My Pain Is Our Freedom

By P. Turczyk

The story of my book is as real as life itself. As young man I was, growing up within the book, the experiences I went through is my life as I grew so did my wisdom and my hunger to be free and let the world go on my journey to freedom the secrets the world is hiding it all revealed in my life. Why life it is the way it is? What can we all finally do about it with a bit of love and spiritual connections? Life is not supposed to be lived like we are living, as life itself is a gift to yourself and make it fairer for all. This book will take you on your own journey and your own belief system you have as you read this mans journey to freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514421475

P. Turczyk

I am a simple man, but as a growing man, the achievements I made are what makes me every day as a worker and as a human being and as a fighter on every day basis. The life I knew is not what life I know as now.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Piotr Turczyk.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015917954

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-2145-1

                Softcover        978-1-5144-2146-8

                eBook             978-1-5144-2147-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/29/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

703125

CONTENTS

LOVE + LIFE

THE PAIN

LOVE + LIFE

M y name is Piotr, a name given to me by my beautiful parents. This is the life of me and everything of me.

I as a spirit from the other side watching everyone, scattering the whole world, nonstop to have life on this planet again, I picked my parents who live in Poland. I saw the beauty of love in them. They are caring, loving, faithful, passionate, and very hardworking. This connection drew me to them. In this physical world, they already have two beautiful sons, Daniel and Paul, and the family is faithful to God.

The names of my parents are Miron (father) and Zenona (mother).

So the day finally came for me to be born in the physical world (Earth) where I lived before. That is the beauty of life, the playground, thy teaching ground for our spirit, and to come back again. You will know the reason as you read on. The year was 1983, the month was February, and the day was the sixth when I was born, just a little boy. And as the memories from my past life and from the other side were gone as well as the friends and the things you might experience because of love’s power. Now I am a newborn child, a little baby boy and pure (no mistakes, no evil). So here we go again in life where you will go on and get tested as a human being and grow to see who you are and find new things about you and that you can be very powerful person.

Growing up, I lived on a farm with my parents, and it had a very big red brick house, and it had a barn. Animals lived inside the barn, which had cows sleeping inside, a bull, a chicken housing where chickens can roam free outside in the fresh daylight air then come back inside, and a rooster that would be crowing loud at the same time every the morning to wake everybody up for another day. The sound was good. It also had pigs that were outside and can go inside too, and behind the barn, we had cages for the rabbits too. They were very cute with their little noses. Me as a boy remembering the things I can remember early in my mind was that being free in my mind and just living. The days on the farm, just playing with these animals, like seeing turkeys and not knowing how they would react to me and going up to them closer and closer. There would be like fifteen of them in a group, and I’m trying to raise my arms at them, and they would just look at me like I am no harm to them. So I tried other tactics like throwing rocks, not at them but beside them. I guess they got tired of me. They did give me warning signs like lift their wings up and make noises and basically just started to go after me, and yes, I started running and crying at the same time. A I ran, they ran, and basically, I ran up the stairs to the house door, and they looked at me like Don’t mess with us, little boy, so no more pissing off turkeys for me.

The barn had a basement where no one dared to go in had rats as big as a beaver or bigger and just really ugly and very ferocious. They are not scared at all. The thing about this house and the barn is that my dad built most of it by himself and with family members. Neighbors in Poland are your family. My favorite animal was the family dog. It had black curly fur, was very smart and good around family members that he knows. To me, it was the best friend that always went where I went and was playful and listened to me and protective of me. The dog’s name was Emil. The thing is that if you respect the animal, it will respect you back. The thing on the farming community was that we as farmers did take turns and take out the cows on the field and let them graze. For me and my two older brothers, it was fun to go to every neighbor, take the cows, and walk down the road (ten minutes) and up the field, and the cows would follow us. The three of us were small kids, five to nine years old. But on sunny days when the cows are grazing, we would bring a soccer ball, kick it around, climb the trees, or sit under a tree to have some shade and just dream. That is very peaceful and very relaxing to the mind and the body. Sometimes it rained or is a bit windy, but just being outside is worth it. And after the cows were done grazing, we would start yelling and round them up, make a circle around them and take a branch stick and tap them on their backs, and they would know it’s time to go. With the farm life and nature, you can’t ask for a better life as a little boy growing up. For me, it was just freedom and pure enjoyment.

When I was around four or five years old, I made a friend, and this friend was cute and very fun to be around. Her name was Goshia, and yes, I really liked her and always took care of her, and she liked me too. We would do a lot of things together. We had a first kiss with each other. The best part was that she lived right next door, and we would see a lot of each other, and she had an older sister and brothers. But she and I were inseparable. We always did things together, like when we decided to go hunting together and built the bows and arrows and went a couple of times to hunt, we really never caught anything, not like our weapon worked. But it was me and her walking through the open fields and tall grass, climbing trees and having fun and really trusting each other and enjoying ourselves.

