Note to the Reader:
This is a true story. It proves that love is indestructible. I dedicate it to anyone who is grieving the death of a loved one.
It was the 8th of March 1964. I was 17 years old. I will always remember this day. The day my grandmother died. She got up in the morning as usual, got dressed, and busied herself with household chores. In about the middle of the day I found her sitting on a little stepstool in the hallway. She said she was tired. I told my mother. With the help of my brother, Andy, who was 15, we led her to her bed and she lay down. This was totally unlike her. She was never tired. My mother worried about her and brought her a bowl of broth to eat. But my grandmother did not want to eat. She just lay there. My mother stayed there beside the bed worried. My brother left to play ball. My father was at work. I stood at the foot of the bed watching.
And then my grandmother raised her arms to the ceiling, breathed out and died. Her arms fell down beside her.
***
A month later, my mother, my brother and I boarded a ship to come to Canada from Poland. My parents separated. My father stayed in Poland. We were to stay with my mother’s sister Stella in Canada. The trip was pleasant, the new country welcoming. The biggest problem was that neither of us spoke English. My aunt took me to school and explained to the principal my predicament. I stayed till the end of the year. During the summer we all attended English-as-a-second-language classes. In September, my English still nonexistent, I went back to school. They put me in grade 11. A very nice Polish girl, Alex, was my translator. At the end of the year, the school passed me to grade 12 because, even though I failed English miserably, my marks in Math, Science and Latin were pretty good. I was a good student in Poland so I worked hard and managed to show the teachers that I was not stupid, just lacking the knowledge of the language. In grade 12 I did much better. I even managed to pass English.
I was very ambitious. I wanted very badly to graduate from grade 13 as an Ontario Scholar. To that I needed my average to be over 80%. I knew I could get it in Math, Physics and Chemistry, but my English would pull me down.
