Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
As an educator, I’ve seen the struggle some parents have with creating boundaries. For example, there are parents who don’t parent because they don’t want to undermine their friendship with their kid. They don’t parent their kid, they raise a buddy. From my experience, this is not good parenting of a school-aged kid. Kids need parental guidance, not just a supportive friend.
As a parent of two young adults, things change.
My wife and I took our youngest out for a birthday dinner last night. It’s hard to believe that my baby girl is 24! During the dinner she made a simple statement, “I’m so glad you two aren’t just my parents but friends I want to be around too.”
That hit a chord with me. My kids aren’t just my kids anymore. They are adults who I enjoy being around, who I want to spend time with, who I miss when I don’t see them. It’s not just that they are my kids, it’s not just that I’m their parent, they are amazing people I want in my life.
That simple statement said so much. It made me feel lucky, blessed. My wife and I raised two awesome kids, and they in turn have given us the ultimate gift in return… they enjoy our company as much as we enjoy theirs. ❤️
–
Ps. All that said, I’m still Dad, they are still my kids, as my youngest reminded my by sending me a TikTok about all the things she’ll never learn to do… because that’s a dad’s job! 😆
There is a quote I often hear about the fact that nobody will know your name in 3 generations. This makes me think of my grandparents, and the stories they used to tell. I was fortunate enough to get some video recordings of both of my grandmothers (Granny T & Granny B), but not of my grandfathers. Today I dug up the 10 pages story that my grandfather, Motel Truss, had recorded a few months before he died. I don’t have the recording itself, but I have the document that my mom transcribed from the recording for him. He wrote it as a request from the Barbados Jewish Community. Later, a book was written, ‘Peddlers All: Stories of the First Ashkenazi Jewish Settlers in Barbados‘ and my grandparents were all mentioned in it as well.
I think towards the end of the year I am going to try to document images and stories of each of my grandparents. Nothing extravagant, but something that my kids, and maybe their grandkids could look at to learn a bit about their distant ancestors. It was a very different time, with completely different hardships and challenges, and I think their stories are worth documenting and sharing.
In my early years of teaching I had a student, Caitlyn, who seemed to have everything ‘together’ which is not something you usually say about a Grade 8 kid. (I think it’s ok to use her real name, she would be around 40 years old now.) She was bright, a good student, polite, kind, and helpful, with a good sense of humour and just the right dose of confidence.
Caitlyn came to me one day to tell me she didn’t have her homework because she did it the night before at her dad’s house, forgot it there, and then slept at her mom’s last night. Up to that point, I didn’t even know her parents were divorced. A while later we had student led conferences and both parents came. The way they interacted with Caitlyn and each other, I would never have guessed they were divorced. I remember thinking that there is no way Caitlyn could have been so ‘together’ if her parents were angry and bickering and making a battle out of the divorce.
Kids are incredibly influenced by their parents. I’ve seen this time and again. A parent is quick to blame others for something their kid did, so is the kid. But it’s not just kids mirroring their parents. A parent puts up hard, unrealistic expectations, a student rebels and refuses to play along. The point being, parents have incredible power to influence their kids and that influence cannot be understated.
How do we as parents treat others? Respond to stress? How do we value community, physical fitness, diet, diversity? It’s not a perfect match, but I’ve seen over and over again just how much parents influence their kids.
I was reminded of this again when I met another Caitlyn-like kid. It was an interview situation for our school and in the interview I watched the way her mom supported her, encouraged her, and gave her space to be her own person. The kid was an absolute gem, and I could tell this was fostered and nurtured at home.
It’s not a perfect correlation, and I even know families where you’d swear the siblings had different parents because their personalities and dispositions were so different. But time and again, I’ve seen the difference good parents make. Kids can be awesome despite their parents, but good parenting goes a long way to fostering great kids.
