Extraction: A Memoir

By C.C. Nield

C.C. Nield’s life has been laced with childhood and spousal abuse, and demanding work challenges. In Extraction, she shares her story as she fought to overcome these and bounced back through resilience, creativity, and humor.

Beginning with the period before her birth in Montreal, Canada, in 1947, this memoir chronicles the path of Nield’s life, including escaping a terrible childhood; immigrating to Kenya, Africa; renouncing her Canadian citizenship; and traveling through Africa, the Far East, and the Middle East. Nield tells how she lived for decades in a prison of confusion, fear, and terror. Her experiences, coupled with difficult decisions, were steppingstones that molded her into a stronger braver person.

The story culminates with the courageous steps to extract her back to Canada in 2019 so she could resume her Canadian citizenship, and get urgent health care.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480890886

C.C. Nield

C.C. Nield earned a BA in Arts at Laurentian and McGill Universities and an MBA equivalent in Management from the Canadian School of Management at Northland Open University, Canada. Nield is a registered nurse in both Canada and Kenya. She has worked in multiple careers as an intensive care unit nurse/trainer and a monitoring and evaluation specialist while raising three children in Canada and Kenya. Nield’s work has exposed her to diverse cultures throughout the world.

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Copyright © 2020 C.C. Nield.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

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without the written permission of the author except in the case of

brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of

people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Interior Image Credit: Author’s personal collection

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9087-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9088-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020908548

Archway Publishing rev. date: 5/27/2020

CONTENTS

The Interrogation

Introduction

Chapter 1     The time of my birth

Chapter 2     Ville Deschamps Street 1947-1953

Chapter 3     Family Life

Chapter 4     Looking for purpose in life

Chapter 5     Becoming a Registered Nurse

Chapter 6     The Dating Game

Chapter 7     Family Life

Chapter 8     Decadence and Enlightenment

Chapter 9     Caleb

Chapter 10   Eye Openers

Chapter 11   Preparing to Leave Canada

Chapter 12   Rude Awakenings

Chapter 13   Coups and Terrorism

Chapter 14   Our Third child arrives

Chapter 15   Life takes a Nosedive

Chapter 16   Entering the field of development consultancies

Chapter 17   Posho Mills and more Posho Mills

Chapter 18   Consulting in the context of HIV and AIDS

Chapter 19   Consulting in War-Torn Countries

Chapter 20   Instability and Terrorism: The Devil from Ethiopia

Chapter 21   Hitting rock bottom

Chapter 22   Final Extraction

THE INTERROGATION

Dead black eyes

Mouth salivating ready to spit- that grey bubbling spittle at the ready

He drags me from my bed

He still smartly in his ‘uniform,’ dark suit, white shirt, dapper tie, those kicking shoes

Pulled from a dead sleep

Dragged to that familiar corner

He blocks my passage

Then it begins, the ranting and raving,

Accusing and demanding

‘You must die’ ‘You must pay’….

I am defiant, spirited, resistant,

Trying to supplicate the madman with soothing words or that thing called logic

Then the hours pass

Unable to drink or go to the toilet

My bladder and gut cry out

I am dizzy with it all

But it does not stop

The cracking fist

The kicking shoes

The manicured hands around my neck

I weep, I beg

I cry out to God

I am your God! the madman shouts, No other!

Then the pen and paper come out

Or, dragged to the computer screen

Confession, Submission

All for his Glory and Dignity

After he gets his prize,

The signing of the cheque or confession,

He disappears

As quickly as he came

I am left alone

Defeated

Or maybe extracted.

INTRODUCTION

Extraction is the story of my life starting beginning with the period before my birth in 1947, a time when I like to believe, the world poised itself to receive me into it. It includes escaping a terrible childhood and immigrating to Kenya, Africa. The book culminates with the courageous step (taken by many) to extract me back to Canada, so I could resume my Canadian citizenship, heal from spousal abuse, and get urgent health care. I use the term extraction as I have fought life every step of the way, be the path right for me, or disastrous.

My life story first ‘came to be’ in my head in 1993. However, the first draft was not assembled until 2017, several decades later. I just did not have the strength to relive and expose it all.

To some readers, my life choices may seem brutal, even unwise, but much good came from them, and there were many happy outcomes. More important, my decisions revealed themselves to be the stepping stones that molded me into a much better person.

