Essays
I wanted an abortion in Nova Scotia, but all around barriers still remained
The Globe and Mail
“You need to calm down. You are not dying. You are pregnant and you’re going be fine.”
This was the doctor’s receptionist over the phone from Dartmouth, N.S., with a voice so thick with gravel, I imagined her with a lit cigarette in hand as she attempted to take the bull by the horns.
At a little more than five weeks pregnant and unintentionally so, I was the bull. I had become an angry, desperate animal in my quest to figure out how anyone goes about getting an early stage abortion – discreetly, while juggling the demands of a family and a full-time job – in my adopted province of Nova Scotia.
It turns out that they don’t. Keep reading ...
Mom, I want a real dress: Finding a Dress for my boy
Today's Parent
The request came over breakfast a few weeks after school started. Our family had just moved back to Ontario after two years in Nova Scotia. We had navigated thousands of kilometres, a sea of cardboard boxes and all the stormy emotions stirred up by saying too many goodbyes and braving too many new things. The to-do list finally seemed near the end of its spool. That was until, between bites of his cinnamon toaster waffle, my five-year-old son, Finn, piped up.
“I know what we forgot to do, Mom!” He had an alarmed, exasperated tone that went up in volume when he flipped his palms skyward and splayed his fingers theatrically. “We forgot to buy my dress!”
What a dying woman taught me about happiness
The Globe and Mail
It’s impossible to know what to expect when you’re meeting a stranger to discuss her impending death, especially one that she has scheduled because it’s the only way to stop the cancer from completely stealing her reins.
I’m Jessica Leeder, The Globe and Mail’s Atlantic Bureau Chief, based in Halifax, and I was unusually jittery on the late October morning that I set out to meet Audrey Parker. I braced myself to absorb a lifetime’s worth of regret, sorrow, fear and anything else that might ooze out during her deathbed interview. Keep reading ...
We Got a Pandemic Puppy
Today's Parent
"The infusion of happiness I felt was instant—there is no drug as pure and harmless as unconditional puppy love." Keep reading ...