It's been two days now since my mother died, and I'm just beginning to plumb the depths of the hole her absence leaves in my heart. I know that this will take much more than two days to discover - in fact, I still can't really believe it's true.In the days leading up to her death, as her lucid periods became shorter and less frequent, and her periods of physical discomfort became greater and more frequent, I longed for her death to arrive soon. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed to admit it. It was hard. Terribly, horribly hard. It was... More »

Let me set the stage...it's a darkened movie theatre on the May long weekend and I'm preparing to see Angels & Demons. The trailers are running and I'm all geared up because this is one of the things I love best about movies: the trailers. But not on this evening, because the trailer I'm watching is for My Sister's Keeper, and it's just hitting way too close to home. Kate's bald head under a toque, her nosebleeds, her hospital room, the inevitable outcome of this thing called cancer. I sob into my pink pashmina and smear mascara all over it... More »