K Grieve • November 25, 2025
We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home
A Note Before You Read
Before you read this post, I want to offer a small warning.
This piece isn’t my usual stroll down memory lane or a lighthearted SassyThoughts remembrance.
It enters an area that is heavier, darker, and far more unsettling than what I typically share.
It’s a story that has frightened me, and left its mark in ways I didn’t understand at the time.
It’s a story about murder!
If you prefer the gentler reflections, feel free to skip this one.
But if you choose to read on, just know you are following me into a memory that is chilling.
Death has always scared me.
That realization did not come gently. It arrived harshly! It scared me even before I fully understood it.
The fear of death was planted in me in grade two at St. Patrick’s Parochial School in Victoria, B.C. Sister Mary Doleena, my favourite teacher, told us that Jesus died on the cross to save our immortal souls. I remember the way sister said “died”. It seemed so final and I wanted it to go away. The idea of a man suffering, bleeding, nailed to a wooden cross filled me with dread. Even at seven, something in me resonated: death is real, and none of us can escape it.
Years later, when I was nine, I met a girl riding her bike with a printed scarf on her bald head. I told my mother I met a new friend but that she always wore a scarf tied tightly around her head. None of her hair was showing and I wondered why? My mother explained that she knew that my friend had cancer, a cruel disease that could take her life. Another snapshot on death.
But nothing-absolutely nothing-prepared me for what happened in September 1975.
The memory still comes hauntingly back, stirring feelings I thought I had long forgotten.
I was newly separated, living in a small slanted-floor house in Winnipeg with my one-year-old son, Noah, and my friend Jill. I was working in an Affirmative Action program called New Careers, which helped mostly indigenous adults (many from small communities and / or reserves in Manitoba) to find employment after receiving two years of job training.
Jill and her colleague Marilyn taught at an inner-city “alternative” school called Robertson House; it was stressful, challenging work. The school’s aim was to help kids whose challenges prevented them from success in a typical public school. Marilyn lived a few blocks away from us in an older two-story home with a veranda and creaking floors. She lived alone, but had a boyfriend named Mike who was a fellow teacher at the school where she taught. She was separated from her husband, who, as I recall, lived in Winnipeg.
Every school-day morning, Jill was picked up by Marilyn and the two of them made their way to Robertson House. They were not only coworkers, but also good friends.
One evening, the teaching staff from Robertson House met in my living room for their first meeting of the year. It seemed like it was a positive and productive meeting, and I came home just as the group was leaving. Marilyn was smiling as she slipped on her jacket. I had no idea it would be the last time I’d ever see her alive.
The next morning, as usual, Jill was waiting to catch a ride with Marilyn outside our front door. I had taken Noah to daycare and came back home to get ready for work. I was very surprised when Jill burst through the front door, shaking.
“Marilyn has not picked me up; I went by her house and the back door is ajar.” she said as she trembled. “Something there isn’t right,” she said. Her face was tense and her eyes were wide.
There was something in her voice, cold and fearful, that made my stomach heave. I said “We’ll go together and see what is happening.” I grabbed my green winter coat and the two of us flew out of the house. We ran the few blocks to Marilyn’s home, the early fall air stinging our cheeks. The neighborhood was so quiet. There was no wind, but we felt a chill in the air. When we reached Marilyn’s yard, her back door menacingly hung open.
Inside, the kitchen felt wrong. The kind of wrong that felt eerie. Her cat was licking at food on the counter, but the air was too still, too heavy.
We called her name. ‘Marilyn, Marilyn!” No response. We climbed the narrow stairs slowly. Me first, Jill behind, each step creaking loudly, like a warning. At the top of the landing, I looked into the master bedroom.
And the world stood still.
Marilyn was face down on the bed. Blood everywhere: splattered, pooled, smeared in a way that instantly told me something horrific had happened here. A metallic smell filled my nostrils. My body froze and then I shook with a terror I had never felt before. The grisly image before me was soon to be etched into my memory forever.
For a moment neither Jill nor I could breathe. Then instinct took over.
There was a rotary phone mounted on the stair landing. I heard myself shout, “Jill! Call 911!”
Jill’s hands were trembling. She fumbled as she attempted to dial. She was sobbing, unable to get a number to turn fully around the wheel.
“Give it to me!” I yelled, grabbing the phone from her.
When the operator answered, the words tore out of me: “We’re at our friend’s house. She’s face down on the bed. There’s blood everywhere!”
My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.
I can still feel that moment: the cold air burning my lungs as panic washed over me. The knowledge that death wasn’t an idea anymore was real. It had a smell. It had a presence.
