Marie McGrath
Bio
Things that have saved me:
Animals
Music
Sense of Humor
Writing
Stories (165)
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TO BE CONTINUED...
We who were transferred to St. David School – Grades 7 through 10 – from the various other Roman Catholic schools in Waterloo in the fall of 1967 were, I think, fairly pleased with our new digs. For those of us in Grades 7 and 8 especially, things had taken quite a turn as we went from sitting in one classroom, with one teacher the entire day, to having a Homeroom where core subjects were taught by our Homeroom teacher in the morning then, in the afternoon, we got to wander from pillar to post and classroom to classroom for such exotic subjects as French and Guidance, Typing and Music. There was even a Science lab and dedicated Art classroom. The Science lab had Bunsen burners and the Art room held magical properties. Being a Catholic bunch, we also had one class a week in something called “Revelation” which, really, was just a word to lull us into a sense of not having religion jammed down our throats.
By Marie McGrath4 years ago in Humans
Sometimes, you just can't love enough
Think Taffy. Think sweet. Think sticky. Think candy and treats. Think the very opposite of all those conjurings and you will have a first insight into Taffy, the dog I loved who hated me. And the dog whose demise is scrawled in jagged letters across my memory. I loved him desperately and would have done anything for him but life, and what people had done to him – humans one would have thought responsible and caring – made him hate and mistrust me. I had Taffy as my pet dog between my ages of 8 and 15. And I have the scarred hands he left me to prove how very hard I tried to love him into fearing no longer.
By Marie McGrath4 years ago in Petlife
The Ongoing Tale...
Back in the early 1960s, when my parents, grandmother and I would visit my grandfather’s grave every Sunday after Mass, I would be enthralled by the litany of surnames on the various headstones cloistered about Dada’s plot. Mount Hope Cemetery was, as was then the custom, divided into the Roman Catholic section and, then, everyone else. In recent years, I’ve noticed some other religious iconography amidst the ‘others’, but the RCs still have that bit to ourselves.
By Marie McGrath4 years ago in Humans
Dada, I Hardly Knew Ye
The first part My Dada died in 1963. I wish he’d died sooner. He had emigrated from Ireland to Canada with my Nana in 1961 to live with us, as my mother was an only child and she had discovered – when she and I went back to Belfast for a visit – that he’d had a stroke. My mother was made of sterner stuff than I. I would have immediately returned to Ireland to be with my parents, never mind my husband’s great ambitions that couldn’t be realized as a Catholic in 1950s’ Belfast. My mother – and I dither between the wisdom vs love in this – instead, with my father, brought my grandparents to Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 3000 miles west from everything they’d ever known.
By Marie McGrath4 years ago in Families
Mama's Boy
He was standing very still, looking eastward, as the sun began its morning climb into the sky. He had been wakeful during the night. That was nothing particularly remarkable as there was rarely a night during which he slept soundly, nor was it much of a problem as he could easily nap during the day to make up for any lost nighttime sleep.
By Marie McGrath4 years ago in Fiction
Love Lost, and Lost Again
As cats go, my Chloë was on the small side. And, nearing 20, she had become frail and wizened. She was so skeletal despite her huge appetite that I often feared I might break her with an errant step or by picking her up in just the wrong way.
By Marie McGrath4 years ago in Petlife
Depress one for five
As I type this, I want to be dead. This feeling may pass and lodge itself back in some recess of my brain, only to resurface whenever it bloody well wants. I have just Googled, yet again, the easiest ways to end one’s life. As usual, the first item is the number for the Suicide Prevention Hotline. I often wonder if anyone, contemplating these mortal coils and the shuffling off thereof, would be in the least affected by seeing this number. I hope some are, but I cannot imagine wanting to talk to anyone about anything when I feel as I do.
By Marie McGrath5 years ago in Psyche
Baby Please Don't Go
It was the first trip they had taken together since Jack had left for Afghanistan. During his tours, Emmy remained faithful to him, as she’d promised. She was less than pleased when he told her he’d enlisted because they were just beginning to enjoy life as a couple. She had finished her year-long college course in Medical Reception and Jack had breezed through his computer tech training and apprenticeship.
By Marie McGrath5 years ago in Fiction
To Try, Perchance To Fly
Every time I see a hawk in flight, I watch, almost mesmerized. Like eagles and falcons, birds I see less often, the majesty of their form, the strength of their wings and the graceful ease with which they can swoop, then rise again into the wind, are humbling. The skies are theirs, and there they defy the power that gravity imposes on us, the mere mortals.
By Marie McGrath5 years ago in Families
Born and Bread
Had it been double-hinged, my jaw - quite literally – would have landed on the kitchen table. We were having tea and some wheaten bread my mother had made, specifically for me, though she’d never have said. She and my father preferred plain white soda bread to the darker, nuttier wheaten in which she’d usually add (in addition to the three big spoons of white flour) three big spoons of whole wheat flour, then another four or five big spoons of whatever healthy was about the place. Oat bran, flax, wheat germ, maybe some raisins or currants were fairly regular additions to the scone bread I’ve always loved.
By Marie McGrath5 years ago in Families
