Daily Archives: April 16, 2007

Health

Aches & Pains II

By Marilyn Hay

This is the second post in a two-part series.

Changes and adaptations to my arthritis didn’t end with learning to manage pain or finding new and fulfilling things to do at home. I could no longer manage the spiral staircase where I was living—I came close to falling enough times that it scared me. And the long, brutally cold winters in Winnipeg brought even more constant, relentless pain. I couldn’t bend well enough to get boots on, so was often confined indoors, unable to negotiate the snow. The idea of house-hunting was exhausting and I really didn’t know where to begin looking. I just knew I needed somewhere that wouldn’t get as cold in the winter and, hopefully, wouldn’t have as much snow.

Luckily,
just as I decided I needed to move, friends discovered a new adult
housing development being built in British Columbia, so I didn’t need
to do any house-hunting. I bought a unit online and I’ve lived here for
over two years now. I live in a bungalow now, so no stairs to worry
about. In spite of the fact that the prolonged winter rains and damp
aggravate my joints, I love it. At least I

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Learning

Poland Remembered IV

By Stu Whitley
Bio

This is the fourth in a four-part series.

During his entire life, my father has adhered to a habit of truth—‘truth’ in that he has not been afraid to question the ‘why’ of a thing. This included the way in which the past influences the future, and his determination to manage events to the extent that it has been possible.

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it,” he’d say.

This
was nowhere more apparent than in his decision to emigrate to Canada to
seek a better future for all of us. Three homes in three countries
within the span of a decade:

my childhood in England droppedbelow the horizon of the grey Atlanticen route to a different life in a new worldwell I remember a worn train groaningto a halt for us in a remote northern townof tarred felt paper, clapboard and tin

two brothers and I jostled our way
to the smoke green Pullman cars
only to be yanked back sharply
by a skinny old man in a pillbox cap
declaiming ‘Canadian National Railway’

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