I was in Vancouver, British Columbia this past week and visited my father's gravesite on the 4th anniversary of his unexpected death. One is never prepared for a parent’s passing.
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My dad survived two heart attacks: one at age 47 and the other at age 71, followed by triple bypass surgery. My dad had such a will to live that I often thought he was immortal.

I think my dad knew when it was his time. It was as if he planned his final day of rest - three weeks after his 84th birthday and three months after his dream vacation, a family cruise to Alaska.

My dad awoke, sat at the edge of the bed and then fell backwards and died beside my mom who was sleeping.

The cause of death? Intracranial bleed. My dad hit his head on his night table a few days before he died. He minimized the severity of his accident; however, his Google search history prior to his death indicated that he had been researching concussions.

Four years later .... Here are 4 lessons that I learned from my dad:

1. Prac...

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and you just have to take a look at your news feed to see that toxic relationships are everywhere. The tragic details surrounding the Gabby Petito murder, the issues raised in the Netflix hit series MAID – based on Stephanie Land’s bestselling memoir – have received lots of media attention and viral shares, showing us that domestic violence does not discriminate.

Anyone can fall prey. And COVID put an added strain on marriages: Many couples in quarantine went one of two ways – either the crisis brought people together, or it tore them apart. In the last e-blast, we talked about the pandemic being a relationship accelerator.

Survivors of domestic violence and advocates that support them know all about the patterns of abuse. Unhealthy relationships leading to abuse can happen at work and at home. And believe it or not, many people don’t realize that they are in a situation where the power imbalance is off, and where one person can intimid