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 …
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 …
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
Harry John Giesbrecht
Death is an unwanted guest. It comes in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day or in the early morning hours. It comes into your house and you are never the same. When someone close in your life dies, a part of you breaks, cracks and fragments in the loss. Every …
‘Il Porto’
So, two weeks ago I talked about my adventure to Sicily and how I met two people that changed the entire layout of my trip. Last week I told you about Guiseppe the police officer who took me out for some horrible scotch the night I arrived into Palermo. This week, in the final week …