It’s the last night my family will be together for a while. For an indefinite while. Clair and Mark will be taking off for Toronto tomorrow and I will leave for the UK in a week or so. We enjoyed a last supper of traditional Maltese Ftijra (pronounced Ft-ee-rah), a stone-baked open faced crust. Sort of like a traditional, but fancied up, pizza.The past few nights have been about story-telling. My parents revealed intricacies of their early years together, of their struggle to build a Canadian home away from their beautiful home in Malta. Their sacrifices are disconcerting and impossible to recompense. Their adventures are incredible to learn.
I consider how differently my life would have unfurled had I been raised on these islands. I consider how changed my life might have been if my father, having a plane ticket from Malta to Winnipeg, had not disembarked at Pearson Airport instead.
I might have been a Prairie Girl.
Lucky break.
