Category: News

Expiring like a quivering, vulnerable bird in the dawn’s grey

Expiring like a quivering, vulnerable bird in the dawn’s grey   I have become obsessed with how Anne died, three months ago, quivering, vulnerable, like a stricken  bird.   This little poem is intended to honour her. It is presented on a Haiga background.   https://www.graceguts.com/haiga I find it soothing and therapeutic to concoct these..

Read more

So sorry for your loss: an open letter to VIA Rail Canada

So sorry for your loss: an open letter to VIA Rail Canada VIA Rail President and CEO Mathieu Paquette 3 Place Ville Marie, Suite 500, Montreal, QC H3B 2C9 1 email @viarail.ca Dear Mr. Paquette,   I am writing you as an inveterate train enthusiast. My father spent 30 years as a railway employee, and..

Read more

Geno Lewis: Scoring a touchdown for compassion (revisited)

Geno Lewis: Scoring a touchdown for compassion (revisited) https://www.cfl.ca/2026/08/02/redblacks-release-receiver-eugene-lewis/ Responding to the above press release of August 2, 2026 A letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper   The Ottawa Redblacks have certainly been experiencing a miserable season on the gridiron, but they’ve scored big points in so many other ways.   My..

Read more

Facing the yawning abyss of solitude in the fall of my life

Facing the yawning abyss of solitude in the fall of my life   It was a beautiful fall day in early October, 2023, when Anne and I were still living in Dijon, France.   We were heading for Mâcon for a day trip, on a local train destined for Lyon. The train was an old..

Read more

The unrelenting brutality of grief and the pervasive pall of mourning

The unrelenting brutality of grief and the pervasive pall of mourning The verse that emerges in these clumsy attempts at Haiga creation is often bleak, reflecting the unrelenting brutality of grief and the pervasive pall of mourning. Haiga is a Japanese concept describing a refined visual art of combining brush painting, Haiku,and calligraphy. A traditional..

Read more

Unsafe at any speed revisited

Unsafe at any speed revisited I’m a horrible driver; I’ve always been a horrible driver. This deficiency is in my DNA: behind the proverbial wheel, my father was unsafe at any speed and my mother was beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst driver in history. (Various friends and relatives wanted to sue the..

Read more

Escaping the rough by choosing the right club

Escaping the rough by choosing the right club In 1964, when I was 12 years old, our family moved from Georgetown to London Ontario. This permanent change of scene came as a devastating blow, complete with the typical leaving behind of school and friends, entailing the requisite adjustment to a new, bigger city culture. In..

Read more

Unhappy Campers Revisited

Unhappy Campers Revisited For many more pictures, please click here: https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/unhappy-campers/   It was the summer of 1980.   Anne and I were spending our holidays in Vancouver with her family.   We were child free.   When fall approached, we settled on a novel way to return to our home in Quebec City, opting..

Read more