Marie McGrath Davis
Bio
If I didn't write, I would explode.
Stories (29/0)
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 McGrath Davis2 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 McGrath Davis2 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 McGrath Davis2 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 McGrath Davis2 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 McGrath Davis2 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 McGrath Davis2 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 McGrath Davis3 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 McGrath Davis3 years ago in Families
I Want To Speak WithThe Manager
I’ve always loved Cocker Spaniels. My mother always loved Cocker Spaniels. Be they American or English. We came from Ireland, where English Cocker Spaniels were the breed we knew. I didn’t really know them back then before we moved to Canada. I was too young. By the time we reached Canada, I was nearly old enough to know about Cocker Spaniels. And, the second I became of requisite age, we had a Cocker Spaniel. But this was an American Cocker Spaniel. And he was a beauty. I named him ‘Rory’ which, in Irish, means “Red King”, for so his golden coat was smattered with errant puffs of a sunset red.
By Marie McGrath Davis3 years ago in Petlife
- Top Story - September 2021