Dealing with the bureaucracy of death: A special kind of hell There is a special kind of hell in losing someone you love and then, before grief has even had room to breathe, being forced to become fluent in the cold machinery of death administration: forms, affidavits, certificates, tax rules, court language, bank demands, and..
Ephemeral Mist: We Exist Then Disappear Haiga is a Japanese concept describing a refined visual art of combining brush painting, Haiku (or sometimes Tanka, as here), and calligraphy. A traditional Haiga requires all three of these elements. Like the poetic form it accompanies, Haiga is based on simple, yet often what one hopes are profound,..
Winning the brownie For Lindsey Reed When I was a child growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, I loved playing little league baseball. The American side of my family was made up of baseball fanatics, including a second cousin who was a renowned semi-pro. I was a pudgy wanna-be star. My goal throughout my six-year..
Colouring outside the lines For Heather Davis Anne bent over colour as if over prayer, each magic crayon a small lighthouse in her hand. The tumour took roads, but not to the air where she could choose a bird in the sky, on a shore, along a strand. She filled each shape with stubborn,..
I Wanna Hold Your Hand For forty-seven years, Anne, your hand found mine as if the body had its own shy compass, your palm warm with errands, weather, supper steam, the ordinary electricity of us. I loved the small negotiations of our fingers, thumb over knuckle, pulse answering pulse, a language more fluent than vows…
Mourn on the 4th of July: An elegy for my American cousins and friends For my dear, recently departed wife, Anne, travelling to Vermont, which we did quite frequently whilst in Canada, was like returning to her native region in the Carpathian foothills of Slovakia: the same green uplands folding one behind another, the..
The Ottawa Hospital has permanently closed the temporary emergency overflow area at its General Campus, unofficially known as “the garage.” But not before this holding pen became an indelible part of our nightmarish cancer story. On April 30 of last year, when Anne and I celebrated our 46th anniversary of conjugal life by..
New Canadian class: Canada Day 2026 On August 21,1968, my late wife Anne’s country was invaded by the Soviet Union. The invasion of Czechoslovakia took place the day before Anne’s 10th birthday. The Soviet Union was intent on putting an end to what is known as the Prague Spring, a period of reform in Czechoslovakia..
Riding the Insomnia Express I have suffered from insomnia since the age of about four years old, when the minister of our local United Church convinced me that all my cursing and swearing would lead me straight to hell, where unimaginable torment awaited. Going To Hell – Robert McBryde I am now a wretched,..
Avis de L’OTTIAQ dans L’Antenne English translation to follow https://ottiaq.org/app/uploads/2026/06/en-memoire-danne-schlenker-.pdf https://mailchi.mp/f63e405a4f90/antenne-25-juin-2026-12849184 À la mémoire de l’une de nos membres 🕊️ L’OTTIAQ a le regret de vous annoncer le décès d’Anne Schlenker (McBryde), traductrice agréée et membre de l’Ordre depuis 27 ans. Nous adressons nos plus sincères condoléances à sa..