The Weakness I Turned Into Strength

By Sonia Sharda

In 'The weakness I turned into strength', a memoir of the author's experiences at Toronto Western during the darkest times of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sonia Sharda tells the story of the horrors she endured at the hands of medical professionals after suffering a mysterious seizure. However, Sharda's book is more than just an account of her trauma; it is also a moving and heartfelt tribute to the power of family, friends, and the human spirit, even in the worst circumstances. A half-Indian, raised in an extended Italian family and growing up in diverse neighborhoods in the Toronto area, Sharda's is a coming-of-age story that transforms into an urgent call to action against hospital abuse and a message of hope for fellow survivors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sonia Sharda
• Release date: Aug 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223341697

Book preview

The Weakness I Turned into Strength

Sonia Sharda

Copyright© 2023. Sonia Sharda. All rights reserved.

No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the author.

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author(s) and is designed to provide useful advice in regard to the subject matter covered.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: L’amore Della Famiglia

Chapter 2: Dad?

Chapter 3: Bars Beauty

Chapter 4: Neighborhood Kids

Chapter 5: Traffic Jam

Chapter 6: Sauga

Chapter 7: Adulthood

Chapter 8: Everything Happens for a Reason

Chapter 9: Evolution

Chapter 10: Passions The Soap Opera

Chapter 11: Miss Independent

Chapter 12: 911

Chapter 13: Trauma

Chapter 14: The End of a Tunnel

Chapter 15: Not Giving Up

Chapter 16: Roommates

Chapter 17: Rehabilitation

Chapter 18: Rehabilitated

About the Author

Dedication

To my family and friends , I’m so grateful for all of you. Thank you for walking this path with me. I hope one day you each tell your story.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost , I would like to thank the Lord for giving me this second chance at life. I will not take it for granted.

I would also like to take this time to acknowledge my family and friends; I’m so grateful and thankful for all of you. Also, everyone who came to visit me when I was in a really bad place mentally and helped me get back to where I am today—I really could not have done it without you all.

To the good doctors and nurses at Toronto Western—because not all of them were bad—thank you for getting me strong and helping me get to the Toronto Rehabilitation Centre. Thank you, Toronto Rehabilitation Centre, for everything you did for me and for helping me get back to myself. Thank you for being patient and kind and always coming to work with a smile.

I would also like to thank my writing team for everything they have done for me.

Thank you to my mom and brother, who are always there for me whenever I need them.

To all my work family at the daycare, thank you for always making work feel like home.

Chapter 1:

L’amore Della Famiglia

My family always said we had bad luck, but I wanted to be the one to change it.

We all loved and supported each other, sticking together through thick and thin, but something always came along to make life harder than it had to be. It began with Nonna and Nonno, my grandparents, back in Italy.

My grandfather, known to me only as Nonno, was from a wealthy family. I never met him myself, but those of us who did remember a sweet, gentle, tender-hearted man who deeply loved his wife-to-be—deeply enough to give up his family’s wealth by marrying her against their wishes. After that, the young newly-weds were on their own, but they made it work, living happily with their brood of five children.

Nonna, my grandmother, was the tough one of the pair. She had a big heart and a great love for her kids, but she was fierce and determined, as she had to be in order to survive and take care of her family. As was common in those days, she lost multiple babies to miscarriages and premature births, which only seemed to make her more fiercely protective of the ones that made it. But, unlike Nonno, she was also a disciplinarian; she made sure the children didn’t step out of line and always stayed on the straight and narrow. No matter what happened, Nonna would make sure that she and her loved ones would come through it.

What happened was that the family’s bad luck kicked in. Nonno was diagnosed with cancer. He had to go to the hospital every week for treatment. Nonna would go with him every time, leaving the young kids at home. Then, she would come back and take care of Nonno, who was weakened by his illness and even more so by the treatment. She’d do all the housework herself, too: all the cooking and cleaning and washing and making sure the kids got to school on time. There were five of them, so one or another was always getting hurt or falling sick or getting in trouble, and that would make more work for Nonna. How she managed it all, I’ll never know. She was the family’s pillar of strength.