My dad took us children swimming in the river where the river is not deep, and it was good for us to dip in and splash around. So it was safe for kids, just don’t walk too far into the river. But I did not know how to swim at all, only my dad did. He did say that they used to dig in this river but didn’t go too far. So there was this rock, and I stood on it and was very excited and jumped in the water. I realized that my legs hadn’t touched the ground yet. It seemed I jumped in a very deep area, and I panicked and drowned underwater, and then this very bright light appeared and was shining right at me underwater, and everything stopped, and the feeling of peace came over me. No need to breathe, no need to panic, and then this hand appeared in the water, and it grabbed my hand. I remember it was the left one. The person had this white gown on and was very bright. I could not see the face, but I remember walking with that person underwater. The thing is that the water wasn’t stopping us, like making it harder to walk through it, but it was airless walking, and I looked around the water, no need to breathe, as that was the most interesting part about it being underwater and you are just walking with a person in a white gown. This person holding my hand and I were just walking, and I heard people from the outside as my head came out of the water, and the light and that person disappeared. I asked my dad, Were you looking for me? I was drowning under water for a long time? But he looked at me weird like I jumped and came up, but that’s not what happened. I was there for a while. I know that, as I experienced something out of this world, something very beautiful that saved my life, and something that will stay in my mind forever. It’s like time stopped for me underwater, as there was no time there, and felt that peace and got the help I needed, how peaceful but powerful and beautiful that experience was for me. To this day, I still remember it. That a very holy spirit walked with me underwater and looked around. How cool it was for it to save my life or show me that there is more to this life and more after this life, but the power of love was there and this world energy, and we are in a physical form that is energy anyways.

I told my parents, my brothers, and friends about that experience underwater, but no one believed me. People need evidence and proof right away, but I had a smile on my face and said thank you in my mind and in prayers.

The thing is that I am the youngest, and the one that always pissed me off and picked on me was the middle child, Paul. Like if I was playing with a soccer ball, he would take it from me, and he was a bully to me, but when I did need help, he was there too, and yes, he did like doing things with me too.

My brother Daniel, who is the oldest one, never bothered me and always respected my and every body’s boundaries. He was the quiet one and a very nice person. He was a very fast runner and loved the game of soccer more than me and Paul. He really was gifted at playing soccer. He learned how to dribble the soccer ball almost on his first try. The thing is that I bothered and annoyed him and would run away from him. If I pissed him off too much and I ran away, the thing is that if he wanted to chase me and, yes, catch up to me and give me a punch to the shoulder, he would. He is way faster than me, but I really would have to piss him off for him to run after me and make him waste his own energy to punch me, but those punches sometimes hurt bad, but it’s like I just loved it in a way to bother him, as I loved him, and we are brothers.

The thing is that living in Europe and being born in Poland, the national sport is soccer. Me and my two brothers and our neighbor friends would walk at least two kilometers to the field and play a game of soccer. For some reason, I would be in the net. I guess because I’m the youngest one, but I did play it too. We would play for hours and hours, and it would seem like only minutes, and soccer is very cheap to play—all you need is a ball—and the exercise and fun you get out of it is priceless.

My family’s background is Ukrainian, both parents but living in Poland. If you look at the history of these two countries, they had a lot of wars with each other and just disliked each other. The thing is that as children, your mind is free of history and you see another Polish or Ukrainian person simply as a human and a friend, no stamp on our foreheads, but just for children who are free-minded and little explorers. It only matters as you grow up and slowly start to learn why things are the way they are, why little Jessie’s parents didn’t want their son to play with Bobby. Some grow up thinking Who cares? but some grow up with hate. The more you know about love as a human, then you let that history go. I had Polish and Ukrainian friends, but the thing is the more we grow up, the more this stamp is visible on our foreheads, and we should forget the past and just let it go. Sometimes the grown-ups are worse than kids and cry for the rest of their lives for stupid reasons of hate. They need to look at children of different color and religion and put them together in a playground, how they treat one another and how much fun they are having and how helpful they are to one another. You will see smiles, laughter, and love. What happens to some of us when we start to grow up is we forget that we are humans. It is race or religion that makes us turn the other cheek, and most of that comes from our parents or family members that feed us bullshit that is so wrong in so many ways that your mind will start to absorb useless hate against the free mind.

We humans have different colors of skin, just like nature itself. We’re big and tall and short, we smile and nature too, we hurt and nature hurts, we love and nature loves. We humans are from earth and we are earth. This is your playground and a teaching ground for your spirit and to see who you are as a person, how strong you are, how powerful you can be. The biggest thing is can you or you are acceptance of love, that love is little, but hate is never enough. You will see a world differently with love, that sharing, helping, loving are the only things for you to smile and have that peace of mind, and your body has this beautiful endless energy.