I love getting together with family over the holidays. It’s a chance to focus on being together, eating, and being merry. 2025 hasn’t been easy, and it’s nice to spend the end of the year with the people I love and care about.
I hope everyone is doing the same, finding people they care about to spend time with. If not, make the hard ask. There are people who care, reach out.
I spent the afternoon with my mom, her sister, my wife and my kids. My aunt had us in stitches. It was wonderful having a good belly laugh. My favourite line from my auntie. “I like living by myself. I’m fine to talk to myself, I don’t need anybody else. It’s only a problem if I hear voices talking back, other than that, I’m good.”
Before this, I spent most of the day with an old friend. I can’t travel back home to my mom and not find time to see my buddy.
It’s just wonderful to realize that what I value most are my family and friends. Give me this, and my health, and I really don’t need much else from this world.
The events couldn’t be further apart with respect to the kinds of emotions felt, but as you get older it’s likely that the only times you meet for large gatherings are weddings and funerals. Celebrations of new beginnings and ultimate endings.
The one thing they have in common is bringing people together. Family and friends making the effort to travel long distances to share a common space with each other.
A chance to see once little people all grown up, and to see the age lines in those who are like you, starting to show the wear of time. A chance to catch up on the news of lives seen in bits and spurts. A chance to hug, to chat, to laugh, to cry.
A chance to be together, sporadically celebrating beginnings and endings.
A couple years ago I had a herniated disk. The herniation pinched a nerve going into my left arm and that’s where I felt the pain… a pain that seemed ever present. I was on very strong meds. I supplemented these with legal but more recreational drugs. The prescription ones made the pain tolerable. The recreational ones helped me move the pain from my brain to my arm, to relieve the anguish of being in constant pain.
The timing went like this: In early February the pain started. In early March I got the preliminary diagnosis, and was prescribed medication. I visited my parents for March break and the day I arrived my dad had a stroke. I spent the next 12 days in agony, helping my family deal with dad hospitalized, while making physio appointments and getting IMS treatment for the constant physical agony I was in.
When I got home from that trip I got prescribed much harder drugs. I was in constant pain. One day in late April I was driving to school and I realized that I shouldn’t be driving, my meds were too strong. This hit me hard, I instantly made the connection that if I shouldn’t be driving, I shouldn’t be in charge of a school. I was able to make a doctor’s appointment the very next day, and I got a letter to take some time off. That day I also got a phone call to say that I better get home to my parents. My dad, who never left the hospital since his stroke, had taken a turn for the worse and probably wouldn’t make it through the night.
I said a final goodbye to him over the phone before getting on a late night flight. I’ll never know if he heard those words. I spent another 10 or so days back with my mom, cleaning up things my dad left behind that needed to get cleaned up. At this point I was also supplementing my prescription.
I hit a low point after I returned home. One unusually painful night I had to ask my daughter to drive me to the dispensary… a dad asking his daughter to drive him to get his fix. That’s not really what it was, but it felt like that to me. Loser dad who can barely get himself from bed to the couch, and didn’t have the wherewithal to even get dinner ready for a wife working full time, having to get his daughter to drive him to buy drugs. Not a proud moment for me.
Within a couple more weeks, the inflammation reduced, the nerve wasn’t compressed as much, and I was able to get back to only a mild prescription… And then back to work after 5 or 6 weeks off. The whole experience was awful physically and emotionally, but it had an end! I knew it had an end, but sometimes at my worst I questioned it. I wondered, if this is life from now on, could I go on?
—-
My sister had an MS diagnosis for over 25 years. Slowly and incrementally she lost feeling in her legs. They were numb to the touch, but she felt pain, searing sciatica pain. Shooting pain that ran down her legs. For the most part things would stay static, then she’d have a small episode, and she’d lose a bit more feeling, be a bit less mobile, but the pain persisted. About 4-5 years ago the episodes escalated, and her mobility declined much more quickly. And still the pain.