Worse came to worst when Nonno died. Though battling his illness had weakened him, Nonno had still been a father to the kids and a husband to Nonna, a focal point for the family’s loving care and a source of mildness and gentleness that all could draw on. Once he was gone, Nonna was alone. She had lost the love of her life. It was up to her to get her children through this difficult time and all the way to adulthood—without him.

Somehow, she did it. My mother, Grace, the third child, was twelve years old at the time. There were two kids after her, and of the two before her, only Vino, the eldest, was grown-up enough to work. This meant Nonna had to make ends meet with very, very little money coming in. Those were hard times, but none of the kids, let alone Nonna herself, ever looked back on that period in Italy with any bitterness. Luck was not on the family’s side, but, as they would prove time after time, they could make do without luck.

A little before Nonno died, Vino had gone to Canada on a work visa. He sent some money home, which made things a little easier for the family in Italy. He met his future wife, Jenna, at a church hall party in Canada. Vino couldn’t afford to fly them out, leaving my mother and my zio Pat with their zia.

It seems like everyone in those days met their future wives and husbands at other people’s weddings. Sure enough, Risa met Mike at Vino’s, decided to stay on in Canada, and soon had a Canadian spouse of her own, though no one from the family could be at her wedding, seeing as they’d just spent all they had on attending Vino’s. But with the two eldest children now settled there, the family had put down real roots in Canada, and it wasn’t long before Risa sponsored Nonna, Grace, Pat, and Daisy to cross the Atlantic as well. So began our family’s immigrant experience.

My mother was seventeen years old when she arrived in the New World. Coming to Canada from the Italian slums where she’d spent her childhood, it must have seemed like a different world to her.

Grace had a hard time learning and needed a bit more help in school, but back then, there were no remedial classes or special needs schools; if you couldn’t keep up the standard of work required, they just kicked you out. Grace had left school in the third grade and started helping Nonna out at home, doing housework, and raising her younger sister and brother.

Now, she had to pick up and move to Canada, which involved getting a gigantic, all-in-one vaccination that left a huge scar on her arm. Then, she came to Canada, where she arrived in the middle of the Canadian winter and saw, for the first time in her life, snow.

The four brand-new Canadian immigrants all moved in with Risa and Mike. Risa and Mike had a young son, Frank, with another, Rico, soon to be added to the mix. That brought the house’s total number of occupants to eight—and it wasn’t a big house! Not only that, the family didn’t even use the whole thing; they rented out the top floor to another family for a little extra cash.

Things may have been better than in Italy—at least none of the kids was an ocean away anymore—but that doesn’t mean it was easy. There was nothing fancy or lavish about the new life. Nonna, who had worked hard every day of her life in Italy, now got a job in her new country and worked there, too. Pat and Daisy, the youngest children, went to school, and soon, Pat had an afterschool job to help pay the bills. Just as before, the family pulled together when times were hard; there was so much love that no one felt the lack of any luxuries. The house they lived in then still belongs to the family; it’s still where we all gather for the holidays; everyone has the best memories there. Despite hard luck and hard circumstances, our family endures because everyone supports each other.

Who was everyone? Well, it was a growing number. There were Risa and Mike and their two kids, Frank and Rico; Vino and Jenna would visit with their kids, Rocco and Clara; Pat married Lucy, who had a daughter from her first marriage, Leah, and a son, Tony, with Pat; Lucy’s sister, Amy, also became part of the family; Daisy married as well, and her and her husband  had two kids, Sara and Vanessa; and of course, there was Grace, who had a son, Dominic, and a daughter, Sonia: me. And Nonna was the matriarch, presiding over all.

