Celebrating My Accomplishments Pandemic Clean-Up: Post 5

After a near-drowning at age 5, I was always a little fearful of water as a child. Canadian summers are hot, though, and my mother – likely glad to have us out of her hair for awhile – always encouraged my sister and I to head over to the local outdoor swimming pool with our friends. I was not a very good swimmer, but I spent many happy summer days paddling around that little pool with my friends. Just thinking about those days brings back to mind the sharp reek of chlorine, the delicious feel of sun on our skin and the muted din of dozens of kids shrieking, laughing and simultaneously calling out to their friends.

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Saying Farewell, Once and For All (Pandemic Clean Up: Post 3)

I was blessed – in more ways than I can count – to give birth first to a boy and then to a girl. It wouldn’t have mattered to me what their gender was, but it was a gift to have both in my life, and to observe, from the very subjective vantage point of a mother, how very different little boys and little girls can be.