One of my friends brought a magazine, and yes, it was a nude one with naked women on it. He got it from his parents, borrowed, or stolen it, but we were looking through it and seeing these grown women and, for the first time, actually knew what they looked like underneath their clothes and naked. And yes, myself as a kid at six or seven years old really liked the magazine, and my friend let me have it for a while so that was pretty cool for me, but I had to hide it from my parents, as I knew in my mind it’s wrong, so I wouldn’t get in any trouble. My secret place was the barn, where the hay was, and I put the nude magazine under the hay.

The next morning, I went t to see my Goshia, and we would go play together and run around, but we realized that we liked each other and were both very interested in our own bodies, just realizing the attractiveness in ourselves, and my parents were not home, and so we went into a room. She and I were together all alone and smiling back at each other, and we kissed and just started to take our clothes off, looked at each other and kissed again. We got dressed, and held hands but let go when stepping outside in public. I felt like I was her protector. My parents always thought that Goshia and I would get married—that’s how close we were together—and I would say no. It made me embarrassed. They even took a picture of me and Goshia. I don’t remember the picture taken, but I saw it in my room, and it was me and Goshia holding hands. I even tried teaching Goshia soccer, but I don’t think she liked the sport or playing it. I was made fun of by my brothers saying Oh, here comes your girlfriend, Peter. Here comes Goshia. You love her, and I would be like no. She’s a girl, but I really liked to be around her, and when I look back, I never said I like you, Goshia, but naturally, everybody noticed that I did. And I did, and she liked me too. She was very beautiful to me, and my little everything to me, and yes, our family dog Emil loved her too. Goshia really has a beautiful heart; even at that age, you can notice right away.

When you live on a farm, you do work hard during growing seasons, and basically work all year round. The machinery my dad had for the farm were old-school stuff. It was Poland and 1980, but he had this tractor that was kind of new, and switching gears on it was like taking a metal pole out of dry concrete. I couldn’t do it. My brother Daniel barely did, and Paul did too. My dad really pushed us to do the work on the farm, especially my older brothers. I was too young, but I always went with them and did as much as I could. Back in those days, farmers would use a lot of their hands and back to do farming. It’s tiring doing that kind of work, just go and go. It’s like mind over body. But the work is rewarding, seeing your seeds grow into beautiful colors, and you save the best seeds for next year. You are always with nature through good and bad weather. I really loved the farm side and the people there.

Both of my parents are very hard workers, like my dad and mom and friends built the farm. Pure do it yourself you are the organizer. My mom, Zenona, was a nurse by profession, and the biggest job was taking care of three little high-energy boys, cooking, cleaning and a lot more, looking after the farm animals and more. My dad, Miron, was a farmer, taking care of his crops on the fields that he had with the help of his kids, mostly was him and friends, the animals. I mean, Miron was a really hard worker, like working and repairing these machines that looked so confusing to do and being a father to his kids the old-school way, and yes, Miron worked for the agricultural government and took care of farmers’ produce. My dad and mom were very fair to people and their friends, and as they were fair to us, they were always there to help me as a person noticing these things, that we as people, if you’ve got it, share it. I mean, knowledge is really powerful. But in this farm community, everybody knew everybody and were always friendly to one another. People there would be happy that you are on your feet, and everybody is living a good, healthy, and happy life. No one wants to see others go down, not good for the heart and the mind. It was a very strong-knit community. There was no murder or fighting on the streets, and yes, Polish people like to drink their vodka and beer, but on a community like that, you are not scared to walk alone in the dark and walk down the street. It was a peaceful place to grow up and live then. I see the city life now—too busy to notice anything, too busy to learn about you, too worried about the bills, too busy to notice life and yourself.

Even though both of my parents did have time for three little boys, and as a new parent, remember to be there for your kids as they will be there for you. You bring life, you teach them about good and bad, and as a parent, you are also learning as your little children. Be the best you; teach the best to others.

I remember when my uncle and auntie and their two boys came from Canada to visit us. Both Uncle and Auntie were born in Poland, and I didn’t even know I had family in Canada, but anyway, they were very good people, and so me and my brothers went with our cousins and played soccer with them the Polish way, and all of us went for walks through the countryside, hiked hills, and relaxed. And they went to visit their own families too. We all enjoyed their company. My cousins talked to us about how Canada is and that our way of living is pretty cool here with the farm and the animals and the open nature with hills behind our farm, where you can go for walks or jogs right and don’t have too drive far. It was around us. Watching nature is a very beautiful thing only if you open your heart to it. Listen, feel, see and imagine, touch, learn these beautiful landscapes, take care of it, and it will be there for you when you are having a bad day so you can dream and smile. The power it has, it’s been here before us and it accepted human life. It lives as we do. And when we start to take care of it and as we die, our kids or other kids can play with nature, dream with it, inspire them like it did you when you opened up to it. It’s here for you; just remember to take care of it too.

