Ahhh, a classic from the Canadian National Film Board archives. I like to watch this every once in a while!
My favourite books of 2023
I just realized this is my tenth annual list of favourite books! (I also realized I’ve had this blog for ten years.) I read more books this year than in previous years, and a lot of them were great. Here are my absolute favourites.
Literary Fiction—Novels
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a tour de force. Barbara Kingsolver has done something I wouldn’t have thought of: transposing the story of David Copperfield from 19th century London to 20th century Appalachia and making it WORK. I loved this retelling that is both a deft homage to the original and also its own amazing story. Part of what makes it so good is the voice of the main character, Damon. He is so engaging, so witty and angry and pure that he seems like a real person, but much better than most of the people you know in real life.
Kingsolver has no trouble addressing the topic of abused and neglected children and the dismal failures of the American child protection system. Much of this book is pretty hard to read, and a lot of it had me wanting to go out and foster a dozen or so children. And yet! Throughout it all, Damon’s spirit persists.
There are three types of people in this book: awful people who take advantage of and abuse other people; good people who try mightily with their limited resources to make things better for others; and ordinary people who are doing the best they can and just surviving day to day. I think what is most amazing is how many good people there are in Damon’s life: Mr. and Mrs. Peggott, Aunt June, Angus, Miss Betsy, Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Amato, Tommy. Even Coach and Mr. Golly (Ghali), as messed up as they both are. I think Kingsolver’s ultimate message is not, “Life is crap and there are always people who will be cruel,” I think she wants us to focus on just how amazing it is that so many people are so generous and kind, giving all their “juice” as Damon’s friend Chartrain says, and getting up and doing it again the next day.
The other big, big topic in this novel is the opioid crisis. Intellectually, I think lots of us know about the American opioid crisis. It’s an epidemic here in Canada too, but in Appalachia it is killing entire counties. We get to see specifically how it works in Appalachia, exactly how everything has come together in a perfect storm for people to be vulnerable to the predatory practices of the pharmaceutical companies prescribing OxyContin like it’s candy.
Kingsolver has a lot of things to say about capitalism’s anti-labour practices, about crumbling infrastructure in places people just don’t care about, about exploitation and abuse. It’s a tough read in many ways, but I loved every page of it. I know it’s early, but I suspect this will be one of my favourite books of the year. I absolutely 100% recommend this to everyone looking for a book they won’t easily forget. What an amazing ride.
There are so many beautiful passages, but here are a few of my favourites:
“The whole idea of the sermon was how people connect up in various ways, seen and unseen, and that Mr. Peg had tied a lot of knots in the big minnow seine that keeps us all together. Dead but still here, in other words.”
“It’s a situation, being invisible. You can get to a point of needing to make the loudest possible noise just to see if you are still alive.”
“Many had tried their best with us, but we came out of too-hungry mothers. Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.”
“I thought about what Rose said, wanting to see the rest of us hurt, because she was hurting. You have to wonder how much of the whole world’s turning is fueled by that very fire.”
“I found a good rock and watched the sun melt into the Cumberlands. Layers of orange like a buttermilk pie cooling on the horizon. Clouds scooting past, throwing spots of light and dark over the mountain heads. The light looked drinkable. It poured on a mountain so I saw the curve of every treetop edged in gold, like the scales of a fish. Then poured off, easing them back into shadow. I got all caught up in the show, waking up from my long cold swim underwater. Breaking the surface is a shock, the white is so white, the blue so blue. The air that’s your breath.”
The Pull of the Stars by Emma DonoghueMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fascinating, incredibly moving historical fiction. I had no idea Dr. Kathleen Lynn was based on a real woman doctor at the time. I found Nurse Julia Power to be a warm, quick-witted, appealing narrator and I loved her interactions with the newbie nurse helper Bridie Sweeney.
Emma Donoghue is a beautiful writer, and the audio version of this really does the prose justice. One funny thing about the audio book: I kept thinking the doctor was saying “N’est-ce pas?” an awful lot, and it made me wonder why she would lapse into French so often. Well, it turned out she was actually saying “Nurse Power” in an Anglo-Irish accent. It took me a LONG time to realize it.
This book is set in a quarantine maternity ward during the 1918 flu pandemic, so there is a lot of pregnancy, baby loss, and death. Heads up if these are things you don’t want to read about at this time. I was OK with it, but there was a time when I would not have been. There is also a lot about the abuses perpetuated on women and children by the Catholic Church.
Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis KaneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I absolutely loved this quietly charming book and found it surprisingly moving. May is a 40 year old botanist who works as a landscape architect at the local university. She is single and childless and lives with her elderly father, a retired professor from the same university. Given the opportunity for a sabbatical, May decides to spend some time visiting her oldest friends, in order to rediscover her capacity for friendship and to rediscover parts of herself that seem to have withered up and gone dormant.
The prose in this book is elegant and effortless, and May’s voice is calm, quiet, and a little sad, but also often wickedly funny. I found her to be quite the endearing character despite her prickliness, and I was definitely rooting hard for her. Jessica Francis Kane’s writing reminds me a lot of Carol Shields and a little of Laurie Colwin, so I think if you like those authors you will like this book.
There are a lot of interesting facts in this book, interspersed between plot points. I learned a lot about trees that I didn’t know before. Did you know that yew trees have been considered sacred since ancient times?
I found myself getting a bit choked up at the end, but in a good way. This book made me think of all my wonderful and much-cherished friends, some of whom will likely read this review. You know who you are ❤️.
“Many scientists believe trees can befriend each other, intertwining their roots to share resources and bending their branches to make sure each gets enough sun. Some think that a pair can become so close that when one of the trees dies, the other one dies, too.”
“Pushed right up against Leo’s promenade, huge and unsightly and flanked by the planters he’d bought in the fall, which were still empty, was one of those snow mounds that refuse to melt and seem to change physical properties as the season progresses. It was soot black with some fabric poking out of it, a couple of crushed cans, a shoe, and some silver tinsel. It seemed crazy that it should still be here in May, but we’d had a late snowstorm and temperatures had been chilly. Leo was out with a few of the guys from the kitchen throwing salt at it. One of them brought out a pot of water, and then another one. I watched from my car for about ten minutes and in that time, between the salt and the water, they brightened it up and managed to reduce its height by about a foot. I could tell from his posture Leo wasn’t happy. I felt sorry for him. Icebergs all over the world were shrinking, but not this thing.”
“I admire the knitters. You can pretend to be reading, but you cannot pretend to knit. Also, it takes a lot of commitment to cart the supplies around.”
“Perhaps a best friend is someone who… holds the story of your life in mind. Sometimes in music a melodic line is so beautiful the notes feel inevitable; you can anticipate the next note through the long rest. Maybe that is friendship. A best friend holds your story in mind so notes don’t have to be repeated.”
“Quite simply: Without friendship, you become Grendel. Many people don’t marry and many don’t have children. Some people might not know their mother or father, and a lot of people don’t have siblings. But any person who has lived for any length of time has had a friend. Except Grendel, and he became the first monster in English literature.”
The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki BrammerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I first started reading this book, I wasn’t so sure about it, but by the time I finished I was actually pretty much crying on public transit. Clover is a bit hard to like at first; she’s weird and defensive and immature. You find out *why* a little bit further on, and as she develops more self-awareness, she becomes a lot easier to take. I went from being slightly annoyed by her to really rooting for her by the end of the book. At one point I was freaking out a bit every time she would meet a new person because I was so worried they would somehow betray her and crush her vulnerable spirit.
I really liked how this book talked about death. Clover is a death doula, a job I have read about and find quite interesting. Back in undergrad, I took a course called something like Death and the Afterlife in Western Religious Traditions. It was absolutely fascinating and I loved it. A friend and colleague of mine wrote her social work master’s thesis on the experiences of people building caskets for their loved ones as a way of processing their grief. Her thesis and defense were amazing. As part of her research, she hosted a death cafe. I’d like to attend another one, so I particularly appreciated the descriptions of the death cafes Clover attended.
One Goodreads reviewer said they found it hard to believe someone who was kind of immature in her personal life could be so assured and mature at her job as a death doula, but actually I didn’t find that hard to believe. I know people who are very professional and good at what they do—yes, even jobs that require you to have good people skills—but are a mess in their private life. I think that was kind of the point of the book—that Clover knew theoretically what her clients regretted when they died, but she just could not bring herself to apply that to her own life. I found it quite telling that she tried to honour her clients’ regrets by doing the things other people wished they had done, rather than having the courage, confidence, know-how (at first) to do the things she knew deep down that she would regret not doing.
