When asked where the prettiest spot we ever camped was, I have to confess (as a Presbyterian elder) it was in a place where there was a “no camping” sign.

There is a good deal of talk nowadays about the “quality” of time spent with children. That word would have confused my mother.

The funeral was over. The relatives had gone and the freezer was stuffed with more food than I could ever eat. But mostly, it was time I had too much of … minutes, days, weeks, months of time.

I set the small grey kitten on the white hospital blanket and waited—waited for the magic to start.

“How old is the baby?” I smile at the new mother. I guess my grey hair is not intimidating; she replies with a smile, “Three days old!”

Wow! This is a different world.

“Well this is different,” I said to myself as with widened eyes I took in the large sanctuary. (My own church contains nine pews on each side.) I wondered if I should reconsider this adventure; then I found the rest of the congregation fast on my heels and I was propelled inside.

For six months after my husband died, I did not see the top of my dining room table. Funeral papers and federal, provincial and local government documents were stacked there along with all the sympathy cards … Much later I said to a friend, “If I’d known there was going to be so much paperwork, I wouldn’t have let him go.”

The years had dimmed our memories of travelling with our children. (We’d forgotten all the potty stops and car-sick kids.)