, and laughed out loud alone in my kitchen, as it brought to colourful life in my imagination, the hilarious scenario played out on the page in black on white. A day or so later, I was talking to my son, and I said, "Pete, I have a gift I'd love from you this Christmas." "Oh?" he said, surprised, I suppose, at my unusual boldness in asking. "What is it?" "It's a story," I said, "And the gift would be that you would read it for me and the rest of the family, when we all get together for Christmas."  He agreed. asking only if he might get the story ahead of time to practice. In the end, with all of the busyness before Christmas, he never did pick up the story to ahead of time, but on Boxing Day, when we all assembled to celebrate what was for some family members, "Christmas Version # 3," the bright-yellow-covered book with its coffee-stained pages was near ...