I liked her friendship with Sylvie and with Sebastian, and was glad neither relationship went down the route of cliche.
In the acknowledgments, the author says she wanted to write a “book about death that’s fun and uplifting,” and I think she has managed it, with sensitivity, humour, and depth of genuine feeling. I would highly recommend this for anyone who enjoyed Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine; it is not at all a copycat but hits on some similar themes and has similar traits in its protagonist.
“But while a mother who miscarries might not have ever had the chance to hold that child, they had plenty of time to love them, to dream and hope for them. And that means their grief is twofold—they’re not just grieving the child, but the life they never got to experience.”
“‘The truth is, grief never really goes away. Someone told me once that it’s like a bag that you always carry—it starts out as a large suitcase, and as the years go by, it might reduce to the size of a purse, but you carry it forever.’”
“That was the thing about funerals—no matter how much you try to control the run of show, once you’re dead, it’s out of your hands.”
“Grief, I’d come to realize, was like dust. When you’re in the thick of a dust storm, you’re completely disoriented by the onslaught, struggling to see or breathe. But as the force recedes, and you slowly find your bearings and see a path forward, the dust begins to settle into the crevices. And it will never disappear completely—as the years pass, you’ll find it in unexpected places at unexpected moments. Grief is just love looking for a place to settle.”
“The secret to a beautiful death is living a beautiful life.”
“…instead of constantly asking ourselves the question of why we’re here, maybe we should be savouring a simpler truth: We are here.”
How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie CruzMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This audiobook is an experience! I can’t really imagine reading this one with my eyes, the audiobook narration and sound design were so good. Rossmery Almonte does an amazing job embodying Cara Romero in all her glory. This book is by turns touching, poignant, and hilarious. I really found myself rooting for her success, even though I was like “ooohhhh nooooo” at some of her actions.
I liked the structure of this book so much: Cara is on unemployment and is being paid to go to a program for older workers who have been laid off. She has twelve sessions with the career counsellor, but she uses these sessions to essentially tell her life story. In between sessions, we get to listen to the multiple forms Cara has to fill out—which she does, in her own unique way, sometimes completely ignoring the question she’s being asked so she can write about the things she thinks are more important.
Born in Dominican Republic, Cara comes to New York to find a better future for herself and her son. After working in the same factory for twenty-five years, she has now been laid off and isn’t sure how she is going to make ends meet. As she tells the career counsellor about herself, we learn about her estranged son, Fernando, her sister Angie with whom she has a bit of a fractious relationship, her best friend Lulu, and her 90 year old neighbour whom she looks after every day. Cara is bighearted, maddening, and endearing. I highly recommend this one, and especially recommend the audiobook.
Astra by Cedar BowersMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this because my friend Doug read it and liked it a lot. He did not lead me astray! I listened to this as an audiobook and it was great. What a cool structure for a novel: each chapter is told from a different perspective, and all revolve somehow around the central character Astra…whom we don’t hear from until the epilogue. It’s such a great framing device. As the audience, we are forced to consider with each chapter: is this particular narrator reliable? And sometimes the answer is, kind of. Even the unreliable narrators in the group will touch upon aspects of Astra that are true.
One thing I found heartbreaking was how little people really understood Astra as an adult. (view spoiler)
Cedar Bowers is a beautiful writer, and I really enjoyed her lovely prose. I also enjoyed her use of setting—it’s always fun to read about Vancouver and surrounding areas since I am so familiar with them. Even though I’m not that familiar with the area where Celestial (the commune) is, it too felt familiar to me as a British Columbian.
Overall, highly recommended. I will definitely read her next book.
Community Board by Tara ConklinMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’m not sure why this book has a relatively low rating on Goodreads. I REALLY enjoyed it. Initially I had thought it would primarily be about amusing/weird small town community politics, which it sort of is, but it’s about a lot more than that. The narrator, Darcy Clipper, has returned home to her parents’ house in Murbridge, a small New England town. Her marriage has just imploded and she longs for the comfort and familiarity of home. However, things aren’t quite how she thinks they’ll be.
Yes, it’s quirky, yes, it’s full of sometimes annoying characters (one of whom is Darcy herself on occasion). But I thought this book had a lot of heart and was very well written. The plot moves along, the characters are well-drawn, the dialogue is witty. I really enjoyed the writer’s voice; it often reminded me of Miriam Toews. In fact, the whole book reminded me of Miriam Toews.
