Having rained all weekend, I was getting upset that I would not be able to go outside and work in my flower garden because of the dark clouds. My fifteen year son ( who has autism ) brought it all back for me when he simply stated, with a smile :
“There is no cloudless rain “. Words of wisdom for that moment and for my whole life.
Submitted By Anne Gingras
One winter day, my dad and I venture off for a day of ice fishing. We were meeting my uncle there. As usual my uncle had his video camera and regular camera with him to be able to capture that great catch that we always hoped for.
This one Saturday, we get to our spot and my dad had his routine of what he did to get organized and I have the packsack on my back that has our lunch and my dad’s thermos with his coffee and other stuff needed for our day. Of course being anxious I couldn’t wait for my dad to take the packsack off my back has he had asked. I start wiggling, and trying to get this huge and heavy packsack off my back. Well, I guess the packsack wasn’t closed properly so as I was wiggling, doesn’t my dad’s thermos fall out onto the ice and cracks open as it hit the ice. There was my uncle filming the whole thing and as you can imagine my dad wasn’t too happy but me being a kid thought it was funny and couldn’t stop giggling.
The next week, we go out again and this time I waited before trying to get the packsack off my back. This time, there was a happy ending to the day. I caught this huge fish and there was my uncle with the camera who was able to capture my catch. I guess when we got home I must have had the same smirk on my face because my mom immediately asked me what I broke this time but I was just excited cause I had caught the huge fish. So now whenever my mom shows the picture of me and my fish of course the story of the “broken thermos” follows.
I guess I’ll never live that down. But now, whenever I go fishing it reminds me of when I was young and the fun times I had with my dad.
Submitted By June Taylor
In 1982 my husband and I purchased a Century home in the rural South Western Ontario village of Ripley, population 529. It is inhabited mostly by retired farmers, not too many young people! I had two very young children, ages 3 and 2 years old. I was overjoyed to learn that our new neighbours would be a young family with a son the same age as my 3 year old daughter. As a stay-at-home mom at the time, this was welcomed news!
Over the next year or so, the children became fast friends as did Stacy and I. The kids would either be in our yard playing or next door in their yard, toys belonging to all the of the children in both yards.
One day however, everything changed. I found Stacy one morning hauling a wagon load of her son’s toys back over to her yard and taking our toys from her yard back into our yard. Not a word was uttered between us. I was shocked and hurt and wondered what I had done to offend her. If we were walking down the street, she would cross to the other side. I did not understand it at all!
That winter we had a chimney fire and my husband and I gathered the children running out into the frigid night air to our elderly neighbour’s home, while fire trucks gathered on our street. A terrifying experience to say the least! People in the neighbourhood were out on there verandas watching all the excitement, including Stacy’s little family. No major damage from the fire, we returned that night to our humble abode.
The next morning the phone rang….it was Stacy! “ME WANT TO SMOKE EM PEACE PIPE” would I come over for a coffee. I went as soon as I could.
She told me that her behaviour had nothing to do with me, I had done nothing wrong. Before moving to the neighbourhood, she had delivered a baby girl that had survived birth only to pass away three days old due to complications. Every time she had to interact with my young daughter it was just too overwhelming for her to bear and she did not know how to deal with her grief, so she ended the friendship. I learned that day how grief can get a hold of you. The fire had made her realize that life was too short and would I forgive her!
I have since moved away from Ripley some 20 years now. We keep in touch via the internet and every year I make my way back to the area, I always include a visit with my friend Stacy and we share a coffee and swap stories. It feels like I’ve never left!
Submitted By Lynn
My daughter started Nipissing University in 1992. That year October 31st her grandmother passed away. She had come home not expecting this to happen and had not told any of her room mates.
When Amy did not return by Monday one of her room mates tracked her down, using a phonebook, calling the people with the same last name until she found her.
This to me is important. Friends who take care of you as if you were family.
Submitted By Judy
It was the week before Christmas when we loaded up the family station wagon and our family of nine minus one made our way from Newfoundland to Ottawa. We weren’t going for Christmas, we were moving.
Our family had fallen on tough times and on December 13, 1968 our family of nine minus one, descended (by invitation) on my aunt and her family. Who does that? Living in a three bedroom duplex house, family of 4 and you take in your sister’s clan of eight? Who does that? Family.
We stayed with my aunt and her family for six months, until my parents were able to find jobs and a place of our own. In the years that have followed we have done in kind for others. That’s what families do; they take care of each other.
