It is funny how sometimes you can be instantly thrown back into time. My grandfather and I always talked about this - about how an image, sound, smell or taste could bring you to another decade. It was a tool we used quite often when we talked about his time growing up in Ukraine. Sometimes, …
Embrace Our Village
I have been thinking a lot about my grandfather over the past two weeks. I have been having dreams about him and our conversations. Dreams so real I feel as if I could reach out and touch his hand - feel his wrinkled and weathered skin - his warmth. In the last week those dreams …
Going ‘home’ to find his voice
In the beginning of May I took my significant other 'home.' It had been a few years since I had been back and I needed to show her where my hero grew up. I needed to feel the dirt between my toes, the sun on my face, the grasses amongst my fingers and the beer …
From One Michael to Another
Originally published, October 12, 2012 in the Winnipeg Free Press. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2012/10/31/have-your-say-1394 Dear Mr Gorbachev, I doubt you will remember this story, but with the announcement of your death I wanted to make sure you knew what you meant to my family. You and I are connected, we are intertwined; our stories, our families and our …
History repeats
On the banks of the Volga River in 1942 there was a message post. It acted like a community mailbox - sharing the whereabouts of Stalingrads’ citizens. People fleeing the Germans in the spring, summer and fall of 1942 used message boards to let loved ones know where they were. Often these departures were made …
Mary Tamara Giesbrecht
MARY TAMARA GIESBRECHT (DOERKSEN) Peacefully on Friday, January 17, 2020, at "noon day bright", Mary Tamara (Doerksen) Giesbrecht's wish that "Jesus come take her home" was fulfilled. Manja - as she was fondly known - will be greatly missed by her brother Walter; her children, Edith and Ossama, Harold, Louise and Gary; her grandchildren, Anna, …
The steps I took…
I was going through my office two weeks ago — looking for the little information I had collected about my grandfather Wilms. Unlike, my maternal grandfather, whom I based my book The Grain Fields on, I didn't get a chance to speak to him about his time during the Second World War. He died of Alzheimers when …
His voice has started to talk back…
"I've left your heart all over the world. I've left our conversations in coffee shops, hotel rooms, airport lounges, on park benches and along a stream — amongst green grasses. The tens-of-thousands of words that were written from our time together — the stories you shared as we traveled together, as we sat around our …
Dear Opa,
'Opa, we packed up our bags and came home.' "Across the Atlantic." "'Your girl' came with me." "We walked the same roads." "We found your house." "Made with sticks, clay and brick." …
“We and it shall be remembered…”
From this Day To the ending of the world We and it shall be remembered We few, we happy few We band of brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother. Bruce Park, Remembrance Day Ceremony, Nov. 11, 2014 St Crispin's Day speech, William Shakespeare