I know some people found Darcy tiresome, and she is definitely self-pitying at times, but I could empathize with her. She wasn’t terribly unselfaware and she does go on a journey of self discovery and growth.
Definitely a satisfying read for me and one that cheered me up after a horrible November. I bet the audiobook would also be good!
CW: (view spoiler)
Literary Fiction—Short Stories
Afterparties by Anthony Veasna SoMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh man. I’m gutted. I devoured all of this amazing book of short stories, but it wasn’t until I read the “About the Author” at the back of the book that I discovered Anthony Veasna So died in 2020 at the age of 28, just before the book was published. I literally sucked in my breath and said “Oh no” out loud.
The New York Times obituary/tribute is titled “A Rising Star’s Career Was Cut Short. His Impact Is Just Beginning,” which I can attest to after having finished Afterparties. Although they are linked—characters from one are sometimes referred to in another—all the stories are separate and different. I can’t even pinpoint one that I like better than all the rest; it’s impossible to choose. All the stories are about the Cambodian-American community in California, about families and relationships, about being queer, about dealing with intergenerational trauma from parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who survived the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge.
Lest I give the impression that this is bleak and depressing—I didn’t find it to be. These short stories are dynamic, beautifully written, crackling and bristling with life, mordantly funny, poignant, and exhilarating.
I’ve said before that I am drawn to stories about the children of immigrants, because that’s me and my brother, and once again I find myself relating to many aspects of these stories. My family is not Khmer—different Asian country, different wartime, different traumas—but I did recognize (and had a bit of a laugh at sometimes, a cringe other times) some of the very familiar interactions between the generations.
The death of Anthony Veasna So really has cut short a literary talent that I’m sure would only have grown with each new publication. I highly, highly recommend this book.
“She’d do something as simple as drink a glass of ice water, and her father, from across the room, would bellow, ‘There were no ice cubes in the genocide!’” (“Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts”)
“‘He said marriage is like the show Survivor, where you make alliances in order to live longer. He thought Survivor was actually the most Khmer thing possible, and he would definitely win it, because the genocide was the best training he could’ve got.’” (“Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts”)
“Who cares about our family? What have they ever done but keep us alive only to make us feel like shit?” (“Maly, Maly, Maly”)
“‘It was a thing that happened to us, that’s all,’ he said, wiping my tears away. ‘You better get all this crying out now,’ he also said. ‘No use in crying when it already happened.’” (“The Shop”)
“He’d been through so much, I still feel like I owe him. The guy had endured genocide to get me.” (“The Monks”)
“He felt the sensation he often experienced when visiting home, that his parents had conceived him to work on a conveyor belt of nonsensical family issues.” (“We Would’ve Been Princes!”)
“What’s the difference between birth and death, anyway? Aren’t they just the opening and closing of worlds?” (“Somaly Serey, Serey Somaly”)
“Her gaze fixed on me now, and I could tell she wanted a response, like a student waiting for the teacher to identify an answer as right or wrong. It was a demand I received a lot, in fact, being the only Khmer teacher at a school teeming with Khmer youth. My expression was mined for validation a hundred times each day.” (“Generational Differences”)
Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories by Maria RevaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an excellent collection of linked short stories about an apartment building in Soviet-era Ukraine. It doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of Soviet rule and existence in a crumbling society, but it also has many moments of humour. Parts, but not all of it, are bleak. There was one story towards the end that I wasn’t a super fan of, but mostly because it was about a giant cockroach and it was too gross.
My favourites were the stories about Zaya, the little girl from the orphanage. She is a fantastic character. It’s interesting to see the link she has to the apartment building, because it’s not clear at first.
Anyway, highly recommended. The writing is terrific, the characters memorable, and the plots strange and fascinating.
Graphic Novel
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate BeatonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Beautiful and bleak. This book does what the best graphic novels do: transports us to a time and place and immerses us there. Beaton has a lot to say about the psychological, social, and environmental impacts of working in the camps of the Alberta tar sands. I think it is stunning and I’m glad to have read it.
Mystery
The Last Devil to Die by Richard OsmanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the previous three. Maybe more. I read a good chunk of this out loud to my partner on a recent road trip, and I occasionally had to stop because it was making me cry. But it also made me laugh out loud. I think this is part of what I like about these Thursday Murder Club books: they have great characters, the plots are clever, they are funny, but they are also quite poignant because they address things that are reality for a lot of people as they get older, especially losing loved ones to death or dementia.