Not everybody can write or wants to write. Most people say they do not have the spare time to do so. I want to write, and I can usually squeeze in the time to do so as I sleep for only a few hours every night. This, thanks to the psychotic years of my third marriage to the very insane Abdi. During the turbulent years living with him in Nairobi, Kenya, I got into the bad habit of sleeping with one eye open, afraid to drift off for fear of getting strangled, even murdered. I would stay awake, alert, night after night – a slender red Swiss army penknife tucked safely under my pillow in the double bed we shared.

I had to be ready - Just in case of an attack.

Luckily I slept well when I was not in Kenya, or my health would have been worse than it is today.

Insomnia has stuck with me ever the Abdi years, but I have discovered that its curse is also a balm. Those quiet nighttime moments are a time for prayer, reading emails or novels, or conducting simple stretching and relaxing exercises on the bed. And nobody interrupts you in the night. Everybody else is asleep.

I think.

To me, it is better to ‘tell it all’ in an exciting book, than to keep a pretty extraordinary life under wraps forever. Before I found the courage to write my story, I would, from time to time, cloak snippets of my life in the sarcastic back and forth bantering of my Facebook and Twitter accounts. To some extent, this also includes the liberties I can take when writing this book.

Several realities have emerged in my life. First of all, I am now aging, and that means that my time on Mother Earth is running out. Another reality is that I need to rely more on my Higher Power. By telling my compelling, sometimes amusing story, I hope to help my fellow earth travelers to increase the level of faith they have in the world and towards their own Higher Power, Creator, or as I call him, GOD. For my part, I believe faith in a Higher Power is a better tranquilizer or stimulant than drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, smoking, pornography, vaping, or smoking marijuana. Having a faith serves to anchor how much liberty you can take in the events of your life.

I am alert to a new power within me – more strength, determination, and courage, have been instilled in me by my GOD because of what I survived. I have inspired others over the years, even making they laugh, and I plan to continue with it. I know I have the skills, guts, and devotion to continue, because of the maturity and insight that time brings.

Anyways, I lived for decades in a self-imposed prison of confusion, fear, and terror. Writing my story garners the useless energy that terror produces. I am now weaving the negative and positive scenarios of my life living and working in many countries into something that can help others - a greater sense of hope that there is a clear path ahead, no matter your age or situation. My life has made a full circle- Canada to Kenya and back to Canada.

As such, I want to share this remarkable story with others.

So here I am, stretched comfortably on my queen-sized bed in Athi River, Kenya, Africa, a wooden computer table across my belly, and my legs dangling so as not to irritate my back and awaken the sciatica on my right leg. I have positioned my slim black laptop in front of me. My beloved Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus are perched nearby. The laptop is light in weight, but the Collins is six inches thick and ever so heavy. Almost five pounds!! Despite its bulkiness, its contents are exciting for someone like me, who loves words and the answers they provide.

When I left Canada for Kenya in 1981, I doubted I would ever return to Canada, as my travels took me further and further away from the place of my birth - to other countries - Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, to name a few. Yet, here I am - recently extracted back to Canada from Kenya, making a Full Circle in my life. I am a newly lit lamp. I am Tinkerbelle¹ once trapped in her cloudy glass jar, desperately igniting her torch at last. My journey is not over. There is no time to rest on my laurels. I have new areas to explore- writing, art and guitar lessons, a trip to China, and maybe a ride in a bright hot air balloon, flying high over the game parks of Kenya.

CHAPTER 1

The time of my birth

Everybody’s story starts before they are born before their parents are born. DNA notwithstanding, the environment in which our ancestors were born and raised influences the upbringing they applied to their children. In the case of my parents, this means that the socio-political environment in Canada and the United Kingdom influenced how they raised four children, including me.

Before my birth in 1947, certain events were unfolding in the world. After World War I, the western world naively hoped there would never be another global war. It was not to be. World War II started in 1939, with nearly every country in the world engaged. It lasted until 1945, pitting the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) against the Allied powers (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China). Canada declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939, contributing as a minor ally of the Allied powers with its army, navy and air forces.

My Dad, Herman Robertson Browne, then only 18 years of age, immediately volunteered in the war effort. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, trained as a tail gunner, and was posted to England, while my Mother, Lisa Grey, aged 19 years, was recruited into the British Army as a shore gunner based in Lancashire, England.

