While walking my dogs on Sunday morning, I came across a wooden shelf at the side of the road. I immediately thought of my mother.

She still plucks seeds out of the apples she gets at her retirement home and nurtures them until they sprout into stems. Once they outgrow her space, they go into the soil at our rural home with hopes of creating new fruit and new seeds.

This shelf would support her collection of pots on her sunny windowsill.

As it sits temporarily in my hallway, I think about how both my parents taught us to see potential in the ordinary things around us. Born in the midst of the Great Depression and growing up under the shadow of a world war, they learned to make the most of every scrap of food, fabric and happiness.

It wasn’t easy. Mom had to quit school after Grade 10 to work as a nanny to help........

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