Ella and Ross

I'm watching Ella print her name at our picnic table. Ross is running with a broken tree branch in hand, re-enacting the battle of Stoney Creek. The plants and flowers that surround me are welcoming. The lilies of the valley have stopped blooming but their faintly intoxicating scent fill the air. The alliums are past their prime, just a slight flurry of purple standing on top of long, erect stems. I love the hostas..they are growing large, casting leafy shadows across the garden. We are being watched by chicks and robins. Somewhere within these tall trees, nests are tucked away, loved and protected.

The ferns are getting to be tall and enormous. A baby dogwood is growing in between. Our vines are beginning to leaf, as well as our climbing roses. My favourite of all is an unnamed rose climber that is growing along my children's swing set. It doesn't have thorns, and produces clusters of soft white petals in the summer.

This is the place where I feel the most peaceful. Rabbit statueary peeking from behind hostas and lilies. Statueary of children overlooking the garden. And the sound of my children running and playing, and colouring on Dave's slate picnic table.

Tori Missing

It felt like the longs weeks had blended into one, and there was that feeling in the air of hope mingled with fear. There was the possibility of her returning home, or so I thought. Then the unimaginable happened. Murder printed in dark ink, embedding its painful mark behind and sending shocks of terror into once-hopeful citizens.

First, it is a feeling of terror that takes over someone when they first hear the news. Then rage, for the loss of life, and for the agony of her family.

Lowville Park

I waited desperately for spring and now its here. The heavy fragrance of lilac evokes memories of my father once more and his love of their perfume. It was his birthday on May 14 and in some ways I felt him around me, around my children and around the things that mattered to him.

Today we visited Lowville Park. The same place where my father brought us when we were children and what sweet memories they were. I remember a time before his passing when I was not well and we visited this place together..this place of healing.

It was amazing to be here today with my husband and my children, visiting streams and well-travelled paths. I'd forgotten how much space there was to wander, to become easily lost in one's thoughts. My daughter looked for fish in the cool stream and my son moved through the grass looking for sticks to throw into the water.

The big hill, the streams, the sunlit paths, and the barn nearby with grazing horses had not changed at all. It was as if I were revisiting pictures of my childhood except I was looking at precious childhood moments being lived through by my children.

War dreams

Tonight will be one of those nights, where I will see you in my dreams. I'll dream I am a child again, sleeping in my bed when suddenly you cry out from your sleep. Once again you are in your warplane, death and dying underneath. Or maybe you are holding vigil for your young friends in their charred soldier's uniform.

I'll call you from across the hall. You will wake for a few brief moments and know where you are. You'll feel safe at last.

Snow on Cedar

I am watching the snow falling on the cedars in my backyard. I can't believe that Christmas Eve is a day a way. I need to get the house in order. Piles of laundry to fold and put away. Presents to wrap.

Ross is feeling unwell. I find it hard to stay on top of anything when he seems so unwell. Ella on the other hand, is energetic and noisy. She is laughing and talking in the loudest voice she can manage.

The last couple of weeks I have been hearing noises from within my bedroom. It sounds like the sorts of noises that belonged only to Bunjie. His rapsy breaths, the sounds of his paws on the wood floor. Has it really been a year since his passing? I have missed him so much.

David's grandfather passed a way recently. We missed the funeral because Ross was too sick to attend, but we saw him just before he passed. He was a kind, gentle man. There was something so peaceful about the last time we saw. He seemed aware of our presence. He tried several times to open his eyes, to acknowledge us. A sound came from deep within his throat. A unformed word. But a sound that did not need a reply. As he lay in his bed, I could not help but remember the last time I saw my father in his own hospital bed. I felt profoundly sad. For a moment it was not my husband's grandfather I was looking at, but my father. I thought of the grandchild he would never meet, as well as other life events he would not be part of. Atleast not in the physical world.

Then, I was was sitting next to my husband's grandfather again. A man who was much more than my husband's grandfather. A person who had accepted me into his family even before I married into it. Oh I don't think I'll ever look into eyes again that shine like a million suns.

Imaginary Places

Ross turned 7 on August 8. I can't believe he is 7, although he looks older. He is tall and lanky, and has stopped stumbling over his coltish legs. He is wonderfully handsome, and wonderfully imaginative. Right now he is assembling leggo and humming a tune from the Star Wars soundtrack. He at some point today placed one of his little clones inside his sister's flower pot. Next to his clone is a paper heart which Ella made at camp yesterday.

Outside a white butterfly is floating effortless up the cedar. I should be pulling weeds or rearranging rocks in the rock garden. But here I am, indoors, planted on my couch, wondering what it is about the summer which makes each day blend in to one.

When I was the age of both my children my thoughts were hazy dreams carrying me along a wingless, effortless flight to happy places, imaginary.

Watership Down

The other night, Ross and I were looking for your tree. The sun was setting deep in the sky, and a solitary bird was singing in it. I could not tell your tree apart from the other trees at first, but Ross found it as if by instinct. The branches were stretching out into the sky. There was something mystical about it all. The light fading, the bird guiding Ross it. The branches melting into a quiet sea of sky.

And, as we were leaving the park, a dozen rabbits came out of nowhere. Their silhouettes creeping across the grass. Moving slowly and carefully in the darkness. I felt as if we were living among the pages of Watership Down, watching the rabbits take refuge, in the safety of their own shadows.

It seemed fitting, for the night to end this way.