The two, Herman and Lisa, were born and raised in countries far away from each other. If not for World War 2, it seems unlikely they would ever have met. Or, maybe they would have. Destiny.

Dad was born in 1921, the oldest of three siblings. The others were his younger brother Frederick Browne and sister Penelope Browne (my favorite aunty as she was just plain kind.). Their father, my grandfather, James Michael Browne, was born in 1896, one of eleven children and himself a World War I army veteran. By the time I was born in 1947, my grandfather James had gotten remarried to Hermione. She was much younger than he, in fact, only a few years older than my Dad. However, young as she was, Dad credited her with making a substantial contribution to raising him and his two siblings. We called her Grammie Hermione.

My grandfather’s first wife, Angelina (Nannie Angelina), felt compelled to divorce James, due to his constant philandering. Dad told me many decades later how his father’s personal history made him determined not to be an unfaithful husband. It was for this reason that he stuck it out with Mother.

I loved both my grandmothers. I remember frequent family get-togethers at our place or theirs. The smell of delicious food was always in the air- roast beef, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and of course, delicious desserts. Cigarette and pipe smoke also filled the room. Both Nannie Angelina and Grammie Hermione were heavy cigarette smokers, while their husbands smoked pipes. Hermione eventually gave up smoking, but Angelina remained a chain smoker all her life. During visits, she talked incessantly, unaware that the ashes on the end of the cigarette precariously dangling from her lips, were falling into her cooking pot! We decided to say nothing and the food tasted so good.

Perhaps Angelina smoked heavily due to the divorce from James and the subsequent loss of her next two husbands. The two died due to diabetes and just plain old age. Cigarette chain smoker or not, my second husband, Caleb, and I named our daughter after Angelina as a tribute to how much we loved and respected Nannie Angelina.

She was also one of the few family members of mine who were not racists.

Dad stayed close to his vast family spread across Canada and the United States. Most relatives had roots in Plattsburg, Vermont, a city bordering Quebec, Canada, and Vermont, in the United States. Plattsburg was part of Canada until the Battle of Plattsburg (part of the War of 1812). Plattsburg then became part of the United States. The black and white pictures tidily fastened in place in Dad’s family photo albums showed a big happy family, smiling and enjoying life. Photos course, can be deceiving, but I have nothing but good memories of Dad’s side of the family.

There were no pictures of Mother’s family in any album, other than one of an old woman in a wheelchair (identified as Mrs. Grey, her mother). Mother never received a single phone call or a visit from her family. Our parents never explained this, though years later, we made some surprising discoveries.

Dad said Canadian patriotism was high in the late 1930s, and although he was only a teenager by the time WW2 started, he wanted to defend Canada against the enemy. He was ready to leave everything behind, including those he loved. Dad told his parents and stepmother of his intention to join the war effort. At the time Dad was conscripted, Dad was engaged to a girl called Curly. People expected him to marry her eventually. I never knew Curly’s other names, and other details about her, other than her being a redhead. I imagined a massive head of curly red hair.

During the many violent episodes between my parents, Grammie Hermione whisked me off to her nearby apartment. There she often told me about the redheaded Curly, brought on, no doubt, by the uneasy relationship Grammie and the rest of the family had with Mother. Then again, maybe they liked Curly - and families do not take easily to changes. Perhaps they could have treated Mother better and accepted her as a family member. Who knows?

We do know that Mother was born in December 1920, in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. She was almost a year older than my Dad. In those days, there was a racist notion that Blacks, the Irish, Italians, and the Jews were less British. At that time, there was already a sizeable Caribbean population in the United Kingdom. They were invited to the United Kingdom to fill labor shortages.

They faced much racism, such as being barred from most English pubs and clubs. It appears that this type of prejudice persisted through the ages. In the 2018 Windrush scandal, some diehard racist British politicians tried to expel children of Caribbean descent. The children of the early emigrants, most of them well into old age by 2018, were told they had to leave England. The government deported many while terminating others from their jobs, or denying them their pension benefits. In the end, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, apologized to those victimized and rescinded the decision to expel them. Embarrassing.

