Moments — käməˈrädərē

"Graham!"  

"It's <insert name of brother>. I'm at Pearson airport and I'm hammered — so of course I thought of you." 

"I just wanted to say I love you very much and I hope everything is going really well. I'm just coming back from Kansas City after seeing the total eclipse... and um, tomorrow I'm off to France, and then Venice for a cruise, and then, ah Croatia, and then L.A., and then Tokyo... and then Berlin. So, I'll call you in a couple of months... and... and believe me, I'm deadly serious when I name all these places." 

"Of course I had nothing to do with all of this... it's all <insert name of brother's wife>'s work, but as a passive aggressive rider of life like all good Canadians are I salute you, and hope you have a fantastic evening — and give me a call when you can, leave a message, or email me... bye for now."

I tell this for no other reason than to share how blessed I am to know such friendship — and that when I heard the message I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

I hope you are so blessed,

iamgpe

Moments — A meaningful walk

It was a beautiful autumn day and much warmer than it should have been for this time of year. It was on this day I walked ten kilometres with a good friend of mine, and if I was to guess, about 150 people joined us — some rode bicycles, some ran, and others walked. Being a last minute decision on my part I didn't have the proper shoes with me, but a little discomfort was no reason not to participate.

Thirty-seven years before, a young man who had lost one of his legs to osteosarcoma started to run — over 143 days he would run 5,373 kilometres before the disease that eventually took his life forced him to stop.

This was my friend's thirty-sixth Terry Fox Run and it was a privilege to join him this year. We had a chance to catch up, talk about how cancer has touched our lives, enjoy the richness of the local community, and enjoy something as simple as a walk. 

An opportunity to reflect on the roads we've travelled — and with a little luck, will continue to travel.

iamgpe

Terrance Stanley "Terry" Fox

Moments — lightning and thunder.

The rain pounded on the canvas roof —  for an instant the room was bright as day, faded to night, and a crash of thunder followed. Whether it was the pounding rain or the thunder that woke me I could not say but I lay there and listened to something that was so much bigger than me.

Brightness fades to dark. One thousand and one, one thousand and two — CRASH.

Sometimes the thunder would sound like the crack of a giant whip and other times it simply rolled on, and on, and on. And as I played this game the rain continued pounding.

There was a moment when something primal escaped and I admit I felt fear — the idea of being caught outside in the dark and surrounded by something enormous and powerful; the only option was to stand your ground and face whatever was out there. When my daughter was little (and afraid of thunderstorms) we used to sit outside on the porch and watch the rain and lightning, and listen to the thunder crash around us. I would smile and tell her that when you hear the thunder it was god's way of saying that you hadn't been hit by the lightning. As I remember it, I found it funnier than she did.

I could not help but smile at the memory, pulled the covers up a little further, and listened to the rain pound as I fell back to sleep.

iamgpe

PS : I did spend a fair bit of time explaining to my daughter what to do if she was caught in a thunderstorm, that she shouldn't take shelter under a tree, and that lightening was the real concern — because I actually do know what causes the thunder.