Do you know the Auden poem “Funeral Blues”? The one that goes, “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone….”? There’s a good section of the book that feels like that poem. I feel certain that Richard Osman must have taken some inspiration from it.
What can I say. I’ll keep reading these Thursday Murder Club books as long as Richard Osman keeps writing them.
CW: discussions of medical assistance in dying.
Romance
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo MedieMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this a lot! It ticked many boxes for me: fast paced, page turner, main character is engaging despite flaws, writing is good, quite a bit of humour despite the topic which could be a bit depressing. Additionally, I had never read a book by a Ghanaian author before, and nor anything set in Ghana, so it was interesting to read some international literature that was new to me.
In a nutshell: Afi, the protagonist, lives in present-day Ghana in a small village called Ho, a few hours outside of the large capital city Accra. Her family’s employer and benefactor, Aunty, asks Afi to marry Aunty’s son Eli. It turns out Eli has taken up with a Liberian woman the family disapproves of, so Aunty’s solution is to get him married to Afi, thinking it will make him finally dump the Liberian woman. Afi and her widowed mother feel quite beholden to Aunty, so Afi agrees to get married even though she doesn’t really know Eli. And thus the story begins!
I told my friend at work who is from Ghana that I was reading it, and he asked me what it was about and who it was by. He had not heard of the author before, but he did say he had definitely heard of similar non-fictional situations for women in Ghana.
There were parts of this where I was quite frustrated for Afi, and others where I was frustrated by her. But overall, I ended up really liking her—she’s smart, funny, and (eventually) self aware. It’s hard not to be sympathetic to her!
The author’s note at the end is particularly interesting. Peace Adzo Medie was born in Liberia but grew up in Ghana. She is currently a professor of Gender and International Politics at the University of Bristol. She talks about how her academic work really informed this novel, but even though she wanted it to be about gender in Ghana, she didn’t want it to be a didactic book. I thought it struck a great balance in that regard. I feel kind of bad comparing it to a soap opera because I don’t mean to diminish it in any way, but really, it’s the rare book written by an academic that is quite this much of a compelling page turner!
I’d read another book by this author. I kind of hope she will write a sequel to this book, or maybe a book that is about one of the other women in the story: Afi’s mother, Olivia; her cousin, Mawusi, her neighbour, Evelyn; her sister-in-law, Yaya; the director of the design school, Sarah…
The Bodyguard by Katherine CenterMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book! Perfect escapist rom-com, with a lovely leading man and an endearingly flawed heroine. It was a joy to read a book that was just fun and had nice people in it. I enjoyed the writing and the dialogue and it just hit the spot.
Fantasy/Magic Realism
VenCo by Cherie DimalineMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
About 30 years ago, I took a university course on World Religions. For my first research paper, I was allowed to pick any topic related to religion that interested me, and I chose the European witch hunts of the Middle Ages. My essay was about how the Christian church feared women’s power as healers, midwives, and herbalists, so they started calling these women witches and persecuting them so that the priests and church wouldn’t have any competition as the sole source of guidance for spiritual and physical health.
Venco is the story of Lucky St. James, a Métis woman living in Toronto with her elderly grandmother, Stella, who has the beginnings of dementia. Lucky is underemployed and stuck in a crappy apartment, but she plugs along because she needs to take care of Stella and there is no one else to do it. However, what Lucky doesn’t know is that a group of powerful witches in the United States are looking for her to help complete their coven and fight an ancient, evil power: the Benandanti, a group of the original witch hunters, made immortal.
This novel is essentially a road trip story with witches. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whereas The Marrow Thieves was about the destructive effects of colonialism, Venco is about the destructive effects of patriarchy. Dimaline is great at creating lively, colourful characters and moving the plot along. I found this to be a lighter novel than The Marrow Thieves, with a lot more humour. It’s quite visual; I could easily imagine a TV miniseries.
Anyway, if you enjoy books about witches, and if you like Cherie Dimaline’s writing style, you will probably like Venco. I’m planning to use it as an assigned novel at some point, and I think my students will like it.
One last thought: even though Indigeneity is not a primary focus of this novel the way it was in The Marrow Thieves, it is a thread that runs throughout. The focus on matriarchy, ancestral knowledge, the wisdom of elders, traditional healing, and relationship with the land all point to Indigenous worldviews.
