I write because thoughts swirl around in my head and I sometimes don’t know what to do with them. Writing them down gets them out of my head and maybe sometimes into someone else’s.

Take last Friday evening for instance. A young couple in their early thirties was enjoying a lovely summer evening under a tree on a park bench in downtown Toronto. They were here from France on work permits and expecting a baby.

Suddenly, a large branch of the Siberian elm, which was their shade, fell from the tree and hit the young man as he leaned in to protect his wife. It killed him. Dead. On the spot. How can that be? Here one second and gone the next.

These thoughts have been on my mind since that tragic evening. I write because I think it will help ease my mind but I know the questions will go to bed with me again tonight.

Why is a young wife and her unborn child stranded in Canada without the husband she shared a park bench with at the end of a busy day? Why did the branch fall? Why Canada and not France?

I write because I care.