Mom took the bus to and from Sadie's but that first Saturday, Dad and I drove there to pick her up. We all went out for dinner! That was something we hardly ever did. I got to order whatever I wanted from the menu. They had strawberry milkshakes. Mom paid for the dinner with money from her purse.
The next Saturday, while Mom was at work, Dad and I went to a special stamp store. He wanted to buy a used stamp from 1963. It was a 'commemorative' of the Polish-Canadian engineer Sir Casimir Gzowski. Dad said he built canals, bridges and railroads in the 1800s. Dad has an album for sticking in used stamps. He showed me the picture in the album that he covered up with the Gzowski stamp. The stamp's denomination was only five cents and it had a pinkish colour. From the same store he bought me a 1920 penny. It was really big! The penny cost twenty-five cents and the stamp cost fifteen cents. That's quite a lot, since my allowance is only twenty cents per week.
June 2026
My husband Manil and I are back at my parents' house, looking through Dad's belongings. Mom died five years ago, and now Dad is gone, too.
When I was in high school, we moved to a different part of town where my parents bought a house. Working for the city sanitation department turned out to be a steady union job. Mom's work at the beauty parlour greatly added to our family finances. It took more than a decade, but my parents eventually paid off their mortgage and then had some spare money for traveling, a better car and minor luxuries. After that slow start, Dad always encouraged Mom in her career and was proud to tell people she worked with Sadie.
I studied software engineering in university and moved away to Calgary, where I met Manil. At that time he was a recent immigrant from Sri Lanka. Now he watches the Flames and even wears a cowboy hat during the Stampede.
We have two kids, Xavier and Elektra, who I am very proud of. Both kids are doing really well in school and Elektra was even able to skip a grade. They both take piano lessons and Elektra plays percussion in the school orchestra. I thought it was really important for both children to learn to play an instrument. It's something that you can come back to later in life. Xavier's current passion is lacrosse but he also plays soccer.
Mom and dad used to visit about once a year and we always went back to see them at Christmas. Manil's family lives in Calgary so we see them every week. Of course, they love seeing their grandkids.
Choosing names was a bit of a struggle. Neither Manil nor I wanted names that were Sri Lankan (Tamil in his case) or Polish. But we also didn't want names that sounded 'Canadian.' It's ridiculous, since Canada is a multicultural country, to equate 'Canadian' with 'Anglo Saxon' but it's a difficult habit to break. Because of classical mythology, and because it sounds exotic and sexy, I really liked the name Elektra. Manil went along with that and then, two years later, it was time to choose a boy's name. For him, Xavier sounded exotic, I suppose because it's French. Anyways, we love our kids and think we gave them excellent names.