The day that our parents took us in the house and we had a talk, something that was going to change in our lives—that something, we will understand later on—but they started the first step for us, a trail for them and us, and what they told us was We love you kids dearly, and here we go. They said my dad was going to Canada to visit and that we have family members there. It won’t be for long, a couple of months, just to say hi, and we were sad to hear the news. My dad did say that we were strong little men and that When I am gone, help out your mom. Help around the farm. The neighbors know I am leaving, and they will come around and check on the farm. We, as a family, can do this together and keep going in the right direction.

The day came when my dad was leaving for Canada. My mom was crying of course. My dad lifted each one of us and whispered to us Be good kids. Help your mom out. It won’t be long when I come back, and the neighbors said their good-byes. It was sad to see my dad go. We have to be men and be strong and be helpful.

Just to see other farmers come in and do the work on our fields and do the work for free and even know that they still have their own work to do was great. Just beautiful people who see my family as their family, and it was a very close farm community, the Polish and the Ukrainians, all together helping us and one another. A good human with no stamp on the forehead; a lost human in their heart sees it.

We had this older lady since I remember the days of me that started to stay in the mind, she was like a babushka and loved us kids. It made her happy to be around us, a really lovely lady. And yes, she was older, but hey, when she walked, it’s like Get out of the way. She was a very strong woman. She did everything for us. I guess her husband passed away before I was born, so she looked at us three kids that like we were a part of her and made her life of something to keep going. She would do anything for us. She was really close to the family. I remember sometimes walking by her little barn, and this dog would hear you from far away, and when you got close and it started barking. Babushka told me the dog is old like me. It’s over twenty years old. It can’t see anymore, and I think she loved this dog and would never put it down. I’ve never seen this dog with my eyes but felt bad for it. Maybe it went crazy. Babushka told me it’s a beautiful dog. But by the bark and growl, the dog knew when I walked by, and it did bark but a different bark like Hey!

The thing was that yes, we did help out, but we realized that we could stay up late and go out with friends up the fields. We did this thing in which we grabbed this white powder. The thing is when you pour it on the ground and ignite it with flame and it ignites, the white smoke that comes out of it, so much of it, looks cool and crazy, and the smoke keeps going higher and wider, but when you look at the powder, you’re seeing little flames popping, a chemical reaction. So we put this powder on the road and lit it up and ran up the hill and hid, and seeing buses, cars stop, and we did this in the dark, so you see the smoke more visible, but watching the action happening on the road and being up the hill, just giggling, that was funny for us. We only did that once. Kids with their ideas, not like the road is even busy, but yes, we did stupid things like that.

One night me and my brother Paul were walking on the street from the store (a shack, very little) going home, and we were coming close to our house. There was a cemetery up the hill. On this cemetery, there was this shiny person walking around in a white gown. To us, it looked like a woman from that distance, and it scared me and Paul, and we were walking a little bit faster. For me, that was a spirit, and for Paul, it was a human, but whoever is right, I don’t know. It’s like that person on the cemetery looked at us and smiled, and we did notice it, and it wanted to be noticed by us. My brother still says it was a human, but it was late at night and really bright, so for me it was still a spirit.

My dad had an older brother named Emil, the same name as our dog. He was really good and fun to be around. The thing I like most about my uncle Emil is that he took us fishing at the river, and during those times, me, my brothers, and our uncle would just be relaxing even if we didn’t catch any, but we enjoyed having Emil around and listening to his stories, and his fun aura was pleasant to be around, and he treated us like one of his kids. He was also laid back and very relaxed. The thing is that Emil lived in Poland but far away from where we lived.

The thing is, in my dad’s side of the family, he never saw his dad. He died in a war, and his mom saw me as a baby and took care of me, but she died later on. I don’t remember her, but I know what a strong and very beautiful loving human being she was.

On my mother’s side, I remember her parents. Her mom was very sweet and really worried like my mom. Her dad was good. I don’t remember talking much to him or getting to know him. Her brother had a wife and two kids. All of them lived together. My mom’s brother’s kids were fun to be around. They were younger than me. Their family didn’t live that far away from our farm. They visited us a lot, and we visited them too.

And there was one more uncle to us family related was my mom’s 2nd brother who lived in Germany. At the time, I remember he visited us twice. If you look at him, he looked angry but was a good person and was nice to us. His angry look and his voice sounded mad even though he wasn’t. He was a very right-to-the-point kind of guy. We as kids always remember that if there was an Audi car in our yard, yes, the uncle from Germany is here.

The thing here is me with my friends and ours, that guy that brought the magazine was a friend of mine in the school. We looked at porn magazines a lot, and it was slowly corrupting our minds with sex images, and that’s not good for kids our age, too young. We didn’t know it, but we were corrupted in our minds.

