My firstborn granddaughter will be eighteen years old tomorrow. She’s somewhere in France, working on a variety of organic farms, taking a gap year before the grind of university. I miss her terribly, but have wonderful memories of that extraordinary girl and can hardly wait to see her again. Until then, let me share the miracle of the Hibiscus... Bethany lived with me for odd chunks of her growing-up years. One day when I picked her up from school, she informed me that she needed a dress for ballet photos which were to be taken the next morning at [...]

At the age of 13, my eldest son, Timothy, was already showing signs of the determined adventurer he would become. I had the boys in swimming lessons for the summer at a pristine little lake in Central Ontario. One day, as the lesson time drew to a close, the instructor said, “OK - we’ve got a few minutes left until the end of the class. Let’s see who can swim the furthest under water. Naturally, Tim won, but came out of the water with a whopper of a headache. For a boy who was not prone to headaches, it [...]

This business of divorce is not all it's cracked up to be — not that I ever wanted one in the first place. Sometimes I love the independence and the surety that if I leave the portable phone somewhere, it will be right where I left it when I want it next, but coming home to the silence of an empty apartment can be very difficult after 38 years of noisy co-habitation with a spouse and family members who made their way into the world, one by one.Recently, I went through three very dark days when I hardly knew how [...]

When we were in the process of buying our last home, I stood with the realtor and my (then) husband on the back deck gazing out at the magnificence of the fields and woods all around us. It was a pastoral scene, utterly peaceful.Until I looked down and saw one of the biggest, fattest, blackest, leggiest spiders I have ever seen. Jumping to the side, out of the corner of my eye I saw something else move. It was another gross spider. Looking a little closer at the deck, I was horrified to see that the two creatures had a [...]

I bought a brand new car last week. It wasn't the car I had originally planned to buy. Here's what happened.My little Honda has served me well, but I felt that the Lord was nudging me to trade. My speedometer was about to go into 200,000 km. neverland and the car would soon be another year older. I needed new tires and who knew what else was around the corner?So I thought I'd trade up from my 2001 to a 2004 Honda I found with only 46,000 km on it. It seemed like the perfect solution. I didn't anticipate any [...]

For about 30 years, I've been having interesting discussions with my agnostic dentist about the reality of God—sometimes particularly interesting when I'm trying to make a point with his drill in my mouth! He always does that to me - says something he knows I'll take exception to and then starts drilling away! We've had a lot of fun jousting back and forth over the years.Every time I have a new book published, I take a copy in to him in hopes that something in my writing will ring a bell.I recently had a Legacy Journal published called, To My [...]