Totally panicked, Jill and I stumbled down the stairs, nearly tripping over each other, and we burst out the front door. I remember propping open the screen door, as if to allow air to cleanse the atmosphere. We ran all the way to the boulevard and stood there shaking, looking up and down the street as if the police could somehow save us just by arriving fast enough.
A young policeman arrived alone, and asked me directly “Is she dead?” “I don’t know, I didn’t check,” I said nervously. We waited on the lawn as the young officer entered the house and ascended the stairs. A few minutes later, he came back down, shaking. He took our names and our address, and told us to go home-despite the fact that this was now a crime scene, and we were the only witnesses.
Jill and I clung to each other as we made our way back to our house. Could the murderer be someone we knew? What if we were next? We climbed the steps up our porch and, terrified, we crept into our house. I rushed to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. Together, we moved from room to room, checking every corner, hoping that we found no one waiting for us. Luckily, no one was there, and we were free from danger.
The young officer from the crime scene gave our address to two detectives that then showed up at our house. We were put into their vehicle and taken down to Winnipeg’s downtown station, and put into a little windowless room for questioning. As we waited to be interviewed, next door we could hear the sobbing of Marilyn’s boyfriend Mike as he was questioned about Marilyn’s death. The details sickened him, and we could hear the sound of him vomiting through the walls.
In the days that followed, the truth of what happened to Marilyn emerged, and it was more terrifying than anything I could have imagined.
Marilyn and her ex-husband had taken in a troubled teenaged boy called Allen, as a kind of foster child. They wanted to help him find stability, structure, and hope-things his troubled life had never offered him. While living with Marilyn and her husband, Allen worked a paper route, but instead of delivering to his customers, he began stealing their subscription money. Marilyn discovered what he was doing and felt it her duty to “rat him out.” She did what any responsible adult would have done: she reported him.
The consequence for young Allen was swift. He was sent to a rough youth detention centre in Saskatchewan. The environment there was harsh and punishing. At fourteen, anger overtook him and he directed that anger at Marilyn.
A few years later, Allen escaped the detention centre, and he came straight back to Winnipeg. Not to find help. Not to start over. Maybe not even to seek vengeance. Maybe just to steal whatever he could? Regardless of the motivation, the end result was brutal.
In the early hours of that September morning, in the quiet of her home, he beat Marilyn to death with a hammer that belonged to her. Did she stumble upon him as he was stealing from her? We will never know. Regardless, the brutality of it is unconscionable. The combination of his tough youth and the kindness of the victim is almost too much to comprehend. Even now, the senselessness of it all sits heavy. Marilyn had opened her door to him, and he repaid her with a violent death.
Knowing this didn’t lessen the horror of what Jill and I found that morning. If anything, it deepened it.
The unpredictability of a human who is consumed by rage is overwhelming. Marilyn’s decision to report Allen to the authorities led to her tragic death.
Frightening memories are difficult to suppress. While this is an unusual experience for most people, I believe it’s worth sharing. Writing this particular blog entry has brought back a traumatic experience-one that is both a unique and terrifying-yet this is still an experience and a memory that I have lived through.
Is it cathartic? I hope so.
As we age, death creeps closer. It is not an illusion but is something inescapable. People say the runway gets shorter, and it does.
But Ram Dass said it best: “We are all just walking each other home!”
Some of us stumble. Some vanish suddenly. But the rest of us keep on walking, because in the end, that’s all any of us can do.
