To my Ukrainian Aunty Mary, who wants to scratch Putin’s eyes out
‘You taught me that I could think what I liked, speak up when I wanted to and have the courage to change my mind," writes Cathy Burrell to her aunt
Before you go
To my mother: ‘It’s still strange that home, for both of us, is now a different place’
Zachary Delaney considers his mom after moving across the country to build a life for himself
To my brother-in-law: ‘I’ve loved and loathed you, but I couldn’t imagine losing you’
‘A rush of feelings overwhelmed me when I heard your plane had crashed,’ writes Charlotte Beck
To my Grade 10 English teacher: ‘You were the sanctuary I needed to survive those dark high school years’
KC Hoard thanks the teacher who taught him how to write
To my birth mother: ‘I’m not searching for who I want to be anymore—I’m discovering who I am’
‘Thank you for your love and bravery,’ Charmaine Traynor-Ruitenberg writes to the woman who gave her up for adoption
An ode to my work-from-home dining table
Pandemic life happened here: work calls by day, home-cooked meals by night, a baby’s first delightful laugh. And now it’s hard to imagine having to leave.
To my dad, an art restorer: ’You have operated a one-man hospital mending shattered souls’
Julius Morry, writes his son Jeffrey, taught him that the only meaning of possessions is the one we ascribe to them
A physician to his mom: ’The stress of life under the virus fell disproportionately onto you’
I used to take your hands for granted, Arjun V.K. Sharma writes, but they guided me through the pandemic
35 years later, a student writes: ’It’s because of you that I became a teacher’
‘You grew to represent a bright, reassuring light,’ Claudette Bouman writes of Wendy Donawa, her English teacher at Barbados Community College
Dear Grandma: ’When I think of true selflessness, I imagine you’
The compassion you’ve shown as a frontline worker during the pandemic, writes Kelsey Adams to her grandmother, is what society needs to rebuild