Ready. Set. Write. Let the blogging begin.

Here's a riddle: who can bring you to your knees with joy and gratitude, fill your heart to bursting with pure and selfless love, and also inspire in you an overwhelming urge to throttle... all at the same time? Answer :Your children, of course!
The extremes of emotion do not subside as the years accrue. From the time each of my two kids were born, and they are now both in university, I have carried a latent dread; It's that fear deep, deep in the bottom of my metaphorical purse, that something terrible will take them away, will rob them, and me. That death, terrible death, will take them first. I know this dread comes like a one stop shopping purchase when you put your heart inside another, and become a parent. Last weekend at my son's university this remote and nebulous dread became two families' reality. These tragedies were accidental, alcohol related, and never, ever should have happened. I hold my breath when my children travel the roads and highways, travel through parties, and bars, the subway at night- through life as they live it. I think of all the proverbial bullets I dodged growing up on the Canadian prairies in the 70's, and pray my kids will be just as lucky, and a whole lot savvier.