Kathy's Blog
Good Friends, Great Stories Friendship isn’t always about who you have known the longest. Friendship is about the memories we’ve made, the laughter we shared and the the experiences that have woven our lives together. Friendship is about favourite traditional experiences, shared history and laughter that never fades. Friendship is about sharing margaritas at lunch, downing junk food, not counting calories and knowing that at least one of you will never make it to dinner. Friendship is about stories that get better as they are retold. My husband Ross and I have enjoyed incredible friendships throughout the years. Each one has brought its own special kind of companionship and fond memories. The following stories offer a glimpse into a few of the lasting connections that have shaped our lives. Some friendships arrive early when we really can’t appreciate their worth. I was ten years old, newly arrived from Victoria to Winnipeg when such a friendship began on a concrete playground at Frontenac School. It was early September and the prairie elm trees were beginning to show shades of burnt orange and golden yellow as I made my way to my new school. I could see a flock of Canada geese winging their way South, as far as Mexico I had heard. Dressed in turquoise peddle pushers, topped with a white tee and flowered cardigan I carried my metal “ponytail” embossed lunch kit tightly in my hand feeling both anxious and hopeful. I arrived in time to find teachers standing along the edge of the playground calling out student names and classroom numbers. I lined up behind Mrs. King who was teaching one of the two grade five classes. I followed her in line with about twenty-five rambunctious boys and girls as we made our way to the second floor to our assigned classroom. Cautiously, I headed to one of the oak desks arranged in neat rows atop the dark green linoleum floor. It seemed like a nano second later when the bell rang announcing recess and within minutes the classroom emptied. I cautiously entered the noisy playground and looked around, not knowing a single soul. The schoolyard was filled with laughing girls happily skipping double Dutch on the cracked concrete. Screaming boys were energetically playing soccer on the coarse grass and others took turns powerfully swatting at the hard tetherball. I guess it was a typical play area but to me it looked like unfamiliar territory where everyone knew the rules but me. Enter what today would be known as a “geeky” looking girl: Davette Kent. She was gawky and wore knee highs on her gangly legs. She peered at me through dark, heavy rimmed glasses. Her mousey brown hair was limp, with bangs cut straight across her high forehead. A few pimples were poking through her pale skin. Like me, she was standing alone, gazing around. She mirrored my anxiousness. Both Davette and I were in need of a fast friend that September day, and that is exactly what we found in one another. We tossed each other a lifeline, and neither of us let go. When the bell rang, we lined up holding hands and kept that tradition for the next two years when we separated and went to different schools. … My husband Ross began a friendship with a young fellow named Bob. They met in grade eight in Winnipeg Manitoba. It was a friendship that carried on through high school, university and beyond. In high school they made what they considered a particularly strategic decision: they joined the choir, not because either had dreams of musical greatness, but because they had discovered that the choir was an excellent place to meet girls. It may not have launched a singing career, but it reinforced a friendship that would last a lifetime. Years later, it was early spring in Toronto on a late Wednesday afternoon in 1977 when my husband, Ross got “the call”. The streets were filled with the grey slush of the melting snow from a colder than usual T.O winter when he made his way to the office that day. Working for a large family owned Canadian construction company since 1969, he was accustomed to surprises and was deft at handling them. This call was different and very much out of the ordinary. It was a call that changed the course of his life and mine. That afternoon one of the company executives from head office in Edmonton reached out to Ross and told him to make his way to the Toronto airport at midnight. He was told to pick up a package at Canadian Airlines. “What’s it about?”, Ross asked. “Just be there!” the executive replied, and “make your way to Edmonton on Saturday for a morning meeting at the Van Winkle Hotel.” It all seemed strange and almost clandestine! Navigating the dimly lit streets, Ross arrived home from the airport and opened the “mysterious” package. He learned that the Poole family was selling the company they had founded in 1906. The company’s visionary president since 1947 was leading a management buyout and his plan was to invite twenty four of his managers of the day to buy the company. Each invitee was offered a small interest with the president taking the biggest proportion. Ross was the youngest of the group and had just recently been given the manager designation. He felt honored and lucky to be given this extraordinary invitation. It certainly turned out be be an opportunity of a lifetime. Ross did get to the Saturday morning meeting and agreed to accept his offering which was a total investment of $8000. Although he agreed to invest he didn’t have the $8000 readily available but figured he could find a way to make it happen. That Saturday afternoon on his return to Toronto he stopped in his hometown of Winnipeg to see his family but first met his best friend Bob at the Norwood Hotel that Bob and his family owned. Over an ice-cold beer, Ross told Bob the story about the surprising sale. He told Bob he would like to invest but wondered how on earth he was going to come up with the money. Bob said “Ross you have to do it. Wait here I will be right back .” Bob returned in ten minutes with a brown paper bag and handed it to Ross. Inside was $8000 cash that Bob pulled from his vault. This generous gesture was unconditional and given without hesitation. A testament to a friendship built to last. Many years later, the friendship went the other direction and Ross returned the favor by investing in a project that Bob was spear heading. Through the decades, Ross and Bob’s friendship continued to build on loyalty, shared history and stories worth retelling. More than six decades later, their friendship lives on. It’s a friendship shaped by growing up together, knowing each other stories, sharing life‘s joys and challenges, and enjoying professional success. Here is Ross and I (left) with Bob and his wife Dianne (right)
