Lesia's Dream (22 page)

But Ivan and Papa were two of the lucky ones. Other men were kept in for longer. And they lost everything. Their land. Their money. Their will.

We held on. Papa was never quite the same after. He trusted no one. Ivan was different too. He did not take risks after that. And I never heard him laugh again. Not even when he married and had a son. He turned serious, Ivan did. Though he married a woman who laughed enough for both of them.

Mama never gave up her dream of a real wooden house. And when Papa and Ivan and Andrew built her one, she told me that now she had a palace and she could live like a real Tsarivna.

I still dreamed about Shuparka and, of course, about Baba, but less and less.

Canada became my home.

When Pearl and Paul moved to town, we took over their land. It made sense. It was right beside Andrew's. Paul became a man of decisions. What do you call them? A politician. Imagine, they said. A Ukrainian-Canadian making decisions. And Faithland Farms had the best cream and the best butter and the best eggs. We grew very, very big.

But that was very many years later.

Mama died with a smile. That was the year Andrew and I helped them sell their wheat and they earned enough money to send both Sonia and Adam to school. Papa died two years later. He smiled at the end too. But his smile was for Mama. He was going to find her.

Andrew and I did well together. He gave me many years of laughter, and five glorious children. Your baba was my first daughter. The peaceful one, I liked to call her. Unlike her brothers.

Ach, my darling Laisha, these then are your roots. Yes, it is true You are Canadian. And yes, you are also Ukrainian.

And you can be both. Proudly.

Shuparka birthed me once, but the prairie birthed me again. All that I am, all that I became, I owe to her. It made me and formed me, just as I formed it.

I am more than Canadian. I am more than Ukrainian. Those are my roots, yes, but I am more than roots. I carry within me memories, and now I scatter these memory seeds upon you.

I give them to you with this Bible and this box. Hold them. Treasure them. If you keep them and share them forward, they are all you will need to live a long and happy life.

Ach, people will tell you, the Bible and the box they are not worth money. But they have been passed from loving hand to loving hand, and, as your pra-geedo told me those many years ago, they are a priceless part of your heritage.

So are the memories. They cannot be found in any history book. But they contain the lessons of life, the things the history books don't tell you. The only things worth having.

To live and to laugh. To love God as no other, for He makes everything right. To find fault with no one and to do your best.

This is all that matters.

I have lived and laughed. I have prayed and grieved. I have birthed children and watched them grow. I have stood in the parched, drought-cursed summer and buried two of them.

Through it all I learned. I learned to accept with good grace what God gave me. I learned that the prairie can be a bitter rival but also a blessed friend. And I learned that all dreams count for something. Big dreams or little ones.

It is as Baba promised when I left Shuparka all those years ago. Let your effort be true, and the rewards will be sweet.

Like the bees, you must go from flower to flower, in wind or rain. In sun or snow. You must stay busy. Work hard. And love.

I have known scorn and ridicule and hatred. I have also known love. And let me tell you, my darling Laisha, love is better.

Always.

Special thanks to the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre in Winnipeg, especially Larissa Tolchinsky (former librarian) and Zenon Hluszok (former archivist) for sharing time and information; to Sheryl Dunn, Ellen Godfrey, Judith Todd Monroe and LeaTassie for helpful comments and encouragement early on; to Lois and Larry Peterson for seasonal memories of the prairie landscape; to Jennifer Taylor for her patience and insight; to Orysia Tracz for the depth of her Ukrainian knowledge and her willingness to share; to Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk for his discerning comments on Ukrainian history; to Laisha Rosnau for sharing the story behind her name; and to Julia Eisler for asking just the right question over a bowl of fasolada.

We are not born all at once, but by bits.
The body first, and the spirit later.

—Mary Antin,
The Promised Land

While this is a work of fiction, some of the events are based on fact. Over 8,000 people, including women and children, were unjustly interned during Canada's first national internment operations of 1914—1920. The vast majority—about 5,000—were Ukrainian. With them were other Eastern Europeans, including Croatians, Serbians, Hungarians, Poles, Turks and Bulgarians. Added to the difficulty for many Ukrainians was the fact that they weren't allowed to call themselves Ukrainian. Instead they were either called Austrian or were known by various regional names, including Galician, Bukovynian, Rusyn or Ruthenian. Camps and work sites were spread across the country—in places like Banff, Alberta, Brandon, Manitoba, Kapuskasing,
Ontario, and Spirit Lake, Quebec. At the same time, over 80,000 other people, the majority also Ukrainian, were forced to register as “enemy aliens” and report regularly to authorities. More than 100 internees died in the camps, and 69 of them were “Austrians.” Valuables were also seized during arrests. A report prepared in 1992 by Price Water-house estimates that Ukrainian Canadians suffered from $21.6 to $32.5 million in losses while interned.