Category Global health and disparities

FMM 11 29 2024 In All Things, Give Thanks

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche. I have a complicated relationship with the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Like most people born outside of the USA, it was not a holiday which permeated my consciousness until I arrived here in the late 70s.  Since I moved to be with my […]

FMM 11 22 2024 No Time for Tears

“They don’t want to see us uniteAll they want us to do is keep on fussing and fighting.” ~ Robert Nesta Marley. More than 25 years ago, a very close friend of my husband was murdered.  In cold blood, in his driveway one morning.  He (the friend) had been involved with some unsavory characters and […]

FMM 11 15 2024 The ‘W’ Word

“The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson. For those who don’t know me, I had a uniquely educational childhood. The youngest daughter of a minister who moved his white family from the UK to the heart of rural […]

FMM 11 8 2024 Our Better Angels

“The rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together.”~  Saadi. I have no memory of this, but when I was quite young (our family was still living in England at the time), I stood in front of our black and white television and yelled: “Stop talking about Mr. McMillan!”  He was the […]

FMM 11 1 2024 Think for Yourself!

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~ Audre Lorde. Like many children, I grew up seeing the world through the lens of my parents’ eyes – in particular my father.  He had a way of making observations that helped you to see […]

FMM 10 25 2024 Sacred Footprints

“Ya running and ya running,But ya can’t run away from yourself.” ~ Robert Nesta Marley. It is hard to imagine now, but there was a time when photographs were scarce commodities.  Cameras were not ubiquitous.  Film was expensive, and you wouldn’t know until it was developed how the photos would turn out.  My mother once […]

FMM 10 18 2024 Showdown!

“I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.” ~ Maya Angelou. One night this week I awoke from a dream that had a very clear message, so clear that I immediately texted myself (my method of […]

FMM 10 11 2024 Oh Canada!

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr. I have links with Canada on both sides of my family tree.  Many years ago, my great-grandparents (on my father’s side) decided to emigrate to Canada.  This was their second migration.  Earlier, shortly after they got […]

FMM 10 4 2024 If we Should Live up in the Hills

‘Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?Sinnerman where you gonna run to?Where you gonna run to?All on that day.’ ~ Nina Simone. I was spoilt by growing up in a land of lyrical beauty.  When Columbus reported back to Queen Isabella of Spain, about the lands he had ‘discovered’, he is said to have described […]

FMM 9 27 2024 How Very Dare You?

‘Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.’ ~ Helen Keller. When my children were little, their altered understanding of common phrases or things became our name for them.  The Hard Rock Stadium was erected a short distance from our home, and in its first naming was the Joe Robbie Stadium.  […]