My take on the Giller and the gala

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Well yes of course I watched the Giller gala last evening: I was home and it was on TV. And this year, turns out I’d actually read the winning book, Fifteen Dogs. Which made me happy with the happiness one has in also having read what others regard as very important. Started Saturday, finished Sunday in fact. (It’s not a particularly long or difficult book.) I’d also managed to read Rachel Cusk’s Outline, which struck me on every page as a winner for sure, so flawless is the flow of her language and so compelling the conversations of marriage and loss, and several of the stories in Heather O’Neill’s Daydreams of Angels, which I enjoyed but in a weird way where I was watching what she was doing more than losing myself inside it (but then mulling it later). Continue reading →

Besa: The Promise

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H. and I saw a remarkable documentary at Canadian Mennonite University last evening. Besa: The Promise told a story I’d not known, of Muslims in Albania taking in and saving Jews during World War II. It seemed unexpected, surprising actually, that this would have happened–Muslims and Jews are enemies, aren’t they?–and the more inspiring because of it.

BessaRescreenBesa refers to an Albanian honor code: one opens the door to a knock, one offers safety to refugees, one keeps one’s word. Several stories played within the larger story: the narrative of the German invasion and hunt for Jews with commentary from elderly survivors and their Muslim hosts; a Jewish photographer’s quest to honor via portraits the Albanians who’d responded so nobly and at great danger to themselves in those evil times; and most compellingly, a Muslim man’s attempt to fulfill a promise made between his late father and his wartime Jewish guest. Since I hope others will see the film, I won’t say more about that particular promise. Continue reading →

In praise of my sisters

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A few words in praise of my sisters, two in particular, who have recently given me a great gift.

At first I was the only girl child among brothers, four of them by the time I was eight. The longed-for sister arrived at last, followed by two more. The girls were cute and lively and I loved them. Because of the years between us, however, they were not the sisterly confidantes I’d wished for. They were more likely to be getting into my precious things. I learned later that they weren’t always thrilled with me either, especially when I bossed them as if I were their extra mother. We all grew up, however, the differences in age collapsed, and we’ve enjoyed warm relations as peers. We added four sisters-in-law as well, all of us bonded within a shared extended family.

And now, an unexpected gift. The two sisters who live near one another in Saskatchewan approached my husband and me last spring with the suggestion that we move our 93-year-old mother from her nursing home in Winnipeg to a nursing home in Saskatchewan where one of them works. It was their turn, they said. It would be a privilege, they said. Continue reading →