There was this kid who told me to go up the barn with him and play, and I said sure. This kid was my brother’s friend too, but anyway, he and I were up the barn, and he looked at me and smiled. He was older than me but not that much, maybe no more than two years. That moment we were there up on the second level of the barn and full of hay, he told me to get naked. I asked why, and so he got naked, and then I did, and he kissed me on one cheek. We looked at each other, and he smiled. The thing is that he liked it more than me. I was nervous about the experience, but it felt like I was still being a boy and just playing around, that this is a game, in a weird way. But this was a point in my life that things will change, but not much. Well, I told my friend that I was going home, and we said good-bye to each other, and being home, I got lost in my thoughts—Why? What is going on? Did you like it, two of the same sex naked, your friend? Why did he pick me?—just some very weird things were running through my mind, yet I knew enough that an experience like is something you don’t tell around. Why it happened, I don’t know. I just stopped thinking about it. The thing with Goshia was I was attracted to her and loved being around her, and I felt a connection with her.

The thing in Polish schools is that the teachers wanted you to succeed in life and be strong and educated people for your country and yourself. I remember when I got a bad mark in a class, the teacher would ask me to take out my left or right arm, show it, and hold it up, and the teacher would take a wooden stick and would whack my arm a couple of times and tell me that I can do better, and it wasn’t over with that yet, as I would go home and my dad would ask how I was doing in school.

The thing is that this is a close community. Everybody knows one another, so he already knows you are not trying or not doing good in a class. So here comes that good leather belt on fresh buttocks that will get a couple of slaps, but it sucked bad to get it. As a kid, all that does is scare you to not do badly in school. The reason is what parent wants to punish their kids. No kid is perfect and nor grown human too. The reason the belt was used in those days was to put fear in you, and that’s it. But knowing what my parents went through to get where they were and realizing it wasn’t easy, and that their three sons have to be educated and strong men, and that in some countries, you need to be really smart. The competition is high, and you can have a good job and have a peaceful life. The belt didn’t hurt, but it was that extra for you to think about it too. The thing is that an educated person is a powerful human being to the people and government, but it’s up to you which side you pick, the good or the bad. Money and power will be thrown at you. Can you sell yourself to be fake and, in the end, be happy with which side you picked? As you grow and have the same love as a kid, you too will realize that we are to be free and nothing can stop us. Do not be afraid to express freedom of your mind to people and your family. It’s hard, but you can have peace in your mind, body, and spirit that you were you, and you fought and were not afraid to stand up. You are powerful and have the trust of the people and are their voice at what you do. Be a student, be a teacher, be a manager, be a government where you are trusted by the people to put love first over anything, that love is stronger than anything, that it unites the people and little is a lot when you have love. A lot you share. Everything is greed.

So as a child watching soccer and watching this beautiful sport being played on TV and seeing with my own eyes that different countries have players with different skin colors, seeing people same but color and realizing how colorful we humans are and how cool it is that we play a game that others and I love, with me cheering for my team as they are for their teams. And in the end, your team either loses or wins. It is a game so beautiful like any other games we have invented to have fun and enjoy it, and we give a little bit more extra effort to be good at it, to play it, but seeing teams unite as one and see how these sports can unite the whole world and watch it and just love it is inspiring. Sports games ignites that passion in us such that we get angry if our team is not playing so well and happy when it is. These are the great athletes who are just good because of their hard work and passion for the sport they like and chose it to show you, and just to think that not every human can be good at everything but can have fun playing a sport, and for you to realize what drives you, what makes you happy, what is it that makes you hungry for. Do you have a thing in your mind that you like and have passion for? (Passion is that extra thing of endless energy for your mind to do it). You have to figure out what it is that will give you peace and enjoy life, and try hard to achieve it. As they say, never give up if it’s a goal of yours then succeed in it. Sometimes in life your spirit will push you. It will feel this communication of energy to your spirit. It won’t tell your mind in words, but you know what it means, deep down, where you want to go in life from there, that it will drive you, and that you might stumble a couple of times, but you will get there, like a baby learning to walk, it will fall and get up until it learns to walk. Some live their lives and if they are OK with it, then that is good. Some will believe in something more than this, and they will go after it, as it is your playground and your teaching ground, mind, body, and spirit. Love.

I remember me and my brothers were going to school, and this was new a Ukrainian one. There was this kid who was darker than all of us. It was just skin color, and that’s it. To be dark in a school where everybody around is white, some will ask questions about why some look different in the color of the skin, but this kid was just as fun as everyone else. Nobody cared. We were all little explorers. I just think that in the history as adults, how can grown-ups treat others differently, put them down, and hate them because of their skin color, but we humans can be a little bit dumb and others also suffer through this dumbness in our minds.

