Rose's Cantina

Embed from Getty Images "A fatherless girl thinks all things possible and nothing is safe." -- Mary Gordon Over the years, I've tried to make sense of it, my father dying when I was just a baby. Losing a father, or mother, at an early age is like losing a limb. There are fixes, a re-marriage of the single parent perhaps, but step-parents are prosthetics, nothing more. The limb will always be missing, you will always feel that hand, and there will always be a constant ache, phantom pain, perhaps, that never goes away. Fatherless women, the sensitive ones at least, are often seen by other relatives as attention-seeking victims who act out in public and embarrass the family. That is what I was called last week by a relative who also called me "crazy". "You always have to be mad about something," he said when I railed against someone who had written erroneously in my Ancestry.ca Life Story that I was the love child of my fat...

This is part of an ongoing series of articles and columns I wrote for Canadian newspapers. I am grateful to Postmedia and the Ottawa Citizen for permission to reprint this article which ran on March 18, 2002. By Rose Simpson I felt a lump in my throat recently when I heard police had found a 13-year-old Renfrew teenager who had gone missing. The boy was found safe at the Young Men's Shelter of the Salvation Army in the Byward Market. I thought about my own experience with a runaway teenager, an experience the rocked my world to its very foundation. And I wanted to share this story with you because it, too, has a happy ending, thanks to the people at the Salvation Army and the Youth Services Bureau. My son and I had been battling for some time over his penchant for skipping school, his smoking, his friends and his attitude. As the cliche goes, you could cut the tension in my house with a knife. And finally, it all came to a head one Sunday night when he arrived home thre...

This is part of an ongoing series of stories and columns I wrote for newspapers across Canada. I am grateful to Postmedia, and the Ottawa Citizen, for permission to reprint the following articles which ran March 18, 2002.  LIFE ON THE STREETS: Earlier this year, Nick Gagnier, an Ottawa teen, left home after a fight with his mother. What he learned while living on the street has left him wiser -- and stronger. Meanwhile, his mother, Rose Simpson, experienced the heartache of a parent whose child has left. By Nick Gagnier What do you see in a homeless person? Do you see a low-life, huddled against a downtown building, panhandling for money to buy his supper? Or do you recognize a human being underneath the filthy hair and clothes? Society tends to see the first image. But personally after spending a week with no place to call home, I have warmed up to the homeless. I really should start from the beginning. I spent five hectic years living with my father and hi...

This week, I'm coming up to an anniversary of sorts. Last year at this time, my colleagues baked cupcakes for me, and threw me a little party. Then they wished me well, as I headed out the door hoping for new adventures. I haven't worked since. So the milestone I will be pondering on May 8th will be the last day I worked in one whole year -- a first for me in a relatively successful 40 year career. And what a career it was. I got to rub shoulders with rock stars, and famous authors, dine with prime ministers and even a king, publish seven magazines, make two feature-length documentaries, write hundreds of stories and columns for major newspapers, and even help build a monument to fallen firefighters. I can't say I loved all of it. As a single mom, I did a lot of contract work and languished in the not-for-profit publishing ghetto where much of the work was given by people who couldn't stand doing it themselves.  At the upper range, I made six figures for a wh...

As a family member of Ashley Simpson , I welcomed the release this week of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by the federal government.  https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/ I hope that it helps.  Clearly, it's taken too long to do a 'deep dive' into why so many women and girls have been savaged, raped and murdered at home, and when they go out into the world. My main hope is that the police in these rural communities get more resources, and better training, because until this happens, more women and girls will be slaughtered and never found. I feel so deeply for the Indigenous community, and for their stolen sisters. It was, in fact, the First Nations community women who embraced Ashley as one of their own. That is their way, they show their wisdom, doggedness and commitment to righting the wrongs of the past. They are so strong and their spirit should make the rest of us ashamed for not caring enough, or not educating ourselve...

Embed from Getty Images I have long believed that depression can be cured when you take away the source of the depression. Not all depression, but a lot of it. Many people, including me, could have been saved from a world of depression and heartache if we hadn't been taken out by circumstances beyond our control. Death. Unemployment. Divorce. Sexual assault. A lot has happened in my life, and not all of it has been good. But I've been lucky to have loyal friends who have always supported me, and talked me down from the ledge. None of them had a pot to piss in, but each of them had a friendly ear, a warm hug, an open door. The world is a nasty place full of people who don't have stress but are carriers. They hurt you, mock you, leave you, bankrupt you, under-employ you, sexual harass you, put you down so far it looks like up. If I were a bettin' girl, I would say all those carriers are tweeting all over the place about the importance of recognizing mental i...