“The land. The land held magic like a giant sponge. It could hold it for centuries and in isolation if need be.”
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van PeltMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Who knew that an elderly octopus would sound like Niles Crane? I really enjoyed this audiobook, perfectly read by Marin Ireland and Michael Urie. In order to enjoy it, you have to suspend disbelief and be okay with having about one-third of the book narrated by a jaded, witty octopus named Marcellus.
The book revolves around Tova, an elderly widow whose only child, Eric, died at eighteen. Tova works at night, cleaning the Sowell Bay aquarium. Every evening, she politely greets each of the sea creatures, but in particular she is fond of Marcellus the octopus, a grumpy genius who likes to climb out of his tank and roam around the building. The other major character in the book is Cameron, a thirty year old lost soul who has never known his dad, and whose mother left him with his Aunt Jean after his mom’s addictions made it too difficult for her to be a good parent. Cameron loves his Aunt Jean and is fiercely loyal and protective of her, but is kind of immature, with major abandonment issues. He also has a habit of getting fired from whatever job he manages to get. You know eventually Cameron is going to meet Tova (and Marcellus) and that somehow all the pieces will fall into place.
This is a story about aging and loneliness, loss and grief, community, family, and belonging. It’s well plotted, well written, charming, funny, and moving. I liked all the main characters and all the supporting ones like Ethan, the local Scottish grocery store owner who has a crush on Tova, Avery, the owner of a local surf shop who befriends Cameron, and Tova’s group of friends, the Knit Wits. It’s just a really pleasant, likeable book where you kind of know what’s going to happen but that’s okay because you are rooting for the main characters pretty hard.
Finally, to enjoy this book, you’re going to have to be okay with fairly unlikely coincidences, but I mean whatever, you’re already reading a book narrated by an octopus!
You can see all my book reviews here on Goodreads.
Eileen Choo, 1940-2023
My beloved Tai Jee (aunt), Eileen Choo, passed away this past week. It was shocking and unexpected, even though she was elderly. I flew down to be with her in the hospital and then eventually hospice. She never really regained full consciousness, but as her legal health representative, I was able to advocate for her in the hospital and then get her transferred to hospice when it became clear that was the best option for her. (I had no prior experience with hospice but I am now convinced it is one of the most important pieces of our health care system.)
This is adapted from the eulogy I delivered at her funeral.
I recently read a book called Rules for Visiting, by Jessica Frances Kane. I mention this because it is a book about friendship, something that was very important to my aunt. In this book, the narrator mentions that “many scientists believe trees can befriend each other, intertwining their roots to share resources and bending their branches to make sure each gets enough sun.” This quote reminds me very much of my aunt and her philosophy of how to be a good daughter, sister, aunt, and friend. She intertwined her roots with others to strengthen the community she actively sought out; she unsparingly shared her resources, and she always bent her branches to make sure the rest of us could get enough sun.
My mother recently told me a story: When my aunt was a child, family friends liked to tease her when she visited them by giving her a treat, but only one—one mango, for example. She would never eat the fruit herself; she would always insist on bringing it home so she could share it with her siblings. This story illustrates my lifelong experience of my aunt: a generous person who was happiest when sharing with others and making sure they were cared for.
My aunt had a strong faith, and I believe she used this faith not only to guide her life but also to reflect on what she wanted for her end of life, as she left very clearly written end of life instructions. She prefaces them by saying, “death is as much a reality as birth, maturity and old age—it is a reality of life.” This, to me, reflects a philosophical nature and a strong faith. My aunt didn’t want to suffer, but she was not afraid of death itself.
She taught me many things, but the most important way that I want to continue my aunt’s legacy is to keep building those networks of friends and family. She was really good at it, and it was very important to her to have those wonderful reciprocal relationships—just like the trees that intertwine their roots and bend their branches so that the others can get enough sun.
I am going to miss my beautiful Tai Jee terribly. She was a huge part of my life, first as a caregiver for me, and then as our roles reversed, the one who I was caring for. I will miss those phone calls where no matter whether it was me phoning her, or her phoning me, she would always start off by saying “Melindaaaaaaaa….”
