My parents were European immigrants, my father originally from Apatin, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) and my mother from Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland). They both moved to Nottingham, England, after the war, their respective towns no longer standing, and most of their friends and family gone.

They were living in Nottingham about three years when they met at a dance, my father already with plans to immigrate to Toronto, Canada, where he had a sponsor from a family he’d known in the old country. As the story goes, it was love at first sight, and so by the time my father set sail in February 1952, my parents were engaged. My mother followed him in July 1952, and they married that October in a civil ceremony. I arrived a few years later.

It was also love at first sight for my father when he arrived in Canada, despite the cold (weather in February being what it is in Toronto), and while my mother never quite felt the same passion (she yearned for a more temperate climate until the day she died at age 88!), they worked hard, became Canadian citizens, saved their money, bought a tiny house, eventually moved to a bungalow in the suburbs, and went about building a life.

Unfortunately, my father died young — 42 (stomach cancer) – when I was just 14, and so my Canada Day memories of him are limited, though t I do remember that he made every single one of them special. At our cottage on Gull River, we’d raise the Canadian flag (brand new at the time), have a barbecue, and plant a tree or a flower…something to commemorate the day. I’ve mostly kept that tradition going. I’ve never forgotten the pride in my father’s eyes and I carry that inside of me to this day.

I’m a first generation Canadian and grateful to be part of a country that welcomes immigrants from all walks of life, then and now. Happy Canada Day from my heart to your home—wherever that might be.