Above all else, Cris and I are grateful for our children.

Niagara River near the base of Niagara Falls, Ontario

They are at the core, the centre from which all else radiates, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Maybe, “somewhere in my youth or childhood/I must have done something good” (Rodgers The Sound of Music) in order to have them travelling with me on the roads of life.

          My children are all adults in their 30s. They listen to me, put up with my longwindedness, unfinished, confusing sentences and repetition, with minimal impatience: “Y’know, you repeat yourself a lot more often than you think you do.” They know better than to believe me when I preface a story by saying I’m going to try to be reasonably concise. Ha!

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