life rattle show no. 1270

Presented on THURSDAY, August 22, 2013

Hosted by Laurie Kallis

featuring

"Sing Anna, Sing"
and
"Letting Go"

by Belinda Grimaudo Grayburn

tonight's Show

Tonight, on Life Rattle Number 1270, we bring you two more stories by new Life Rattle Writer Belinda Grimaudo Grayburn.

Belinda Grimaudo Grayburn, a first-generation Canadian, is the younger of two daughters and was born in 1973 in Windsor, Ontario. Her parents, originally from Sicily, Italy, emigrated from France in the mid-1960s. Her father was a carpenter and her mother sewed for one of the big three automakers. Both parents influenced Belinda greatly and taught her the importance of hard work, ingenuity, and persevering through adversity. Belinda lived in Windsor for nineteen years before moving to the Greater Toronto Area to study American Sign Language. She is married and has a teenage boy who is the centre of her world. After living many years in both Toronto and Mississauga, Belinda and her family have settled down in what she describes as the small but lovely town of Carlisle, Ontario. Belinda Grimaudo Grayburn currently works at a university and continues her studies in creative writing while also training for her first triathlon.

Belinda makes good writing look effortless. Belinda’s stories, and her reading of her stories, have a rare natural fluidity that presents quite a contrast to the earnest nature of the emotionally engaged narrator.

Last week we heard three lighthearted pieces from Belinda. The two stories we will hear tonight take us toward the opposite end of the spectrum.

In tonight's first story, "Sing Anna, Sing," our narrator asks her mother to share a story from her childhood in Sicily. She responds with a lyrical tale of travelling through the mountains at night with her father, who is forced to sell food on the black market to keep his family fed during the Second World War.Her mother’s telling brings an aura of magic to the story, which almost has us forgetting the dire circumstances.

Tonight’s second story, "Letting Go," is a breathtakingly exquisite recounting of the death of a close friend. Belinda brings an extraordinarily deft touch to her observations in this unique and devastating presentation of the winding down of a human life.