“Helen Mirren, who turned 80 in 2025, rejects the term “aging gracefully,” preferring to describe her approach as "aging with fun, commitment, and unapologetic realism". She advocates for embracing the natural process of getting older as a "beautiful thing" rather than fighting it, encouraging others to live in the moment and accept physical changes.” Aging is not for the faint of heart! It creeps up on you before you actually know it’s happening. It demands courage, boldness, wisdom, resilience, and realism. Add to that, growing older centers on the stories you carry and the memories you hold. For me, many of those lessons were learned from stories about my mother’s life, her choices, and the way she met hardship and joy. How Mom lived her life gave me my first understanding of what it means to live and to age with determination. My mother Marjorie lived until 95. Mom’s married life was pretty much emblematic of her generation. A devout Catholic, she learned the hard way that the ‘Rhythm Method’ (the practice of choosing specific days for intimacy to avoid pregnancy) of birth control was not in the least dependable. Think five kids with the last, our youngest brother Doug, born when my mom was 40. She smoked Crave M cigarettes. Back then, you could send a kid to the local drugstore with a quarter and a note to the pharmacist to get your cigarettes. Unheard of in today’s world. Almost weekly, my mom made homemade bread which filled the house with a yeasty and comforting smell. And her doughnuts were the talk of the neighborhood. Deep-fried and laid out on brown paper to cool, she dipped them in sugar, and we ate them while they were still warm. It was one of Mom’s ways of showing us love: one delicious donut at a time! My mom’s early life was less typical. Born in 1921 in Saskatchewan, she was a child of the Dust Bowl era. The middle child of six kids, she had a pleasing personality and was known as a hard worker. Perhaps that explains why, when she was just nine years old, she was sent to her Aunt Kate, where she helped in the Red and White store that Kate managed. Mom cried her eyes out for a year after she arrived because she missed home. Seven years later, she cried her eyes out when she was sent back home. My mom met those challenging years away from home with realism that helped to shape her resolve and solidified her perseverance. Her way of handling hardships and setbacks helped shape my understanding of how to approach life’s highs and lows. Looking back, it’s hard not to appreciate Mom’s handling of her early life challenges. At a time when most children are living with their parents and siblings, she learned to adapt, work, and endure separation. The tears marked her sadness, but the fact that she endured it speaks to her strength and courage. As she aged, life asked more of her, not less. She met aging the only way she knew: steadily and cheerfully. Aging didn’t soften her resolve; it strengthened it. My mother was lucky in many important ways. She was surrounded by her family and wonderful caregivers that went above and beyond the call of duty. In the last chapter of her life, she lived with my sister Gail and her partner Andrew. Helped by my other siblings, she was given something money can’t buy: a life that felt like hers. One special caregiver, Helen, understood that caring for another is more than schedules and medications. She would play one of Mom’s favourite songs, and the two would dance, smiling and giggling as they moved to the rhythm of the song. And God only knows why Mom had a parrot for a pet; a parrot that hated everyone but Mom. That bird squawked and tried to attack anyone who entered: except my mom. Strange as it may seem, that annoying parrot triggered my mom’s lifelong ability to tolerate difficult personalities. It seems to me that Mom’s life may have slowed, but it remained rich. Hearing my mom’s stories showed me that tears do not mean fragility. Tears mark courage, determination, and boldness. Now, as I grow older, I begin to see these same qualities as the core to aging. Aging hasn’t softened me: it has required me to stand more firmly, speak more directly, and, like Mom, to keep moving forward with resolve. “Do not go gentle into the night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (Dylan Thomas) For most of my life, I believe I have been considered outspoken. But with aging, I have honed that characteristic to a fine point. Not long ago, I was part of a conversation about “the state of the world.” All of us were well into our seventies. We lamented days gone by and talked about how chaotic and fractured everything seems and how our reality is disturbing and disconcerting. The group represented different points of view, and the talk moved rather awkwardly but cautiously into politics. Definitive statements were made as if all would agree. Boldness took over me! I spoke up, standing my ground without apology. I felt something in me shift. It would have been easy to try to smooth things over, but instead, I chose to be bold and stand my ground. I am older now and believe aging is not about retreating from the world. It’s about resolve and courage in the face of opposition. Aging, of course, isn’t just philosophical. It shows up in physical ways. Knees and hips need replacing, bodies that don’t bounce back the way they used to, medications and vitamins galore to swallow. And tragically for some, illnesses occur that can be life-threatening. There is no bravery in pretending otherwise. But boldness and courage still have a place here. They help in deciding to face head-on what lies ahead, to ask the right questions, and to endure treatment and recovery. Aging asks us to be realistic, accepting the challenges aging can present. Aging isn’t always about changes to ones body but the evolving nature of our character. Inspired by my mother, I now feel that I am entering a period of my life where I am more determined to uphold my principles and stand up for the things that I believe. Time won’t always be on your side. It’s the simple truth, and it’s no surprise. But now and then, like my mom, there is still time for a dance!! “The years teach much which the days never know.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)