Letters from Rona / Family ties / Sort by date

You know the old saw "Never go to bed angry?" Don't believe it. I learned in the first few years that there's just no hurrying a truce when we both need some breathing room. Here's why we're still together, and what I'm still trying to learn. [more]

In just a few weeks my sister Joyce will arrive in Toronto to promote her new novel Labor Day. This is big news for a number of reasons. She's the only person left from my family of origin. She'll arrive just in time for my birthday. She lives in California, too far away for weekend visits. And the last time she came to my city, 14 years ago this fall, we had a bitter fight that led to a years-long silence. [more]

I've often wondered why no support group existed for frustrated parents of live-in adult children who expect to hang around for as long as they please---no chores, no house rules, no move-out date or action plan. A group of these parents has been gathering here at my site, learning from one another's stories. Now they've launched that much-needed support group, Enablers Anonymous. [more]

Our grandson, at 12, is much amused to learn how my husband spends untold hours of time. Genealogy! Now there's a word to get a 12-year-old rolling his eyes. Think about it: why would anyone choose to study...genies? Hasn't Grandpa heard of Harry Potter? Kidding aside, I too have been perplexed by this midlife passion of my husband's. [more]

Just after my most recent speech on dealing with difficult people, a 40-something woman approached me and confided in a desperate half-whisper, "My problem is my 22-year-old daughter who lives with me. She's a single mother with no job and no plans. It's not working. I don't know how much more of this I can take. What should I do?" [more]

Our grandson had no name for what seemed like the longest time. Then he got one---Gabriel---only to be renamed Cameron. A fine name, in my opinion. But everyone calls him Peanut. As one who never had a baby name, I'd better own up to some mixed emotions about that. [more]

Have you ever cringed at some annoying habit of your father's? Have you wished he'd act more like normal people and less like his incorrigible self? Ann Banks has been there. With Father's Day around the corner, she looks back on the first man in her life and sees the gift that escaped her notice then. [more]

Around our house we never speak of Tim Hortons. It's not that we're too high and mighty for the omnipresent doughnut chain, just that we have our own name for those familiar coffee-scented shops. To us they will always be Hornuts. And when we talk about Hornuts, the real subject isn't fat-and-sugar-laden confections but the identity we've shaped as a family. [more]

I've been cheering for a boy, just turned 18, who has achieved what battalions of lawyers and child welfare experts could not. He brokered a peace in his conflict-ravaged family, torn for the past eight years by the implacable fury of his parents' divorce. Who says today's teens are just gossip-crazed airheads? [more]

A friend is just back from spending several days with her sister. Why am I telling you this? Isn't hanging out together just part of being sisters? Not for these two. They had barely spoken for 15 years. when my friend told me she was making this journey, she looked both resolute and anxious. Now she says her visit was "wonderful." Her eyes glisten. She means "full of wonder." [more]

Friday, April 17, 2009 was to all intents and purposes the first day of spring: a day for sandals and pink nail polish; for skateboards and sidewalk cafes; for remembering to stock up on sunscreen and forgetting you had ever worn clodhopper boots, filmed at the toes with salt. Our second grandson was born on April 17, at 8:30 a.m. [more]

I'm thinking today of a preteen boy in Windsor, Ontario, the auto town just across the river from Detroit. I don't even know his age, let alone his name, his favourite sports team, what kind of music excites him or whether he's ever loved a dog. But I know something intimate about this boy. I know what he fears. When both his parents lost their jobs in the auto industry, he worried that they couldn't afford to raise him. So he tried to take his life. [more]