Growing up, Mother must have evidenced the sharp in-migration to Britain from the Caribbean and other countries, including the African continent. Little did she know that the in-migration would contribute to the wonderful ‘mixed bag’ of every nationality that characterizes Britain today. She left England behind in 1946 but carried her own biases and prejudices with her to Canada, including her bias against people of color. Mother was haunted by her biases when I married my marriage very black second husband, Caleb, followed by the arrival of my dark-skinned adopted daughter Angelina Kamau (of Kenyan descent). Then she witnessed changes in her bloodline with the birth of her three dark-skinned black grandchildren by my son Peter and his wife Tammy (of Haitian ancestry).

In the England of the 1940s, sexism was also rife. Society directed this bias against women in general and single mothers in particular. Women never got the vote until 1928, some years after Mother was born. At first, only women over the age of 30 years who were graduates of British universities could vote. Many years later, both men and women could vote if they were 21 years of age or older.

During both world wars, there was a severe shortage of workforce, and women began working in jobs usually handled by men, such as the munitions industry. Mother was one such example of a woman in a non-traditional job as she worked as a shore gunner during World War 2, a position generally reserved for men. In post-war Britain, many companies laid off the same women who had worked hard during the war effort. They demoted others to lower-paying ‘female’ jobs.

It is no wonder that the goal of every British woman became focused on finding a man to marry and shelter them.

There was a stigmatization of single mothers in the United Kingdom, through the denial of tax benefits for single mothers who had more than two children. In contrast, there were significant benefits to children of married women, such as free childcare and tax credits. Societies held single parenthood as irresponsible. Baby homes were soon widely established in the UK by churches and the Salvation Army as a solution to the societal problem of children born out of wedlock. They also served as places where childless couples could find children and religious charities operating mother and baby homes received donations.

I believe stigmatization played a role in my mother’s life as her mother gave her up when she was young.

Mother told us her maiden name was Grey. We had no reason to doubt this until 2011, when my older sister, Rebecca, sent me an email with a scan of Mother’s birth certificate. Rebecca (ever eager to disparage anybody including her mother) gloated over it. The birth certificate showed the real picture- that Mother’s birth mother was one May Jessica Andrews, married name Nelson. The space for ‘father’ on the birth certificate was conspicuously left blank. Rebecca claimed that the information gap in the birth certificate meant Mother was the result of an extramarital World War I ‘fling’. She suggested that likely when May’s husband came home from the war front, after years of overseas absence serving his beloved country, he got a big shock when he walked through the doors of his home. There he saw May’s expanding stomach or maybe baby Lisa tenderly wrapped in a pink blanket. May and her husband had to make a decision. Maybe May had to get rid of the product of the illicit liaison – or end up in divorce. Whatever the scenario, May gave away my Mother when she was very young. She kept Mother’s older sister.

Maybe those were not the details – I think it more likely that Mother was handed over to a factory to pay for family debts. This practice was common in British society of the 1920s. Children were sent to workhouses and factories to pay off their families’ debts. (This still happens in modern-day Ethiopia). Whatever the story is, Mother felt enormous pain that her mother gave her away. On her July 2003 death bed, in Callendar, Ontario, Canada, she pulled her caregiver close and confided in her that she never understood why her mother gave her away.

She provided no further details.

Mother’s history may account for the abuse she directed at her husband and children. It has undoubtedly helped me to forgive her for the maltreatment she heaped on me. I believe that she tried her best based on what she had experienced at the hands of her mother.

Dad sometimes recounted his war stories- at least when we were ready to listen. For the most part, we children never appreciated the war effort. We were, after all, baby boomer children, preaching total disdain for war, wishing we could join the drug intoxicated ‘flower’ children at Woodstock–style rallies chanting Give peace a chance. It was not until many decades later that I would take an interest and understand the sacrifices made by Dad, Mother, and others in the war effort.

Wars never stop. I have been in the midst of several battles and post-conflict situations, myself, having worked in Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and North Darfur over more than thirty years. Dad’s plane crew operated from the seaside town of Blackpool, England. Most days, the big Lancaster military planes would take off before dawn. Twenty or more of the aircraft roared off within minutes of each other from the Blackpool airstrips. In the evenings, the planes with their crew returned.

But not all of them.

Some planes never returned as the German air force shot them down. Dad lost a lot of friends. The war experience was very traumatic for him, and years afterward, he would not board an airplane. More recently, doctors diagnosed Dad with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a term only recently coined, but which applied to him due to the trauma of the war he had lived through and his subsequent reluctance to fly on planes. The Canadian government gave him additional veterans’ allowances for it, albeit late in his life. Still, he was happy to be recognized. Mother did not experience the same trauma. Over the decades, she often crisscrossed Canada by plane with Rebecca and visited her native England.