As a young little explorer, I went to a building or a barn where my dad had his hay up, and I noticed that there was this very little and very cute kitten. It was sitting there, and so I decided to pick it up. It was black and white. I had it in my hands and petted it, and it yawned, and I wanted to keep it but noticed there was this bigger cat, and I thought it was the mother, so I put the kitten beside it its mother, and I walked away. I then heard this sound, and I looked back, and I saw this kitten in the mouth of this big cat. The adult cat was devouring it. It was too late for me to save it. The leg was separated. I realized right away that this was not the mother. I blamed myself. I had the kitten in my hands about ten seconds ago, and now it was being devoured right in front of me. I just walked away and felt bad.

The thing is that this is nature. That stuff happens in the wild. I told Goshia about this, and she felt bad and hit me on the shoulder, like You asshole, why didn’t you stop that from happening? I said it was too late. In Poland, the farmers would not spend money to fix a cat like the little one that was chewed up. It’s just not going to happen. Those things are not even mentioned. The only thing that matters to farmers are the farm animals and their machines, and that’s it. There are so many cats that are around on the farm. Sometimes is the best to let the nature of the animals resolve themselves and be who they are. Yes, in my eyes, it was sad to see that kitten get murdered, but that’s their nature. These cats do a lot for the farmers as they hunt mouse all over the farms. It’s like they do their part and we do our own part.

The thing is, on the farm, a lot of farmers would have a litter of newborn kittens or puppies, and since the farm is overpopulated with them, they would grab the little ones, put them in a basket, walk to the river, go up the bridge, and pick up the little ones one by one. From way up the bridge they would drop them in the flowing river. For me, I never went to see this, and I wouldn’t want to, but my dad told me this happens. What is a farmer to do? I know that there are better ideas than that, but everybody is busy. I am sure there are kids in the city who would love a kitten or a puppy.

My dad still had not come back to Poland. The days were going by, and we were doing things like helping out on the farm, kind of wondering why my dad had been gone for so long to visit other family members. I asked my mom What’s taking so long for dad to come back? She said it’s a big country with lots of family there. It’s been a couple of months already, but anyway, my brothers just missed him, and we played soccer, went to school, and did our homework. It’s just different when someone is missing. We just have to accept it, and life goes on knowing things will be OK.

I was growing up as a confused young kid as the things I was doing were more body contact, and I was wondering why these things were happening to me. There was another boy who was eight, and I was also eight, and now this kid who is my age, I could not understand why I was doing this, but I guess I was experiencing sexual contact at a very young age. And why the same sex? For me, Goshia was the one I was attracted to, but I didn’t have the courage to tell her how I felt. Maybe I don’t have to. So that friend of mine with whom I did things, he went up the barn, and both of us wanted to experience more. I took my porn magazine, and we looked through it and got naked again, and we laid beside each other, and we touched each other and ourselves. When we heard someone coming upstairs, we quickly got dressed. I barely had time to hide the porn magazine under the hay, and it was that babushka who came up, and she looked at us and asked What are you doing here? and we said we were playing. This babushka was basically like my grandmother. She told us to get out of there and told me to go help my mom, and so I did. My friend and I said good-bye to each other. He said, I hope she doesn’t find the magazine, and then I went home and asked my mom if she needed help, and she said no, so I went outside to ride my red bicycle around the barn and then out in the hills, and then I got home, walked up the stairs and opened the door, and my mom looked at me and asked Is this your magazine? In my mind, I was just scared and very nervous. As a parent, you don’t want your kids to look at dirty adult pictures. As I said before, it will take over your mind and think these are normal things and get you addicted in a way, so I said, Yes, it is. My friend gave it to me, and she asked, Which one? I didn’t want to say a name, and I said we both found it on the side of the road. My mom told me these magazines are disgusting and not for little kids. I told her I was sorry and I would never look at it again. My mother was disappointed and mad, but she believed I wouldn’t look at them again.

So over time, I was kind of angry at my friend and that he and I did that thing in the barn, and I distanced myself from him. I then decided to do something about it. I found an empty can, and I put cow’s poop inside it, closed it up, wrapped it, took it with me, went to his mother’s house, put it by the door, knocked, ran away, and hid in the bushes. The mother opened the door, noticed the package, and took it inside. I thought it was funny and went home and waited and waited, thinking that I might get in trouble, but nothing happened. Basically, the next day, I was walking on the road, and that friend of mine was walking with the can and approached me and asked if I did it, and I looked him in the eyes and said yes. He told me that his mom thought it was a present, opened it, and was disgusted, so I told my friend it was a stupid joke. We were still friends, but I felt guilty and angry and frustrated at myself for what is happening to me.

