My fifteen year old son is a nice kid.

Of course, it's fair to say I am biased. It's a mother thing. He's my first born and only boy. He could fart a song and I'd think it was worth recording. (exaggeration)

He's had a part time job bagging groceries since August. Nothing strenuous; two or three days a week. He's enjoyed the pay. He's never late. He's only called in sick one day... and he WAS really sick.

The job has allowed him a newfound freedom. He's made a decent chunk of change that has never accumulated due to his tastes in skateboards, hoodies, hats and shoes. My rationale has been; he's the one working, it's his money to spend and throughout the last four months he's had to make a couple of 'payments' on 'loans' back to his parents. I paid for his shoes on Visa, he paid me back when they arrived. He also bought a stereo from his dad. Pretty responsible.

He spent his last paycheck on a haircut and a color. He spent a good deal of time looking over styles. His idols are less rock-stars and more professional skateboard athletes, however both sets of celebrities boast dyed black hair, studded lip or eyebrow posts and many tattoos.

Gone are the days of polo shirts and jeans with zippers up the sides of your legs. Or if your mom was really cool and you had money, you could get the jeans with the zipper from back to front around the crotch. Remember those? Peter Pan felt boots. Jean jackets. Giant plastic hoop earrings. Fingerless gloves. Leg warmers. Only freaks would've pierced something other than their earlobes. Twice.

But he found a hair cut he liked. And I had to admit, while it was vibrant and unique, I'd seen worse. I actually didn't give it too much thought. It was his choice. His money. His hair. No big deal.

When he came out of the salon the night he had it done, I was slightly agape. His hair, which is longish all the way around, was jet black on the sides and over the front, with a giant bleach blond stripe through the middle with little tufts of bleach blonde in the bangs. It sounds worse than the photo looked. The hairdresser had set the dyed blond stripe staight up into a full-fledged mohawk. There was no mohawk in the picture I saw.

He LOVED it and was completely satisfied. Giddy. He scared his Auntie with it, and evoked envy from his cousin.

The next day, he went to school and when he got home that night I asked, "What did your friends think?" He said, "Some hated it. Some thought it was cool. But I don't care what anyone thinks. I like it." The following morning, he washed out the mohawk and straightened and styled it himself. It seemed to be something that made him grow up just a little more.

His own money. His own style. His own choice.


When I picked him up from work today, he said casually, "My supervisor told me that I have to dye my hair normal or find another job, so I gave my two weeks written notice."

I was quietly suprised. I'd honestly never considered that his employment would take issue with his hair over his performance. He didn't bat an eye and said he'd like to apply at the movie place down the road. He wasn't disappointed at all.

I, however, was. Not because he made the choice to give his notice, but because he had been judged on his hair. Forget that he is a pleasant kid who's never late; he now LOOKS like a trouble maker... He was told: CONFORM or you're fired.

I've warned my kids about this rule: Guilt by Association. The rule that says, people will judge you based on the way you look and the people you hang out with and the way you talk.

We all do it. I do it. I've done it. But it sure feels different when it hits you where it hurts. At home.

I'm suddenly selfish.
Do people think I am a bad parent?
Do they think I don't care?
Do they think he's using drugs?
Do they think he is a problem kid?

I see him as him.
I see past the hair.
I hope I am not blinded by mother love.


Am I missing something? What if everyone thinks he's a bad kid? What if they treat him poorly because of it? What if he wants to get a tattoo? What if he gets an eyebrow piercing? Or worse yet, snake bites! What if this decision leads to worse decisions...

What if this new blond stripe in his hair leads to drugs?

Get a grip Kim.
Writing like this... people will think I'M the one on drugs.

It's just hair.

I remember it all too well; the loneliness of being a single parent.

I'm on a refresher course right now. My husband is away Wednesday to Monday. Five nights and six days. The first day for him was 'meetings' and the next four with friends are purely a social call.

And if your hunch is I'm jealous, you guessed right.

I brag about being okay with it (and most moments I am) but secretly I feel abandoned. With each ticking moment that creeps by and every breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, bath, fight and dirty pair of gitch that hits the laundry pile, my good nature and even-tempered wifely rationale is peeled back, layer by layer, exposing a raw and delicate flesh that will make your eyes water if you get too close.

In other words: Look out.

It's not that I'd rather be anywhere else in the world. I love being a mother. I adore my children. I love watching them laugh, grow, play and learn. I would be lost without them.

But I am beat. And I need a vacation. I too deserve the right to come and go without guilt. Wouldn't it be nice to pick up one morning and decide that you needed five nights away?

Imagine it: dinner at your leisure in a restaurant that doesn't have chicken fingers and fries on the menu... four pillows, a feather duvet and the whole bed to yourself. No alarm clock to zap you out of bed in the morning. Riveting and clever conversation punctuated by laughter over a glass of wine and garlicky buttery appetizers. Clean slacks that don't have yogurt tube handprints smushed into the thigh. A sophisticated hair-doo and make up that was applied with accuracy and time on your side.

Instead, single parenthood, temporary or permanent, as a result of a split OR a traveling spouse, leaves one partner with the exhausting role of two parents. It is a role best accomplished with two capable individuals sharing the work load. And yet the world is populated with single parent families, depleted and drained.

Thank goodness two of my four are old enough to assist in the major clean up, some of the cooking and a few minutes of babysitting so that I don't have to take everyone to the grocery store with me when I need 30 minutes alone. (My sweet Lord, how did I cope with two babies and very little respite

Imagine the response she would get if a woman said, 'Hey Honey... I'm heading out of town for five days.' However, she would have followed that statement closely with:

'There is a calendar on the fridge outlining the school/extracurricular schedule for the next four days. Don't worry, I've written it all down for you.

