We have more spirit than we thought as we respond to the threats from our closest ally and nearest neighbour. This year, I will be reflecting on what I’m thankful for and will renew my commitment to do my best to keep the generous Canadian spirit alive, but with thoughts and feelings that are a direct result of my early years as a child and my family’s immigration to Canada in 1955.

With only seventy-five dollars in my dad’s pocket, my family came to the prairies from England in response to recruitment by Canada of needed teachers — a mother, a father and five children aged 14 months to 14 years. After a seven-day boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean and two days crossing eastern Canada by train, we’d landed in paradise. We waited a full day in the Winnipeg train station, climbing on an antique train, while we waited to get on to another train bound for the prairies in central Canada.

There we were introduced to lemon pie that was cut into unimaginable sizes. We ate our first hot dogs and were entertained with magic tricks by a station agent with a sleight of hand anxious to help a new Canadian family.

Within fifteen minutes of arriving at the door of our new home in Outlook, Saskatchewan we were astounded by a parade of people delivering bags of tomatoes, jars of pickles, cakes as moist as dew, freshly baked bread and something new to us — casseroles. Our first impression was that Canada was the friendliest, kindest, and most generous country we could ever envision.

I was conceived a year before the end of World War II in a time-worn stone house in Yorkshire, England. The day would have been grey like my father’s eyes and my mother’s laundry. Men and women had died every hour of every day for five years.

My mother would have quelled the grey with windowsills that were two feet thick and filled with jam jars of blue bells and primroses. I was barely there. My father had left the French trenches after breathing in man fragments, slip sliding in blood and mud, and succumbing to pneumonia and a collapsed lung.

For almost 11 years, my family lived in poverty in post-war Britain. On the street where I arrived, children skipped rope, spun tops, and played hopscotch like children do in the world. There were homeless dogs and cats, and birds chirped and nattered in the trees as usual.  But shell-shocked men wandered the streets, no longer able to fit in, and an undetonated bomb was found in the middle of our village green.

Like many, we were evicted from our home when the soldier owner returned at the end of the war. For a full year we squatted in an abandoned Anglican rectory — my mom, dad, older brother, me at two years old, and a brand-new baby.

Though I can’t remember that, I wonder how this circumstance impacted me. It was during what psychologists call my formative years and my family and country was penniless. I imagine I had infant post-traumatic stress syndrome.

My post war childhood made me acutely aware of the beauty and generosity of Canadian people. I fear the spirit of being a Canadian will get lost in the struggle for power and supremacy, a global game of thrones. I worry the early spirit of Canadian people will be lost or forgotten, but recent events have illuminated the power of spirit and gentle generosity of Canadians. But since arriving in Canada almost 70 years ago, I have been proud to be here and love Canadian integrity, generosity, and kindness.

Submitted by Wendy Weseen