One day I took my mother’s bike and went up the dirt hill. I looked down and thought how cool it would be to just go down very fast, and so I did. I was just cruising down very fast, and I was coming closer and closer to the intersection. So I decided to brake, but it wasn’t working, and I knew right away I was in trouble, so I decided to fall off the bike. At that speed, I hit the ground while attached to the bike and scraped down very fast, and I heard this noise like a car braking, and when I came to a complete stop, I was under the car. I crawled out from under the car, and the driver looked at me and asked if I was OK, and I said, Yes, I am and told him I was sorry and that my brakes didn’t work when I was going down the hill. He said, You are lucky to be alive, and he left, and I went to the side of the road. I had some scratches and little bruises on me. I was not hurt at all but was shaken up. I went home, and my mom was outside and started screaming at me and if I was OK. She asked me if I was stupid and that I almost killed myself. I said to myself Wow, what a small community. Everybody knows everything right away. It’s like who needs cell phones, and I didn’t even recognize the driver. How does he even know my mom? Things do travel very fast in small towns, like this incident happened and I walked home, and my mom already knew about it.

One of the things that my brothers and I did was we collected beer cans. We would go to this garbage fill and collect the cans, as some of these cans had really cool images on them. For me, it looked like art, and we liked them, especially Paul. The most that we collected was stamps. They were Paul’s, but if I would find one, I would just give it to him, and he put it in the stamp book. I think they were Daniel’s too. They collected it both. That was their thing. They had a lot of these little stamps that go way back in history and probably worth something.

The day came when my dad came back from Canada. As kids, we missed him a lot, but we did stay up late and did stupid things while he was gone. Poor mom had to deal with us three little wild boys. He bought us things from Canada and told us stories about how the life of the family we have there was like. We went to sleep, and we woke up in the morning, and our parents called a family meeting and told us that we were going to move to Canada later on and that our life was going to be better and that we have a lot of family there that wants us there. I looked at my brothers’ faces, and they looked angry. We liked it in Poland and did not want to move. For me, I didn’t want to move. We have it pretty good here. We have a farm. We have food. We have really beautiful people here, school, and family. Why the move? I knew my parents didn’t want to leave Poland. You can just tell by looking at them. It’s not like we were hurting. The reason was that they were looking at their little boys’ futures and decided that the future for us is better in Canada than Poland even though we hated the news. But to do that for your kids, leave all the memories of our parents in a place where generations of our family lived in this beautiful country, where it is quiet and peaceful and you have the best neighbors around you. Wow, to leave that behind because you decided to have kids and they mean the world to you, more than you. If that’s not pure love, then what is? Parents will jump in front of a moving car to save you, risking themselves just for you so you can grow up and have that extra time to learn about yourself and everything around you.

The next day I got up, and my dog came to me, and we played together for a while. I looked across the fence and looked at a house where someone I really cared for and loved lives, and I sat on the steps with my dog beside me and thought about her. We did almost everything together, and me not seeing her anymore and telling her that, it will break her heart as mine is slowly breaking apart. So I waited there until I saw my little princess walk outside, always very beautiful with that smile that just makes you forget all the bad things. So I sat there not saying anything, and she looked at the side where I live. She looked around and noticed me sitting there with my dog. She smiled and waved her hand at me. I was still sitting, and my dog ran to her, but the fence was there, so I got up and started running toward her, and she ran toward me. I left Emil in the yard and closed the gate. I took my hand and held her hand in public, and she smiled at me, and I told her I wanted to take her for a walk. As we were walking, I told her that when we got there, I had something to tell her. While we were walking, neighbors, friends, and family were looking at us, just walking and holding each other’s hands. For me, I didn’t even care anymore. I was just thinking about Goshia and that our time together was running out. So I took her to our secret place and just said to her that the reason my dad went to Canada was to see and experience if he wanted our family there, and he came back to tell us that both he and Mom decided we will be moving there, not now but later on in the future, and that she and I will not see each other anymore. She looked at me and tears were flowing down her face, and I gave her a kiss on the cheek, and I told her that I will write to her. She said the same thing to me, so no point of being sad. We both got up and said we will spend as much time together as we can, starting that moment. We did a lot of cool things together, like there was this church to the left of my house, and it had this border where you stand and hug the wall and walk around the church. It was fun. My other friends did it too and even my brothers too. We took Emil for walks with us. We rode our bikes. We went to the hills.

Our farm had bombs on the field that did not explode (from the World Wars). Me being stupid, I picked one up in front of my dad and said to him Look, Dad. It’s a bomb! Well, that almost cost me a leather belt, but to tell you the truth, the place where we lived had to be really bad during those horrible wars where people died, people suffered, people starved; where bodies were left everywhere to rot and brought diseases to people, to poor animals; nature had to suffer because of men’s greed for absolute power to control and their sick ideology and propaganda that when one country tells you to fight for freedom and the other country has to defend itself and tells it people to fight to have our freedom, where we are free, and any means necessary to protect human rights. The sad part is that every human on earth wants freedom, shelter, food and water, peace with one another, and a healthy happy safe life. We all hate war.