In 2019 I made an audio recording of my aunt telling some stories; I wasn’t ready to listen to it until a few days ago, when I finally decided to see if there was something in there I could include in the eulogy. About halfway through I was startled to hear her say very suddenly and clearly, “In a way, I say my life has been very good. Everything, what I did, turned out.” My aunt knew her community and her family loved her. She had a lot of adventures and she lived independently, the way she wanted to. And that, to her, meant she had lived a good life.
Campbell River City Council update part two
After receiving an avalanche of criticism, the City of Campbell River has backed off its initial attempt to remove the Campbell River Art Gallery’s tax-exempt status.
In a room packed with Campbell River Art Gallery supporters — many in traditional First Nations dress — Campbell River city council backed down from what some were calling an attempt to punish the non-profit operation for its support of the homeless.
However, it was not immediately clear how the city plans to proceed with public financial support for the gallery, or how the city’s similarly targeted overdose prevention site fits into plans moving forward.
At a council meeting Thursday, Mayor Kermit Dahl explained to the gallery, somewhat cryptically, that, “we’re gonna work with your chair, starting tomorrow to get your taxes covered. We’re gonna work on an agreement with your chair.
“Everyone else (receiving permissive tax exemptions) has returned back to 100 per cent. And the Campbell River Art Gallery’s chair is committed to working with city staff and council to build back a positive relationship. And when that happens, they’ll be rewarded.”
“Campbell River backs away from pulling art gallery tax support,” Campbell River Mirror, Oct. 13, 2023
I’m very happy to hear that the art gallery will have its taxes covered, but still disturbed by Mayor Dahl’s smarmy language about “they’ll be rewarded.” And what about the Vancouver Island Mental Health Society? It seems from this article that the removal of their tax exemption still stands.
I have to agree with Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon’s expression of displeasure with the Campbell River City Council:
Kahlon said he met with Campbell River officials at this year’s Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention and talked to them about acquiring more supportive housing.
“Which I said I would work with them to do that. But attacking people who are trying to be good neighbors and trying to address that challenge in the community is not the way to go about it,” the minister said. “Because in the end, Campbell River may get more supportive housing units, but they may not find any willing partners, to staff or to actually operate them, because they feel they’re being vilified for doing the work that they do. And so, you know, my recommendation to the Campbell River council, work with your partners who’re willing to be at the table, let’s find solutions. I know it’s not easy. I know people get frustrated and they’re tired and they want the problem just be solved. But the only way to address it is by working together.”
Alistair Taylor, “Minister slams council ‘attack’ on art gallery, overdose prevention site,“ Campbell River Mirror, Oct. 12, 2023
Update on Campbell River issue!
I received two lovely emails from the executive directors of both the Campbell River Art Gallery (Sara Lopez Assu) and the Vancouver Island Mental Health Society (Taryn O’Flanagyn) thanking me for my letter to Campbell River City Council. Sara kindly sent a link so I could see the 400+ letters that City Council received criticizing the Council’s proposal and recommending that both non-profits maintain their tax exempt status.
(I found my letter in there and re-read it, and…wow, I sound grumpy.)
I was reading some of the other letters and honestly I started to get a bit choked up at the outpouring of caring. I mean, I knew that I couldn’t be the only person who would write in, but to see this many people advocating passionately for non-profit arts, culture, and social services serving unhoused people…it kind of reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
(The former financial advisor of the Campbell River Art Gallery included in her letter of support an interesting tidbit on Councillor Ron Kerr, the one who put this proposal forward to remove tax exemption status from these two non-profits and give it to the fancy golf course: apparently he was once a member of the Art Gallery Board but was actually kicked off because he attended so few meetings—possibly only ONE. More interesting info about the mayor, Kermit Dahl, who also supports the removal of these tax exemptions: he has endorsed Conservative candidate Aaron Dunn who two years ago was outed by the NDP as making social media posts that expressed “belief that systemic racism does not exist, that denies there is a gender pay gap and highlights his support for a federal Conservative MP who was expelled from caucus for supporting conversion therapy for teenagers who identify as gay.” That’s not the kind of company I’d want my mayor to be keeping.)
Here is a really good article in the Cortes Currents about the issue: Campbell River to remove tax exemptions from art gallery and mental health. Disturbingly, Sara Lopez Assu states that her application (within the time limit) to make a presentation to Council about this issue was denied. WHAT is going on with Campbell River City Council?
The Council meeting to decide the fate of these two non-profits’ tax exempt status is tonight; send good thoughts for those folks please!
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