Thanks Lynn Johnston

Non-medical today but, in a way, writing related.

My favourite comic strip of all time is Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse. I’ve been reading her strip since it began and laughed – and cried – with the Patterson family. When the main character, Elly, was pregnant with her third child, April, I was pregnant with my third. The thoughts and ideas she presented were so true to what I was experiencing. I’ll never forget sitting in my OB’s office, waiting for him, and noticing one of the FBorFW strips on his bulletin board. It had Elly, very pregnant, thinking to herself that she had everything ready and then she looked at her belly and said something like “and so, what about you?” How true.

The CBC has published this wonderful interview with Lynn Johnston as her strip is winding down. For those of you who don’t know the strip, Lynn drew it in real life. The characters grew up and characters died. The strip provoked much controversy when a gay teen-aged character came out and when the Patterson’s family dog died.

As much as it is/was a strip about an imaginary family, it hit home a lot. When my golden retriever, Rox, died in January 2004, I printed out an old strip that ran after the Patterson’s dog, Farley, died. It has Elizabeth, the daughter, talking to her friend and telling her that she sometimes hears Farley – and in the last box, you do see Farley following them. I kept that strip up next to my desk for many months; I found it very comforting.

I knew that Lynn was retiring and I knew it was in September 2007, but it’s only this morning that I realized that this is within a few weeks. Our daily paper has a whole page of comic strips, but there are only four that I read. For Better or For Worse is the first one I read and the only one I make sure I read. I’ll miss it.

Thank you Lynn.

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