I, my brothers, and my dad did walk around our farm and the hills where there were shells of empty bullets. There were concrete bunkers where soldiers would hide and shoot to kill with a pull of a trigger, and they had tunnels where it was dark and I would not dare to go. Some of these fields had open holes to hide soldiers during war. It had to be horrible times to live back then. My dad told me about the time when he was young and there was no food for the family. Sometimes a soldier would feel sorry for you and give you something to eat. It was hard times back then, but slowly, Mother Nature hides our greed and hate with beautiful green grass and flowers covering the bunkers and the holes get smaller. There are trees and ponds and weeds cover the bombs that did not explode, and the animals start to come back and hope that this won’t happen again. The thing is that we have this beautiful world, and most of us call it hell.

So the days of living in Poland as we know it are slowly coming to an end. It’s like you have time, and when you don’t want a watch, it appears and it’s ticking. In your head, you don’t want to leave. I really like it in Poland. It’s beautiful with all the things you can do on the countryside and the farm and all the friends you have and Goshia. The thing is I know we as kids can have a good life here as we grow up, but they say Canada is the land of opportunity, and it is easier, and it saddens me. Why not here? What’s wrong? It has good people. It’s a beautiful country. Why not here? And a lot of parents do this all over the world—take their kids, young or old, and don’t believe in the country they are born in, the people whom your genes come from. In your mind, you love the land that you are born in. Why not here? What’s wrong? I truly believe that every country can someday sustain itself through the help of other countries that do not look down on it but makes it strong as it can be. And we don’t do this by borrowing money and getting back and making you poorer in paying the high interest rate, as we all know what it’s like to pay high interest and never pay back the borrowed money. It’s a prison forever, as this world is beautiful in every country and its people and its history and to preserve that for us all and generation to come.

The days go by quickly. My dad is in Canada and left us here, as he had to go back, and he knows that he will work twice as hard there than here to bring a family of three kids and a beautiful mom who knows that a new language needs to be learned, and my dad too, and us three. We are taking English classes while we are in Poland. I guess English is a need-to-know language in the world. For me to think of accepting a new country, I wonder if it will accept me and my family, our beliefs and our culture and what kind of people are there. Are they nice? Do they play soccer? Is it warm there? Does it snow? Is it beautiful like Poland? Is it like my dad said, it’s more open, different people? What does he mean? Canada is new and very beautiful in my mind, with very good people who come from other countries to lay down their seeds here, and open to dream free in the mind and the land and learn who you are in a playground of freedom. But I am free in Poland, and I see beauty here, but I am young, and I know this world is big and very beautiful. Just let yourself go. New country; same me.

But the days were just simply for me. Just enjoy your time here as much as you can. My family spends a lot of time with relatives and an abundance of family here for us that it will be hard to leave all this—a beautiful country and very beautiful people, our family and friends who will be in our minds forever—and let it go for something like a new idea that is easier. We are joyful that this idea is becoming a reality that was made for three little boys—Daniel, Paul and me—the kids of parents who think their kids matter more than their own lives. They sacrifice for us kids, as we are young and gentle and they are the teachers and providers.

Slowly, my mother is selling farm equipment—those that my dad told her she can sell to pay for our big move—to others, while other equipment was left to friends and family that my dad would not forget about even in times of need when every coin matters. Family and longtime friends that help you in times of need or just mean something to you, they are bigger than that extra dollar. So as I walked around the farm, I realize that I’m not going to see these farm animals around for long and for a lifetime. I remember once as a kid when I was on our family farm and I was about six years old playing outside in a hot summer day, I was alone, so I wanted to get some water because I was getting really thirsty. I knew that the barn had a water pipe and a faucet, so I walked toward the barn door and I opened the door, and it was too late to close it. A big bull was standing in front of me, eye to eye. It felt like five seconds, but it happened so fast, so I slammed the door back at the bull and started to run to Goshia’s farm next to us and climbed the fence. As I was running, I could hear the bull behind me, so when I saw the fence, I jumped at it, grabbed on the netting, and climbed. As I was about to jump on the ground on the other side, there on the spot that I wanted to land was a dog in a very aggressive and bloody fight with a big rat. I saw that, so I quickly bounced farther from them, and I turned around on the other side of the fence and saw the bull eye to eye, and it gives me a smirk and started to run wild on our family’s farm.

Well, some days were fun, some were scary, but it’s still farm and country life and none of that big city life that is expecting us soon. But in two more weeks and then in one week and two days, I said good-bye to all my friends and even took Emil for a walk and played with him and hugged him and kissed him on his face, and he licked my face, the sweetest and coolest and most protective dog you can have. I cried while hugging Emil. I looked in his eyes and said, This is it, friend. I will miss you, and I know you will miss us, but tomorrow is the last day. That babushka will take care of you. Sorry, old friend. Maybe dogs do understand more then we