Writing as Connection

I will never forget the day I got an email from a stranger about my poem, Homecoming.

She and her husband had been visiting their daughter in Thunder Bay for Christmas, and when their flight home was canceled, they took advantage of the additional 36 hours to do some exploring, which led them to Prince Arthur’s Landing, where the poem is mounted.

The initial email was tentative and brief, just making sure she had, indeed, found the author of the poem. I have no idea how she found my email address, but I was delighted she had.

The follow-up email started more warmly, “How nice to be in touch with you.  I am sure my story is one you have heard many times and may be close to your own.  I hope I am not too wordy.”

She wrote with such pride about her grandfather, who had been a master baker in Ukraine until, one day in 1927, Polish soldiers came in and closed his bakery. Without the means to support his family, he left for Canada. He established the Fort William Home Bakery, and a few years later his wife and three children, including the writer’s mother, joined him. 

Although the details were different, the story is a common one. My grandparents were immigrants looking for another kind of life. I won’t say better.

I was inspired by my grandparents' story of coming here from Norway. I never met them but got to know them through stories I heard and old photographs.

“I will never forget the day I got an email from a stranger about my poem, Homecoming.”

My mother joked about how my father's mother mispronounced many words and names. I imagine, although they worked very hard to make this place their home, they ended up spending most of their time with other Scandinavians and were never quite accepted as being "from here."

Of course, they forbade their own children from speaking Norwegian, probably hoping that their children would blend in more easily than they had been able to. I think that with every generation, the children increasingly felt more and more Canadian.

I also hoped that any more recent children of immigrants, whether from Europe, Africa, Asia, or anywhere, might also identify and find some comfort with these words.

I was very moved by her story and speechless to be honest.

Although I have been a writer for many years and a writing student, I have never had a greater or more meaningful compliment than this, to know that something I put into words connected deeply with another human being.

This is why I write.

I continue to feel a great deal of gratitude for this encounter and for her taking the time to let me know the effect the poem had on her.

I encourage you to read or listen to “home,” a poem about experiences of refugees in Europe by Warsan Shire, a British-Somali poet.