Recently it became clear that she’d be moving from a walker to a wheelchair. A week ago she had six falls (only 6 that I’m aware of in that week). She would cut her finger cutting vegetables, and not feel it, only becoming aware of the injury from seeing the blood. And despite this numbness and lack of feeling, there was still the never-ending sciatica pain.
On Monday her daily pain was ended. 56 years old. Half of that time in incrementally greater pain. I can honestly say that she was stronger than me.
I’ll miss her dearly, and yet I’m thankful she isn’t going to suffer any more.
Sharon Silvera Truss May 15, 1969 – November 24, 2025
I think that gratitude is something to be celebrated. It is felt more when it is expressed and reflected on, not just experienced in the moment.
Yesterday I turned 58. I got to have an early morning coffee with a good friend, and I got to meet my daughters for a quick lunch. I had a couple cakes and many well wishes at work. Then I went to dinner and a movie with my wife and daughters after work. We were unexpectedly met at dinner by my wife’s sister and my brother-in-law at dinner, which was a very pleasant surprise.
It was a wonderful day all around. It ended with a few thoughtful gifts and cards at home after the show. My daughters have had a tradition of making personalized, hand-drawn birthday cards and I have always adored the thoughtfulness they put into them.
I can’t help but want to share my gratitude towards family, friends, and colleagues. I feel lucky, and blessed. Every year around the sun makes me feel more appreciative for the life I have lived and the opportunity to share more of it with the people I love.
I love this trend that’s going around. Parents are getting their grown kids to do things like jump into their arms, and wrap their feet around them, like they used to do as a little kid, to give a big hug for one last time. The theory is that you don’t remember the last time your kid did this, so do it one last time so that you will remember.
Back on Christmas Day 2024 I wrote ‘Firsts and Lasts’ about this same idea. The post, written to my daughters, starts like this:
“I remember.
I remember the moment in the hospital when I first laid eyes on you; the first time I held you, and kissed your cheek. I remember your first smile, (that wasn’t just passing gas), your first laugh, and the first time you said, ‘Da-da’. I remember your first steps. There were so many firsts in those early days and, although they slowed, they still kept coming. From your first tooth to your first tooth falling out. From your first day at daycare to your first day at school. And from your first birthday to your last one as a teenager.
And so it is that I remember many firsts, but unfortunately I don’t remember too many lasts.
I don’t remember the last time you fell asleep on my chest or came running towards me and jumped unabashedly into my arms for a big hug. I don’t remember the last time we were walking together and you reached up to hold my hand. I don’t remember the last time I did a push up with you on my back, or the last time you danced on my feet, or the last time I gave you a piggyback.
And such is life that as we grow up together, parent and child, we carry with us these moments, momentous ‘first’ occasions, but we never know what other forgotten momentsdisappear as we get older. We remember the firsts, not the lasts. We savour the memories of so many special occasions, and we lament those things that we take for granted only after they no longer happen.”
There are a lot of silly trends that go viral, and send ripples across the internet. This one isn’t silly, it’s heartwarming and wonderful. Parents trying to recapture a special moment with their child long after they’ve done something for the last time. I hope this trends lasts a while and impacts a lot of people.
It was a turkey-less Thanksgiving this year. No big dinner plans, just a couple small family gatherings. I didn’t really miss the turkey, or stuffing, although I admittedly have a bit of a craving for cranberry sauce. I often joke that turkey is just a delivery platform for cranberry sauce.
Joking aside, while it’s nice to have traditions, and plan big meals together, it’s the together part that’s more important than the meal. Sitting in a restaurant with my wife and two girls Sunday night was wonderful, and a slightly larger family luncheon yesterday was enjoyable too, with my in-laws and sister-in-law. Then a quiet movie night ended the weekend.
This morning my oldest heads back to Vancouver Island and we are all back at work. The long weekend is over, and regular routines start again. Turkey or no turkey, what made the long weekend special was being together.
