Ray of Sunshine

I have felt for a long time that I am on a journey, not sure how I am going to get there but very confident of the destination. I seem to be a person without deep roots. Now some of you who have known me for 5, 10 or even 20 years might question that. I have wondered about it too, I know that for me, my kids are my deepest roots. As I review my life I have seen a pattern. At first the intervals were longer, but then my children were small. My heart is for my children and havi

This was our 3 years of crazy and or as we refer to them, the "hell" years. Sometimes we felt like we were the "crazy" ones. We laughed, cried and guilted ourselves til it hurt, sometimes we fought each other because the pain we felt had to come out in some kind of fashion or eat us alive. I wish I had known then what I know now, what to watch for, how to intervene earlier rather than later. If you notice behavior changes that do not make sense, memory loss that seems more th

For us it was the start of what we call - "The crazy years". Dad probably never recognized mom again and went on to look for her for the next three years. He over night had lost sight of her. He was often looking for his mother or his wife. He regressed back to a very young age, probably late teens, early twenties - just home from the Korean war. Since Dad was Mom's caregiver - we now suddenly had 2 broken parents to look after. We took them to the Doctor and he diagnosed

I feel it is time to write a bit about my families journey - the journey of aging. I write this not as an expert in any way but as a friend who wants to come along side and perhaps, help you see the things that maybe we missed, the questions you might be able to ask, the steps you should take, before it is too late. I am talking about Alzheimer's and Dementia. 16,000 Canadians under age 65 live with dementia 25,000 is the number of new cases of dementia diagnosed every year

Lights are popping up all over neighborhoods, Christmas trees are starting to shine through front windows, Christmas music is playing in some retail spaces, yes, Christmas is erupting all around us. In my family, we are trying to figure out the Christmas plans. I am sure you can relate. Between juggling schedules, juggling families and trying to peak interest into even discussing what we are going to do, it is always a bit of a process. I was shocked when one of my children s

My heart aches for the people of Fort McMurray as does many of yours. I had only heard from a distance about the forest fires up in the Fort Mac area until last night. I was volunteering at a Pastors Conference and about five o'clock we could tell something had changed in Fort Mac. There were a number of pastors and spouses at the conference from Fort Mac and all of the sudden there was a flurry of cell phone activity and people coming out from the conference to make calls.

I was reminded recently of an activity that when I was able to do this – brought me much delight. Someone talked about going “home” back to our parents of origin’s actual home and how when we got there things changed. It was the one place on earth where you were free to look into the cupboards and check out what was new without getting reprimanded or being accused of being “snoopy” or “rude”. I would never think of going into other people’s cupboards or snooping around thei