The Passion of Writing

My wife passed away in June 2021. Before she did, she told me to write.

Somehow, I believe that from the shadows she still urges me on. I work during the day, and with quiet anticipation wait for the moment I can slip back into the world I am creating. I have always enjoyed writing stories about my family—it mattered deeply to me—but the series that became The Anomaly has bewitched me in a different way.

Perhaps it is because every character, every moment, feels layered with humanity. They move me. I can see them; I can meet them. When I began writing The Last Mission of K-88 Grom, I stepped outside. It was raining, six degrees Celsius, with a gentle wind sharp enough to make me shiver. For a moment, I wanted to be in their skin—to draw from my own humanity and carry it back into the story.

To all the readers around the world who visit these pages, thank you.
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Postscript
I hope The Man Under the Uniform and The Last Mission of K-88 Grom find their way onto this list. I ache when I write these stories—and that ache feels necessary.

The Anomaly

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The Planner 00Iren

When I tell my daughters that their mother was amazing, I am not sure they grasp the magnitude of her stature. They tell me, “Yes dad, we know,” but I want them to understand the steel in her soul. I remember the day I saw Christina for the first time. it was in the halls of the chemistry department at Simon Fraser University. We both entered a long hallway at the same time, walking in opposite directions in our white lab coats. We had the opportunity to take a good look at each other. When we passed, our eyes crossed. She kept walking without turning, but I looked back to see her disappear into one of the laboratories. I thought, “Wow, I do not have a remote chance with that girl!” Years later, after we reunited in Vancouver, she told me she had thought the same: "He is going to make a woman very happy one day." She said she had no idea it was going to be her. In 1993, after I received an ultimatum letter from Canada Immigration, I was left with no option but to escape to th...

Our Charlie, Hegel

It was 1981, and I had barely survived my first year at the University of Havana, where I was studying chemistry. The leap from high school to university had been a huge adjustment—not just for me, but for many others. In the fall of 1979, about 250 of us began the program together. By the second year, fewer than 50 remained. That year we were introduced to a new subject: Philosophy. Every subject has to start somewhere, and we began with the classics—their ideas, their conflicts, their strengths and weaknesses. But one question weighed heavily on us: why study philosophy at all? Shouldn’t we be focused on chemistry—the nature of substances, their reactions, the concepts of atoms, molecules, and bonds? That was the very first challenge we posed to our philosophy lecturer, and to us, it seemed perfectly legitimate. The answer, fittingly, was philosophical. In the Soviet context, philosophy was meant to train us in analytical reasoning and critical thinking—by grappling with big questi...

My Gift

To my daughters, I tried to be her, and I could not. I tried to be their buddy, and I could not. Then I understood: I am Dad. That is my role, my strength, and my gift. Now, it is recorded forever, here.

My Family After Tragedy

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