Where There’s Smoke

  My husband is reading The Road. You know, the post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novel where the world is blanketed in ash and everything is burnt or burning. It’s a fitting setting for the situation in Western Canada this summer. To the south of us, 30-some kilometres away, a fire is burning, which a friend of […]

Ashes to Ashes

Last week, the crematorium where Ulrich had been sent burned to the ground. Once we got over the shock, we said, Of course it did. That has Ulrich’s fingers all over it, my brother said. He wasn’t one to do anything ordinarily. He had a flair for the dramatic. Given the choice, he’d opt for adventure […]

Farewell, Dr. Kretschmar

This past Tuesday, December 16, my step-father left a pot of tea steeping on his desk and went for a walk in the woods. He did not return. Out on the rocky path, under the white pines, he died of a sudden heart attack. Nobody ever thought this would happen. I mean, who does? But, […]