pain
Recently, I had the chance to catch up with an old friend whose family was expecting their third child: a daughter, after two sons. [Actually, I started this post more than a month ago, and as it happens, said daughter was born TODAY, early this morning! So read on, in honour of wee baby EC’s birth day.] This friend is […]
“How’s your relationship these days?” is not a question most of us ever ask people. I’ve probably only ever asked it of newlyweds (where it’s more like “How’s married life?” nudge-nudge) or of very close friends with whom I have a precedent of relationship discussions. It is a bit odd, though. Among parents, there are the constant “how are your kids” conversations, […]
Today is November 20th. It is International Children’s Day, which is well-known. Less well known is the fact that it is also Trans Day of Remembrance. Last Thursday, I went to a Professional Development workshop on Safer and Inclusive Schools, regarding the LGBTQ community in our education system. It was a fascinating day, led by an incredibly well-spoken guy from the […]
It’s October 15th: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. On July 9th, 2011, as you know, our Sebastian was stillborn at 35.5 weeks’ gestation. I have learned things, since then, about mothering an invisible child. Although I don’t presume to speak for other babylost parents here, some will relate. It gets easier. Functioning day-to-day, compartmentalizing to get things done, packing away […]
We had awful, awful news at our school last week. A five-year-old girl died after returning home from school one afternoon. One of our own kindergarten students. It’s like a punch in the gut, a slap in the face that makes you see stars, and makes the colours all weirdly bright. Suddenly danger is brilliantly visible in every cranny of […]
Happy New Year, lovely Di-hards. I’m making wishes today. This one is for you: I wish for your baby to be born so sweet and healthy that the whole world smiles. And you: I wish for that project you’re working on to grow wings and take off (with you in the pilot seat, of course). And you: I wish for you to kick […]
This past Thursday, October 10th, was World Mental Health Day. Please, let’s talk. Mental health, or lack thereof, is a subject very close to my heart. Several people who share my blood have struggled with depression and similar mental illnesses. So has my husband. In fact, my Hubbibi was suffering from depression when we first got together. It had dogged […]
It’s here. This day has been homing in on me for weeks. As I begin to write this, at 2:21 p.m., it was exactly two years ago that my husband and I wandered around the mall with my induction prescription in hand, wondering how we’d manage family phone calls to tell everyone that the baby had died. In the last […]
Now the Boston manhunt has come to its conclusion and the case is waiting, I am left with a broken feeling. After my last post, two of my philosophical readers had a discussion in the comments. One wrote: Imagine you live in a small, impoverished village in a third-world country like Pakistan or Afghanistan. Imagine that one day you hear […]
I just don’t understand. What point could you possibly be trying to make? You got something against long-distance runners? Did you try to do the Boston Marathon once and not finish? Or do you have something against mobility in general? Thanks to you, dozens of people have lost limbs. Boom. Just like that. Perhaps you’re an amputee with a bitter […]