Nonna’s love was like glowing coal at the core of this whole system. Though there wasn’t much in the way of material goods, the family somehow seemed to draw people into themselves and once they were there, there was always enough to go around. Lucy, Pat’s wife, had an unhappy marriage before she met Pat. Pat became her safe haven, and the rest is history.

Leah was blood from the first day; all the cousins treated her as one of our own; no one said another word about where she’d come from. If you hadn’t known, you wouldn’t have been able to tell she wasn’t born alongside us. As for Lucy’s sister, Amy, she gave me my first job, babysitting her little girls, and those girls are family, too.

Rocco, the eldest cousin, is the most handsome of the bunch, but ironically, or maybe as a result of his good looks, he has a hard time trusting women. He had the roughest childhood, growing up without any older cousins to look after him, so he got into trouble and spent some time in jail, but he’s since changed his life for the better. He’s always been kind and helpful, though, no matter all the things he’s been through.

Rocco’s sister, Clara, is the designated adventurer; she always used to announce out of the blue that she’s off to India or Malta or wherever. She’s settled down, though; now, she’s married and has a daughter, Emily.

Clara used to babysit me when I was younger. I have deep memories of her taking care of me and bringing me with her to meet her friends. I used to think how cool her friends were. She wasn’t the greatest of babysitter though, but she was great nonetheless.

Frank, Risa and Mike’s first, is super smart and industrious. He’s always known where he wants to go in life and has worked his butt off to get there, even working at McDonald’s to pay his own way through university. Now, he’s living his dream, and he’s got a beautiful wife and a son, Kyle.

His younger brother, Rico, is a great extrovert. He’s always smiling and has so many friends it’s impossible to keep track of them all. He went through a health scare some years ago that freaked us all out, but he’s better now and married to Haley, a lovely person, and the pair of them have a cat, Bitty.

Leah has been mature, trustworthy, and responsible ever since she was little. She studied design and loves making spaces—she can look at any space and see possibilities in it that you’d never imagine. After having such a difficult childhood, she now has a beautiful family with her husband, David, and two children, Sofie and Liam.

Then, there’s Tony. Tony and I are really close and always have been, but somehow, I was the only one truly surprised when he came out as gay a few years ago. Again, the family rallied around him; coming out was a relief to Tony. It took a great weight off his shoulders and gave him more confidence, but it didn’t change who he was. Tony was always himself; nothing has really changed.

The youngest of the cousins is Vanessa, Daisy’s younger daughter. She’s strong, smart and very independent she tough always has been and always will be, she’s funny and beautiful and has a heart of gold. She’s so wise you’d never know she was the youngest. She’s also a amazing ant. And as in amazing guy in her life.

My brother, Dominic, considers himself the black sheep of the family, but he’s a genuine person and has always been free to be himself. It’s true he’s had his ups and downs, and you never do know, when Dom walks into the room, exactly what you’re going to get, but he is a lot more than just a black sheep and should give himself credit for that. Obviously, he had some hard times growing up, which we’ll get into in a little while.

Then, there’s Sara, Daisy’s firstborn daughter, Vanessa’s older sister. Sara is beautiful, has a voice like an angel’s, is smart and tough, and never lets anyone walk over her. I think she always wanted the kind of love you see in the movies, and I pray that she finds it one day. She has a daughter—Eva.

And, of course, there’s me, Sonia. What should I say about myself? Well, let me show you how my family sees me. In my brother’s words, "Sonia is a very beautiful girl. In keeping with family tradition, nothing has ever come easy for her; she has had a hard life. In her case, perhaps, things have been a bit harder even than our family is used to. She is a very loving person, honestly, one of a kind. It’s no exaggeration that there are not too many people like Sonia that are genuinely kind to people without wanting anything in return. She is a true Saint and can be naive at times with trusting people and making decisions. She’s a bit of a dreamer. She has had relationship issues in the past, but she was very devoted in her relationships. She went through a hard