Category: Opinion

When You Sell a House, You Keep the Memories

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Saying goodbye

My parents built their dream house.

A home in the woods. Surrounded by trails and bulrushes – and black bears.

Which means they sold their house and acreage on Highway 68. The acreage even had its own business name, “Karatchuk Acres.”

On September 30th, mom and dad went to their former home. One last time before the new owners took possession. They walked around the yards, reminiscing, taking photos. Sending selfies with, “Saying goodbye.” When my dad was ten months old, he moved to that acreage. My mom, since she was eighteen, and the three of us girls since birth.

Everything went with the sale. The front garden, flowerbeds, the apple trees. Sheds, garages, and silos. The red-weathered barn at the end of the driveway.

The middle portion is the the original house, seen above.
We moved into the rear bi-level bedrooms on New Year’s Day, 1988.
The front sunroom was completed in 2013. It replaced the brown south-facing deck and the main entrance,

With the sale also went a huge west yard where my first childhood home stood.

In 1985, my parents sold our 600 sq.ft. little house and we relocated to my late paternal grandparents house on the same acreage. The little house was lifted from the foundation, set onto a moving trailer, and transported to Eriksdale, Manitoba and its new owners.

But this is different.

When I visit my parents, I’ll see my childhood to cusp of adulthood home. But from the outside – and afar.

Continue reading “When You Sell a House, You Keep the Memories”

My Last Real Doughnut: The Celiac Realization

In 2010, I had my last real doughnut.

It was an éclair from the Arborg Bakery when my friends and I were in town for a college project. I told them, “Before we leave, we have to stop at the bakery!”

While my friends cooed in doughnut heaven, I drove back to Red River College, scratching my itchy burning hands as they bubbled like pop rocks. 

I couldn’t accept the obvious: I was Celiac.

When one of my aunts was diagnosed in the late 1990s, few people understood Celiac disease. In a nutshell – no gluten. Barley, malt, malt flavour, brewer’s yeast, dextrin. And more! Celiac is an autoimmune disease, and it runs on its own timeline – and it’s often hereditary. Stress or an overload of gluten can mess with your gluten filled life. After years of yummy puffy homemade bread, a body can revolt.

Continue reading “My Last Real Doughnut: The Celiac Realization”

Hey, You Want a Time Machine – A Chance to Return to High School, Yes or No

“If you could, would you go back to high school?”

Adults are often asked this around graduation season. As social media fills with photos of newly minted graduates, some of you become nostalgic about your own high school experiences.

The time when Hypercolor shirts, Fat Emma & Pie Face Chocolate bars, leggings, bell bottoms, paisley shirts, poodle skirts, mullets, O’Ryan’s Sour Cream and Onion chips, spiral perms, two-centimetres of makeup, and Moon Boots defined your generation. When we were as cool as Cool Ranch Chips and hot as Hot Tamales.

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Let’s be real. We’re still cool and hot, just older with more knowledge – and debt and a Netflix account.

But would you go back to high school?

Continue reading “Hey, You Want a Time Machine – A Chance to Return to High School, Yes or No”

When a Hysterectomy Closes the Baby Door, You Cope with Humour

On May 6th, 2021, all non-essential and elective surgeries in Manitoba were postponed for the month because of the rising number of COVID-19. This included hysterectomies.
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“So, are you sexually active?” asked my gynecologist.

I tilted my head, pressing my lips together. Stifling a giggle. “I’ve had sex … and I remember sex.” We both burst out laughing. I said “I’m basically a virgin.” 

Humour is my coping mechanism. I’ll laugh if I can’t find a street. If I almost lock myself out of the house. If I walk into a wall. I’m the one who couldn’t stop laughing because I was stuck in the Arborg Co-op’s car wash. 

This was a little different though as I sat on an exam table naked from the waist down with a thin piece of paper over me. I felt humour would break the ice as I awaited my third pelvic ultrasound.

My ultrasounds have never been the “fun, happy, you’re having twins” kind. If they were, I’d have the cast of The Sound of Music and their backups. Instead it’s thyroid nodules and two unnamed uterine fibroids.

Continue reading “When a Hysterectomy Closes the Baby Door, You Cope with Humour”