August 12, 1998
I was born of a french catholic couple from Quebec, Canada. Though my birth and where I was raised was in the province of Ontario. Like any other ethnic community living in an english environment we had our moments of pride and prejudice, though when I was very young it wasn't all that apparent. As always the young see the world through innocent eyes and differing customs added a uniqueness that was strange and sometimes exciting.
My street, which to the very young is their universe, was small and filled with children of different Europian backgrounds. All of us spoke the "mother tongue" which was english, but each family had that secret language that only they and their parents understood. That is, except for the english children, who could hide no secrets in public.
Father was a hard working man, like all fathers then, putting in six day work weeks, twelve hours a day. We seldom saw him, not that he was gone but that he was sleeping. Our shared moments with him were at supper time and the occasional weekend that he wasn't working.
Mother was a housewife, when being a housewife actually meant something to the community. She certainly had her hands full raising four children. She was the anchor in my early years because she was always there. We seldom talked with each other, the comfort came because I knew she was there, in the house, ready to handle my life's little emergencies.
As with every family there were good times and bad, and we kids could sometimes be a handful. They treated us well, they treated us badly, they did the best they could. There came moments when, punishing us for our misbehaviour, they crossed the line between what is right, to, what is wrong. At other times they extended themselves to their own hurt to help us.
There is in every family, or so it seems, that one relative who's sexual inclinations are a dark spot, who prey on the young and innocent, and twist the young mind into paths were "decent" people are repulsed by even the mention of those things. Their work is done in secret, and the lives they ruin are hard to heal. So too with our family, and I was a victim. (more on that some other day)
The church was always a part of our lives when we were children, though when young, it seemed a strange ritual, steeped in mysteries that the young mind could not understand. It was a french Roman Catholic church and the priests, they too had a secret language that only they understood when speaking to God. Later I learned that it was Latin, but then, it was a mystery.
It was during these first six years that I decided, when I grew up, that I too would become one of the initiated and serve God in this mysterious world.
Then there was school....
Author: Joseph Raymond
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