Jimmy has a birthday party on Friday. The gift is bought and wrapped and is on the floor in the closet. Sara's science project is finished but you need to deliver it to the classroom on Thursday. There are four days worth of meals prepared with heating instructions in the freezer, but Mom has offered to feed you all on Friday night... all you have to do is show up. I've scheduled a sitter for you on Wednesday so that you can keep your raquetball game with Chris. She's pre-paid, so you don't have to worry about that.'

Interesting isn't it?


He called today at about 4:15pm just to check in. He and his friend were just sitting down to a lovely 'brunch' (note the time of day) and were on their way out for the night to set up for a country music gig. (his good friend is a single musician in Vancouver) He was joking and laughing and I, of course, was in no mood to attempt to be a part of the conversation long distance. Besides, my hands were full of groceries and I was trying to load the back of the van.

Even now as I type this, he is making small talk with grown ups in a dimly lit corner somewhere, cleanly shaven, smelling wonderful, sipping Crown Royal and Coke.

I on the other hand, am preparing to break up the third fight over the plastic pony toys with children 3 & 4. Number 1 has a headache due to the flu and I've got six more loads of laundry to do. We had chicken noodle soup at 3:000pm and are going to have popcorn for supper with out movie night tonight.

Even IF I had sexy jeans, a crisp white shirt, flawless make up and a dinner date with 3 girlfriends and a bottle of warm and enchanting red... I would rather crawl into a hot tub, soak my aching feet and sleep for a week.

Single parenthood sucks.

Cry, and you cry alone. And then you will look like a complete moron in front of 800 people on a stage during a Remembrance Day ceremony.

It's safe to say I wear my heart on my sleeve. I cry easily. When I am telling stories. During movies. I cry with pride for my children. I cry over music. When I am having a bad day. I've even shed tears reading articles, listening to the radio, watching sitcoms and simply lost in my own thoughts.

Jeesh, the way I describe it, you'd think I never had dry eyes. Let me reassure you, I laugh far more than I cry. But I do cry easily.

Today our community held its annual Remembrance Day service. I sing with seven friends in a chorus. We were asked to sing after the roll call of the dead and after the bugle blew 'The Last Post'.

I always find it an emotional service for many reasons. I can feel myself get choked up as soon as the bagpipes start to wail and the Legion members are marched in. The older I get, and the more history I learn, the more affected and aware I am by the meaning of the moment.

To add to my sensitivity, I have been immersed in the sadness and loss of the young soldiers our country has lost in Afghanistan since the start of the war in the middle east. While working on November's issue (it had a two page spread of the 72 Canadians killed since Oct 2001) I spent many hours feeling terribly for their mothers, wives and families. In laying out their photos and matching their names I could see them up close; the color of their eyes, the pores in their skin, their teeth. To realize they had been flesh and bone - been someone's child, someone's lover, someone's best friend - brought a whole new level of reality to their sacrifice.

This morning, I could feel it coming on when the piper started playing. That familiar way my breath catches in my chest and my nose begins to tickle, then sting. My eyes brim with water and although I try to will it away, there always is one tear that slips away.

The flags, the music, the thought of all those families suffering today and their combined grief. The terrible mourning. But I also feel sad for the old men and women who march on this day. Those who hold their heads up and salute the dead. The stooped shoulders and tired eyes. Knarled hands and white hair. Some, now too old to stand during the service, sit, bent and solemn. Wiping their eyes with tissue. Each year, their numbers dip a little lower. They are a dying breed - those survivors.

My thoughts drifted to Maureen Eykelenboom and her family this morning, in Comox, BC, preparing for the service there. This is the second of numerous years that she will face the Roll Call of The Dead and her son's name on the list. As a mother, I ache for her, as I cannot imagine the strength it takes to continue to live with the kind of broken heart that comes from a wound like the loss of your handsome and brilliant son.


We've sung the song at least a hundred times. We sang it two years ago at the Remembrance Day service in our town. I didn't cry then. So it caught me by surprise.

As we passed through the first two sections of the music, the melody and words caught me at the moment I caught the wet eyes of an elderly woman in uniform. My voice caught in my throat and my eyes burned and blurred and I couldn't sing a note.

There I stood, like a crying fool in front of the entire room. It wasn't delicate tears either. I shook and shuddered like it was my own pain. I am embarassed about that, although I shouldn't be.

I think it IS our pain. It's a common pain of the women and men who are able to feel and appreciate the freedom and opportunity bought at another's expense. A silent gratitude and recognition to all those men, women, sons and daughters who faught only to die for the miriads of generations they would never see. It is a moment for us to thank all those who "paid the ultimate price."

Maybe from where they are now, they see that we remember them. That these grateful strangers still mourn for them. And maybe they rest, assured we will NEVER let them be forgotten.

I received this via email from an Aunt I love dearly and see seldom.
I did not write it. I don't know who did.
But I thought it was lovely, and needed sharing.
If you know where it came from let me know, so we can give credit where credit is due.



I'm invisible.

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.

Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.

I'm invisible.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?
Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?"
I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?"
I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30 , please."

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going . she's going... she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it.

I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

1. No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.

2. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.

3. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

4. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it."

And the workman replied, "Because God sees."

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Live Simply.

Love Generously.

Care Deeply.

Speak Kindly.

Leave the rest to God.

God's gift is what you are;
your gift is what you become.