Rose's Cantina

Embed from Getty Images John Simpson spent this past weekend playing host to golfers at the 2nd Annual Ashley Simpson Golf Tournament in Niagara. John, his wife Cindy and organizer Amanda Haveman have been working tirelessly on this event for weeks. It's meant to raise money, as well as awareness about the plight of missing women and girls in Canada. It's the cause of John's lifetime. He's spent his savings trying to find his missing daughter Ashley -- my cousin -- who disappeared without a trace in Salmon Arm, B.C. nearly two and a half years ago. Like all parents of the missing, thoughts of Ashley consume him. The stress has cost him employment, and his health, and yet he continues looking straight ahead, fueled only by his faith that he will some day find Ashley. Every spring, John goes back to Salmon Arm, and joins Ashley's Army, a group of volunteers who get to work scouring the bush and logging roads, casting their gazes toward running streams ...

Two years ago, her parents entrusted me with her care. Next week, I will hand her back to them, and she will enter the big, bad world of daycare. I'm sad. I can't lie. But it's time. Alas, she remains untoilet-trained, and continues to speak a combination of Russian and French with a hint of Hindi -- unless she wants peaches or supe. Then, her English is just fine. Oh yes, and she drinks more juice than water most days. I make no apologies. I am her grandmother, not her mother. And I've never been a particularly focused caregiver. When I need a nap I take one. So for a time every day, the iPad has been the nanny. Which might explain the Russian and the Hindi. And her fixation on ghosts. In my own defence, I kept her out of the hospital, though we did have a few close calls. Like the time she brought the occasional table down on her neck. Or the other time she tumbled down the stairs because a certain grandpa couldn't remember to close the...

Like most women of a certain age, I live with ghosts. Ghosts of dear friends, ghosts of favorite pets, ghosts of dear departed family members. When I'm at the lake, I visit with them often. I see Finnigan catching a Kong in the lake, and Gordie taking his last swim. I see Jennette, too, in the chair next to me having a cocktail or a morning smoothie. It's here where I am most at peace, with the waves lapping or the thunder clapping. It's a place to think, to ruminate, to wonder what could have been. For the most part, the endings were sad but expected; there's no need or want to be angry. We each have so many heartbeats, so many tears in us. As humans, the only thing that keeps us sane is our ability to move on. But there is one ghost who lives with me who won't be put in the nice memory box, and that is the ghost of my cousin Ashley Simpson who disappeared in April two years ago in the wilds of Salmon Arm, British Columbia. Ashley left with barely a trac...

Embed from Getty Images Scott and I were sitting around a couple of nights ago planning our funerals -- as one does on a beautiful summer night. Actually, we were in a money management meeting in the backyard, eating tapas and drinking. We have those now and again to make sure that we have enough money to live out the rest of our days, and leave enough to dispatch our asses so the kids don't have to pass the hat. Me, I could care less. Might as well sweep me to the curb but not everybody thinks that way. We don't have a lot of expenses but we do have to budget for home and car repairs, vet bills, and so on. I'm hoping to have a little dental work done, and maybe replace the carpets after the unfortunate pet incidents involving seizures, mouth foam, urine and feces. But I also want to make sure that death is covered. I don't worry about taxes because, in the last few years, I haven't made enough money to pay taxes. I applied for the Canada Pension Plan w...

Renee (second row, third from left), Rose (front second from left).  When you meet someone from your past, a curious thing happens --they set "fresh eyes" on you. My friend Renee hadn't seen me in nearly 45 years when I took her to the lake. In high school, I was five foot six and weighed 130 pounds. Today, I weigh as much as my older brother who is six foot two. He likes to remind me of this fact on his regular phone call every ten years or so. Renee hasn't changed much at all. She's tiny with a big wallop of wavy hair. Because she strictly attends to her diet, and an exercise regime, she still reminds me of the girl who took the bus with me everyday so many years ago. The only wink to old age is her decision to let her hair go grey. She likes to sweep it back into a messy bun that gives her a slight bohemian vibe. In high school, I would rather go pantless than be caught without my lipstick and full make up which included an unfor...

I was raised on a farm, so you might expect that I was a rumbly tumbly little girl who spent her summer holidays working for my Grandpa Loyal and helping with the chores. Indeed, most of my classmates at Woodland Public School spent their summers picking fuzzy peaches, all Vaselined-up in their long sleeves, or planting rows of tomatoes and melons.  Even my brothers made their summer income working for Neighbour Art who ran a vast Gladiola farm next door. I was more of an indoor girl.  I preferred to sit inside on the couch playing board games with Art's son Squeaky or watching Monty Hall and Bob Barker titillate housewives with the dream of new appliances. My favorite shows were talk shows, and they were on for hours, so I watched them for hours. Then I went out and walk around, smelled the Glads and picked some fruit off the tree for a snack. Occasionally, I would help my Grandma Ina juice tomatoes or squish that orange stuff into the margarine. That's...

Of course, all my friends are not dead. I still know a few stragglers out there who narrowly escaped the Grim Reaper by smartening up, and turning down the music. They put down the booze and the smokes and embraced kale, hobby farming, or opted for long runs and paddles and simply forgot to take me along. And of course, I have Facebook friends, boat loads of Facebook friends from childhood, journalism, bar-hopping and other work-related details. Those friends, too, live in the cloud, just a different kind of cloud than the dead ones. Scott and I used to have grand barbecues, attended by tens, but those friends have evaporated. Jennette was the last person to come to our place and celebrate my birthday but this year, she is also in the cloud so she would be marked as a no show. Her plus one, Roger, is spending eternity with Jennette, so he couldn't be counted on, either. Thank goodness I had three kids. When you have three kids, just invite them and various spouses and grand...