The British and Canadian forces fought alongside each other in WW2. In the evenings, the young soldiers from both countries would mingle in the darkened Blackpool, England nightclubs, smoking and drinking together, while at the same time listening to the radio for the latest news on the war.

It was on one of those occasions that Mother and Dad met. I guess they stood before each other in their smart, tailored military uniforms and were attracted. Mother’s pretty face bedazzled Dad. Mother had grown up to be a very good looking woman, of medium build, with light olive-colored skin, black hair, and brown eyes. Dad was also very handsome, a tall, slender, blue-eyed man with black hair and blue eyes. Love at first sight? I think so. Goodbye, Curly!

After a brief courtship, the two married in 1944 in England, just as World War II was ending. They spent their honeymoon fishing; Mother no doubt tolerating the buzzing of flies gathering around the stench of bait and fish guts. Little did she know how important fishing was to Dad. The smell of fish (and other wildlife kills) was to be a big part of our family life. Dad tidily documented every detail about every fish, bird, deer, and moose he caught from his childhood in journals. Sadly he could not recall the date of the anniversary of his marriage or his own children’s birthdays.

Soon after their 1944 honeymoon, the Canadian government called Dad back to Canada. Mother was pregnant at the time and soon gave birth alone to my older sister Rebecca. They joined Dad in Canada, but not before traveling five days and nights over the choppy Atlantic Ocean with thousands of other women. Mother believed Canada was the New World, and she would have a good life there far from the poor economic conditions that characterized England in the 1940s, with many cities’ infrastructure destroyed due to bombing from the German air force. The ship carrying Mother, Rebecca, and many other British women, docked in Montreal, Quebec in 1946. Canadians hailed the disembarking women as War Brides. No doubt, on their arrival in late 1946, they received a tumultuous welcome. The newspaper pictures and other literature of the day are testimony to this. There was lots of celebration with military bands playing instruments and drums and people cheering, waving the union jack flag of Britain. I can imagine the anticipation Mother felt holding Rebecca, then a small baby – looking through those crowds, listening to the funny Canadian accents and the constant Eh in Canadian speech, craning her neck to see where her husband was. I hope she found Dad quickly in the crowds.

Mother was quite shocked to learn that not every Canadian road was paved in gold, and that not every Canadian man was smartly dressed. She expressed disappointment at the lack of affluence in Canada, compared to what Dad told her. He exaggerated the wonders of Canada to impress his young bride. No doubt, the reality must have hit Mother hard some weeks later when she met some of the family members. Nannie Angelina and her husband William lived in Val D’Or (Valley of Gold), Quebec. He was well off and had retired early. To him, this meant relaxing much of the day, in a greasy white stained undershirt, a beer in one hand, and, smelly cigar in the other. I can understand the revulsion Mother must have felt to see that sight. Grandpa William repelled me. I refused to sit on his knee as a child despite his coaxing.

When I think about the time before my birth in 1947, it is clear to me that the circumstances of our birth, and the parents we are born to be with, are key factors determining our life journey. My belief that GOD is in control consoles me. Nothing happens by chance. GOD is in the picture. Our birth and upbringing are deliberate events, inclusive of both good and evil events, and designed to strengthen us and make us resilient for life after death. Much of our life events and decisions are therefore not ours-they are our destiny.

People have long tried to determine their Higher Power’s will on matters of life. What was revealed to them often ultimately influenced how they lived their lives. Thousands of years ago, early Bible verses in the Old Testament refer to the casting of flat stones, coins or dice on the ground to determine GOD’s will concerning everyday life, even going to war. ‘Casting lots’ sounds much like flipping a coin, as I saw my Dad do at times during my childhood-deciding who would go first in a game of Monopoly. I guess the ancient practice of casting lots was no different from the practice of reading horoscopes, palms, and tea leaves in Canada. Or, where Luhya witchdoctors in Western Province of Kenya, stir the remains of dead chicken carcasses, freshly slaughtered and warm, still dripping blood- using a long crooked wooden stick. The blood pattern reveals GOD’s will. And people believe it.