Submitted By Ann McCarthy
I will never forget my first year living in residence at Nipissing University, and more importantly it was my first year living on my own. Thank goodness for long distance calling cards because there were countless phone calls home to mom asking about the little things that she always made look so easy. For example: Laundry – why did my favorite sweater come out of the dryer at a tenth of its original size? Cooking – I bought some chicken…now what do I do? Cleaning – any tips on scrubbing dishes that have been sitting for a week? Banking – what does insufficient funds mean? As the year went on, my roommates became my extended family and together we rallied to survive on our own! While it wasn’t always easy, that first year was an adventure and I wouldn’t trade one second of it! Thanks families!
Submitted By Samantha
I was on my daily walk with my two young children one warm sunny morning in Ripley Ontario (believe or not) when an elderly neighbour stopped us to chat for a bit. When she greeted my son Adam, who was around three and a half years old at the time, she began gently patting him on the head saying hello to him. He scrunched up his shoulders and scowled up at me and said: “mom, why is Mrs. Lock patting me on the head like a dog”. Mortified and embarrassed I looked over at my lovely little neighbour getting ready to apologize to her, when she said with a great big grin on her face: “Out of the mouths of babes, you just never know what they are going to come out with do you?”
Kids! You got to love them!
Submitted By Lynn Landry
My story begins as I was having snuggle time with my four year old daughter. We were enjoying a television show about baby animals on Animal Planet. Emma was tired and happily sucking her thumb. A commercial came on about a busy mom with hair issues selling a shampoo product. The “mommy” on TV closely resembled a tall, slender supermodel. I wasn’t paying much attention until Emma looked at me curiously and popped her thumb out. She looked at the TV and then at me and she said “Mommy maybe you should be skinnier and have long hair and mommy are you finished growing?” I smiled at her, but considering I am seriously lacking in the “tall” department, had short hair, and a leftover baby belly, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. In the midst of feeling inadequate and a little sad a question popped out and I asked “Emma, would you love mommy more if I looked that way?” “Oh No”! Emma replied, “I couldn’t love you more.” She smiled and popped her thumb back in. I smiled too. Emma is now 10 years old, and I often catch her looking in the mirror. I hope we have been able to teach her that we “couldn’t love her more”.
Submitted By Tammy Kirik
When I was growing up in the mid 60s, the world was a very different place than it is today. It may have been more illusion than reality but there was generally a widely held belief that kids were safe in their communities and, in a time before the internet, video games and other forms of entertainment, my brother and sisters and our friends were almost always playing outside. We would leave home in the morning and often didn’t return home until dinner time.
I grew up in Grimsby, Ontario. Situated between the Niagara escarpment and Lake Ontario, there was no shortage of terrain and lakeshore to explore. When we weren’t walking along the beach to see how far we could go before running out of shoreline, we were climbing “the mountain” in search of any new adventure we could find. Fun almost always consisted of something that would be considered risky and downright dangerous by today’s standards. There were cliffs at the lake and on the face of the escarpment and we spent a great deal of time ascending and descending those cliffs for the simple pleasure of claiming a vantage point that offered an opportunity to survey our world. We were always doing stupid things and I am amazed that we all survived… but we did survive and I know that our lives were enriched by the experiences that we shared.
I remember one such experience. My brother and I decided to head to the lake for a swim. We had a favourite spot. It was a favourite because there was a large rock that sat about 50 yards offshore. The top of the rock was pretty much even with the surface of the water and the water was about 8 feet deep all around. We would always swim out to the rock, stand on it, jump off of it, push each other off of it; we just plain horsed around on it.
On the day that my brother and I went swimming, it was windy and there were large waves rolling in. Undeterred, we swam out to the rock for our usual “fun” but soon learned that we couldn’t do much of anything because every time we managed to climb aboard, it was a matter of moments before a large wave would wash us off. Very quickly, we invented some new “fun”. We repeatedly climbed on to the rock, seated ourselves and hung on for dear life. The one who was washed off lost that round. I don’t know how long we played that game but it must have been a long time because, as we started to head home, my brother was few steps in front of me when I noticed that the seat of his bathing suit was gone… worn right through… one butt cheek protruding from each side! I thought it was quite funny until I reached around to feel the back of my bathing suit and realized that I was in the same predicament. We arrived home with our towels wrapped around our waists and everybody had a good laugh at what we’d done.
For years after that, the story would get trotted out from time to time and we’d all have a laugh recalling the humour of the situation and wondering at how hard we used to play when we were young and foolish. My brother died about 10 years ago and, although we hadn’t talked about that day for decades, the story was told again as we sat around talking after the funeral and we all had one more laugh about something that happened in our family so long ago… a shared memory and a fitting tribute to a childhood well spent.
