Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2022

"Magnified and sanctified is the great name of God throughout the world, which was created according to Divine will. May the rule of peace be established speedily in our time, unto us and unto the entire household of Israel. And let us say: Amen.

"May God’s great name be praised throughout all eternity. Glorified and celebrated, lauded and praised, acclaimed and honored, extolled and exalted ever be the name of thy Holy One, far beyond all song and psalm, beyond all hymns of glory which mortals can offer. And let us say: Amen.

"May there be abundant peace from heaven, with life’s goodness for us and for all thy people Israel. And let us say: Amen.

"May the One who brings peace to the universe bring peace to us and to all the people Israel. And let us say: Amen."

—Mourner's Kaddish prayer

Winter night walk

This is one of the nights I most wish Beckett was still a baby.

The snow is falling softly and heavily in the park. It's not too cold, and sound is muffled everywhere. The snow shades the streetlights and park lights, making them glow like Japanese lanterns in the dark.

In the winter of 2014, when this picture was taken, I would have let him off his leash and aimed him in the direction of the snowy park. He would have run, leapt, gambolled, rolled, snuffled, and tunnelled. He was the fastest dog in the park in his youth, and he streaked through the snow like a mink-black horizontal avalanche.

The puppy of those winter nights is a far cry from the stately, dignified senior Labrador at the end of the leash tonight,

Beckett still buries his face in snowbanks in search of the perfect dollop of scent—his sense of smell is still extraordinary—but he walks cautiously and delicately now. He stays close. His eyes aren't what they used to be, and while he still considers snow and winter to be the most perfect natural miracle, everything is...shorter. Briefer. More poignant. More valuable.

He's happy to get out in the snow, and very happy to be back inside, in his bed by the fireplace.

I'm blessed to understand the place in the road in which he and I now find ourselves. I can see where there may soon be some sort of a bend. I pray it's not too close, but it enables me to easily remember how important time is—time for the soft, constant touch, time for the gentle, constant voice. Time for paying attention to his every reaction, which lets him know I'm nearby, and listening, and caring, and loving, and cherishing all the moments that make up all the snowy nights we still have together.

Mostly, reminding him that he's never, ever alone.

And on nights like tonight, when there are so many memories of so many other snowy nights, over so many years, in "his" park that they crowd in close like benign, bittersweet, ghosts, that's everything.

On this day in 2014

 

On this day in 2014, my dear friend Eliezenai Galvao, her husband Jean Douglas, and her two sons, Artur and Raul, became Canadian citizens. The ceremony was simple and powerful, with the judge reiterating the importance of our Canadian values of tolerance, and the embracing of diversity among our citizenry, in his welcome. The only thing more enduring than the respect and admiration I feel for this lady is my love for her, and for her family, especially her boys—both of whom have now graduated from the University of Toronto—whom I consider nephews of the heart. It was a proud day for me as a Canadian to be able to claim this wonderful family as fellow citizens. Oh, and it snowed—of course. Because Canada.

Teachers we've loved: Pierre Olivier, Collège du Léman, 1975

The teachers we've loved: Monsieur Pierre Olivier, a patrician John Houseman-type at Collège du Leman, circa 1975. Picture the Rector of Justin, but French. He insisted on Gallic professorial formality, but he gave it, too—we were all "monsieur" or "mademoiselle" to him. He never had to raise his voice in class. Forty-seven years later, I can still hear him say "Monsieur Rrrove" with a guttural French "r." He was never really interested in the English "w" but nonetheless made the whole thing sound like an unfurling banner. Notable also was that in the early 1970s, an era of breathtaking sartorial ugliness, he was always impeccably and classically attired. He enjoined us to become ladies and gentlemen, but we already instinctively knew we had the blueprint standing at the blackboard, lecturing us about French Equatorial Africa and occasionally teasing us in Latin.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition: 13/1/22

TBT: One of my all-time favourite interviews, with author Terri McMillan, for The Advocate in 2005. A friend recently asked me if this had been a tough piece to write as a gay man—“unpacking,” in the modern parlance, the use of an anti-gay slur by a beloved novelist, doing it with empathy, professionalism, and the presumption of goodwill as the baseline; and, most importantly, with an honest commitment to the critical importance of context. The truth is, it wasn’t tough at all. In 2005, with social media still in its infancy, the reflexive appetite for outrage, and for the utter destruction of people’s lives and careers because of perceived sins and failings that would be the norm 17 years later, wasn’t yet part of the culture. We still asked lot of questions, and we were beholden to facts. For myself, I welcomed the idea of dialogue with McMillian, not only about language, but the context in which it’s used—in this case by a woman in great pain, feeling deeply betrayed, and under great duress, and who later profoundly regretted using the word. I found McMilllan warm, open, honest, vulnerable, profoundly decent, and certainly no homophobe—that latter impression backed up by her longtime friend, the late Black gay novelist E. Lynn Harris, whom I also interviewed for the piece, who described her as being "like a sister" to him. Indeed, what struck me most about McMillan was how little she needed to do the interview at all: by her own account, her fanbase couldn’t imagine why she was bothered by being called "a homophobe," going so far as to ask her “Who gives a shit what gay people think?” The fact that Terri McMillan was bothered, that she cared what gay people thought, that she was worried she had caused pain, and wanted to explain, made all the difference, and meant everything to me, both as a writer and as a gay man.