There is a lot of paraphernalia purportedly showing the will of GOD concerning controlling destiny! Win a war, curse your husband’s girlfriend, get pregnant at last, or bewitch your boyfriend to propose marriage to you. The same people going to fortune tellers to have their palms read in Canada, or to witchdoctors in Kenya, could also attend church on Sundays, I guess as an extra precaution, to cover every base and thus have a higher chance of a wish fulfilled.

CHAPTER 2

Ville Deschamps

Street 1947-1953

Mr. and Mrs. Browne settled down on Ville Deschamps Street in a modest white clapboard house with a wooden porch overlooking a big grassy front yard. We lived there for eight years. ‘Google map’ shows that the whole area where our humble rented house once stood now comprises apartment blocks and a park. I guess the city demolished the neighborhood long ago. But, the memories remain.

I was born in October 1947 at the St. Margaret’s maternity hospital some 16 kilometers away from our Ville Deschamps house. Today, it still looks much like it did in 1947 - a bleak-looking single-story grey brick building. In 2004 it was converted from a maternity hospital into a long term care center. I guess this change partly reflects the decline in birth rates of we ‘baby boomers’ in North America, and the increased longevity of the elderly in Canada. Or, maybe both.

Within days of my October birth, my parents took me home. It was autumn, my favorite Canadian season due to the way the leaves of the Canadian maple trees change color, apparently a response of the trees to weather changes. This change then prompts drops in the production of chlorophyll and an endless landscape of orange, yellow, pink, red, and burgundy maple trees– what a fabulous view. I have always appreciated the autumn.

I remember Dad driving us around Montreal on an autumn day, just to marvel at the beauty of those autumn leaves. Nowadays, Canadians and foreigners come to Montreal for ‘autumn leaf drives,’ as they call them. By November, the leaves sadly fall to the ground and need to be raked up. How squishy the sound as you wade through the slippery wet fallen leaves now crushed into a pulpy mass! As children, we would run and chase each other through the high damp mounds of fallen autumn leaves in our yard. The chilly wind would sometimes pick up the leaves in a swirling dervish – they too seemed to be running and chasing after each other.

And so we enjoyed autumn in October growing up in Montreal, the leaves lazily swirling willy-nilly, before Mother’s imposing figure stood before us, rakes in one hand, reminding us that we were there to rake up the leaves, up, not to play in them.

Black and white photos show Rebecca and me running around the Ville Deschamps yard below bright summer suns. A pretty sight: Rebecca, 18 months my senior, her feet clad in buckled white shoes, running fast, her blond pigtails in neat bows blowing stiffly in the wind behind her. And there I am, somewhat smaller in stature wearing laced black shoes, my brown hair cropped just below the ears, no doubt cut by Mother using her long sharp sewing scissors.

Snip, snip.

Mother sat nearby, posing gracefully, sometimes gazing down at us for the sake of the photographer (who was likely to be one of my beloved aunts). She never touched us with affection during those ‘photo shoots,’ in fact, most of the time. Another photo shows me, lying across the wooden Ville Deschamps balcony clad in a woolen coat and warm tights, an empty wooden rocking chair standing nearby, swaying with the wind. I loved my beloved Chatty, Cathy doll (I called her C.C.), and my favorite comic book - Donald Duck. Most winter photos show me dressed warmly in a bulky snowsuit, no doubt to face the harsh climate of Canada, including some of the bitterest cold in the world.

My aunts did not yet have children then, so for a few years, Rebecca and I were a novelty in the family. They doted on us.

My Ville Deschamps world extended no further than a 30-kilometer perimeter as most of our relatives lived nearby. There were frequent visits to my Aunt Penelope’s home in Pointe James, 20 kilometers from our house, where she and Uncle Ralph cooked us fabulous meals, always followed by sweet desserts. Aunt Penelope also stitched beautiful dresses for Rebecca and me and purchased toys for my younger brother, Simon. I loved Uncle Ralph - He was so well-read and was always talking politics and history.

Dad was unemployed when he returned from WW2. He began working as a bookkeeper until he got his certificate in accounting. Mother did not work, so I was with her much of the day until I started school. She soon began to become unhinged and abusive. My first and only clear memory of my early years was of a time when I could barely walk. I must have been under the age of two years. Of course, I cannot recall the month of the incident, but it must have been winter as I remember the sound of big adult rubber winter boots stomping off