At four in the morning, the alarm goes off and I hear the announcer on CBC Radio drone on as usual,  something about the orange clown south of the border.  I slap the radio like it's some sort of pesky mosquito, in hopes of getting a few more seconds of peace.  My little Aussie Shepherd jumps to attention.  Pearl is four months old, and she's good at it. She reminds me of Anna waking up her sister in the opening scene of Frozen .  The sun is awake. And I'm awake. It's time to play! It's Saturday, and I have to drive my husband to work in downtown Ottawa. Later, I have a date with my son and my granddaughter to celebrate Father's Day one day early. Time is a wastin'.  I jump out of bed before Pearl pees on my shoes, then sit outside with my tea while Scott gets showered. Four in the morning is a fascinating time on my street which is almost always busy. It's a major artery during the day, brimming with buses, firetrucks, ...

#82635875 / gettyimages.com A lot of people were making fun of Stephen Harper hiding in a broom closet being guarded by MPs with hand-fashioned sticks last week. There are memes all over the Internet about it. Where was he supposed to go? Have you been in that room? There are no windows to jump out of, like in the Parliamentary Press Gallery's hot room. There isn't even a bathroom. This was not a cowardly act, as some have suggested. You know what the flight attendants say. The big person should always put the mask on first in order to save the country. That's what Harper was doing, making sure the big person would still be alive if his loyal foot soldiers with sticks had been unable to protect him. Most of us would do the same thing. He's our Prime Minister, for Goodness Sake, one of our great symbols of democracy. So stifle yourself, Harper haters. There was no need for him to come out of the closet. Besides, I have no doubt the caucus would h...

I came across a job description the other day, one that suited me to a tee except for one "mandatory" requirement. The person to be hired needed a master's degree. Usually, I just virtually throw these job ads in the garbage because I've spent too many years getting rejection emails from recruiters and h.r. pros because either my French wasn't good enough or my security clearance wasn't high enough. This time I called to plead my case. For thirty years, I've been working in the health and social policy sector as a speechwriter, researcher, editor and general wonk. I have often bragged that I wrote the social policy section of the first-ever Liberal Redbook. Remember that old saw? The job ad was looking for someone with a specialty in mental health, and I had spent several years as the editor of a prominent magazine for psychiatrists. I'd also written speeches for both the federal and Ontario ministers of health. The project in question was someth...

On January 28th, Bell Canada has invited us all to talk about mental illness. Why wait four days? Let's talk now. I'm sorry Ma Bell, but as I don't own one of your phones, I can't text on one, and therefore, I can't donate five cents for every text I send to the cause of fighting mental illness. Also can't contribute to your bottom line. Sorry. So I'll talk here, in this forum. First, let's start with your commercials. How much research went into your commercials because they are completely bogus. The first scenario, above, would never happen. First, that guy doesn't look depressed exactly. He looks like he might have lost his keys and is trying to make a mental note as to how to find them. Or maybe he missed his hockey game cause he slept in. In any event, if he were in a state of depression, he would not be sitting in front of a window with the blinds up with phone in front of him. He would be in bed, in the dark, so no one would ...

If you think Rob Ford is bipolar you truly need to educate yourself on mental health. It's utterly disgraceful (sic) at the ignorance of our society when it comes to mental health. I'm embarrassed to even read your post. This was a reader response to a question I asked on the Toronto Star's Facebook site about whether the newspaper had consulted mental health professionals about Rob Ford's state of mind. Could Rob Ford be suffering from bipolar disorder? I asked. I was shocked to read this personal attack against me. Why was the writer so angry? Why was he so quick to suggest that I was ignorant on the subject? It's been six years since Senator Michael Kirby asked Canadians to bring mental illness out of the shadows and shine the spotlight on a condition that affects one in five Canadians and their families. Since that time, very little has changed. There has been some attention paid to suicide and bullying but aside from these social problems, which are...

When asked how she was doing after her husband died, a friend said she was "inconsolable". Inconsolable. It's a good word. I know the feeling. It's the feeling you get when you lose your child to drugs, to the street, to suicide. Sort of the same feeling in your stomach when you get into an elevator and it drops unexpectedly. Your stomach feels like you're chewing on it. Swishing it around your mouth. Then ripping it into smithereens because it hurts so bad. I lost my son Nicholas a few times. When he decided he'd rather live with his dad, "get to know him" and his stepmother. That time I lost him for five years. I got him back when his dad didn't want him anymore. Literally didn't want him. Dad shipped him off to a boarding school with a set of cheap sheets and expensive skates. Shipped him like a Fed Ex package. No return address. I lost him another time, after he'd returned to live with me at age 15. Instead of bunking wi...