Rose's Cantina

On this day, six months ago, our Ashley Simpson disappeared. Where are you girl? Sometimes, there are no words. There is just love.

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau: Last week, when you visited a donut shop in St. Catharines, Ontario, a young woman handed your security detail a t shirt emblazoned with the image of a young woman who disappeared six months ago, without a trace, from her home in Salmon Arm, B.C. That woman is my cousin, Ashley Simpson , who has now joined an exclusive club of  women who go missing or who are murdered each year in this great country of ours. We don't want Ashley Simpson to be a statistic. Rather, we want to remind everyone that Ashley is a daughter, a sister, a niece, an aunt, a friend. Even though she is only in her mid-thirties now, Ashley has lived a full and important life. She has worked as a cook in logging camps, at resorts, and on ships. She helped her dear old dad as a caterer for many summers in Huntsville. Ashley Simpson continues to touch many lives. She is lovely. And she is lost. You may find it curious that I speak abo...

Every morning for five months now, my cousin John Simpson has wept on his pillow, each day unable to awaken from a bad dream, a nightmare, Groundhog Day, whatever you want to call it. Everyday, John and his wife Cindy awake with the same mantra: "Come home, Ashley. Where are you? Please be safe." It's the definition of insanity, finding yourself with the same hope expecting things to change. They never do. Sometimes, life's a shit sandwich, served cold. But John has to go on, for the family, in her memory. It's not always easy, putting one foot in front of another. So he walks in Ashley's memory, and in the name of the countless others, missing and murdered women in this country who have disappeared without a trace. He plays cards, and builds bonfires., cooks marshmallows for the grands. It's how he's built. He's a Simpson. A man of few words. A man who just gets things done. But we know inside, it's eating him up. We al...

Embed from Getty Images Come close young Canadian medical students. For I have a story that will make you piss in your scrubs. Your beloved research papers, the ones that you hoped would get you the good jobs in hospitals, the ones that would eventually get you tenure at prime universities, may be out there in the ether. Or they may be languishing somewhere on some server mid-Atlantic because a few Canadian publishers are taking big payouts and selling you out to off shore interests. This year, medical publishing in this country finally entered the Theatre of the Absurd. It all began a few months ago, when a company out of India began courting independent Canadian medical publishers offering them stacks of sweaty money if they would sell their companies. To the publishers, they seemed legit. They had a whopping big website -- though if the sellers had read them, they'd probably notice a lot of inaccuracies and mistakes. The publishers were assured that it would b...

In the winter of 1984, Pierre Trudeau took a walk in the snow, and we all know what happened to the country. Liberals wandered in the desert, like Moses looking for a sheep, for what seemed like forever. Some people got rich, some people got appointed, some people killed themselves with booze. Me, I took the coward's way out, got married and moved to Regina where I had babies and smelled like corn on the cob. Nobody was really shocked when Pierre called it quits. Not even the true believers who toiled for him in the Langevin Block or on Parliament Hill. Some of them were sad but a lot of people had already made their plans to move on. There was much salivating and gleeful hand-rubbing at the thought that opportunity was finally knocking. People who had been loyal spear carriers for nearly two decades were getting ready to cash in, and sell their stock to Bay Street. Spokesthingies became bankers. Policy wonks became association vice-presidents. The less fortunate skulked into t...

Last December, this little lady had major cancer surgery to remove a tumor underneath her tongue. It's been a tough road back for Jennette who has spent more than ten years as a caregiver for both her husband and her father. Both men lost their battles. Roger died a year before Jennette was diagnosed with cancer. Her father Jim died just a few months ago. I'm not sure what was worse, losing the two loves of her life, or having a doctor take a backhoe to her gob taking most of her soft tissue and teeth with it. Honestly, I think it was the loss of love that hurt her the most. She quipped a few months ago that now, the only men in her life were her doctors and her undertaker. During the battle with cancer, Jennette was struggling to care for her dad and visited him daily while he was in palliative care at St. Vincent's Hospital. The good news was that her doctor declared her cancer-free, the bad news was that the oncologist recommended radiation "just in case...

On Saturday, the friends and family of Ashley Marie Simpson will gather to play games, drink some suds and raise some money in her honor. The fundraiser is meant to raise awareness for the We Canada Walk for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman Foundation, along with the Shuswap Search and Rescue team who helped in the search for Ashley after she went missing. Here are the details. As people who read my posts know, Ashley is my cousin. I never met her. I moved away from our home of St. Catharines four decades ago, before Ashley was born. I didn't know my cousin John, either, and have only distant memories of his brothers and sisters who were adopted by my aunts and uncles. Thanks to Ashley Marie, I know them now. We have been brought together by her tragic disappearance on that cool day in April. Nearly every day, her family and friends hold a virtual prayer circle in her honor. Ashley's pals post selfies and messages on Facebook. This summer, they participat...