A sad time in Canada...

Well it's a sad time in Canada.  A Canadian icon and treasure has passed away.  Stuart McLean was a writer and storyteller extraordinaire. He was on CBC radio in Canada and I understand people in the US could listen to him on Public Radio.  He also traveled around the country telling his stories for large audiences.  McLean told the ongoing tales of a married couple - Dave and his wife, Morley and their two children, son Sam and teenage daughter, Stephanie.  McLean had a calm, melodic voice that engaged listeners in his stories of ordinary people, facing the sometimes not-so-ordinary-events that life serves all of us.  He wrote a number of stories that included dogs - in this story he talks about how Dave is thinking that the family is being a bit overindulgent when it comes to the family dog, Arthur.  Take a few minutes to listen - parts of it should give you a chuckle.

https://beta.prx.org/stories/5341

McLean also wrote about an adventure when Dave became a dog walker and another story of Arthur's death.  My human hasn't listened to that one - I think that's one that you listen to when you are ready for it.  I understand it's a real tearjerker.  Here is a quote about/from that story by Stuart McLean...

"We do this thing. We open our hearts to the world around us. And the more we do that, the more we allow ourselves to love, the more we are bound to find ourselves one day - like Dave, and Morley, and Sam, and Stephanie - standing in the kitchen of our life, surrounded by the ones we love, and feeling empty, and alone, and sad, and lost for words, because one of our loved ones, who should be there, is missing. Mother or father, brother or sister, wife or husband, or a dog or cat. It doesn't really matter. After a while, each death feels like all the deaths, and you stand there like everyone else has stood there before you, while the big wind of sadness blows around and through you."

Stuart passed away on February 15 at age 68.  His listeners are feeling that big wind...but we know that his stories will live on...and will warm our hearts...