do I need to do?” I asked.
The words and prayer that followed lifted a weight off my shoulders, a burden that I alone could not bear.
* * *
The bed was warm while I heard the house creaking outside, listening to the wind that used to seep into our home back in Paraguay. Here, though, the windows kept the air out and kept us warm—and, judging by what we had been told, we would need them.
I heard the creak of the floor outside of my bedroom door and shut my eyes tight, pretending I was asleep.
“Arvid!” It was Dad’s voice, whispering loudly to see if I was awake. At first I didn’t respond, but when he repeated my name and moved on to the next door I knew there was something going on that I didn’t want to miss. I rolled over and flung the blanket off my body, swinging my legs to the floor. My right leg did what it was supposed to, but my left stayed resolutely where it had been lying.
I hadn’t forgotten that it was in a cast, but sometimes things can slip your mind. I had to lift it with my hands to get it over to the floor, where its loud clunk woke up anyone who hadn’t already woken up from Dad’s whispers.
“Arvid, come outside!”
“What?” I responded, looking at the window. It was covered in a fog, moisture that had frozen in the cold November. The sky looked white, similar to how it had looked for every day the past week.
“Come!” He waved me towards the front of the house, and I pushed up from the bed, standing without crutches. I could walk short distances without them, so I used the walls for my balance. From my sister’s room I could hear her moving about. I hurriedly threw my pyjamas on, wanting to get moving as quickly as possible.
With my hobbling to the door my sister blazed past me, Dad leading the way. There was a smile across his face that sparkled with excitement, and I wondered what it could possibly be.
Once we’d all arrived at the front door he pulled it open.
A gust of cold air rushed in and made me shiver and pull back into my pyjamas like a turtle into its shell. But it wasn’t the wind, the cold or the empty street that Dad wanted us to see.
It was the blanket of white powder that had covered everything—the grass, the sidewalk, the steps, the trees, the small windmill in our front yard.
Snow.
I’d heard about it but never seen it. And certainly never touched it.
I dashed outside, with my cast like a deadweight slowing me down. I made it down the steps and out onto the grass in my bare feet and pyjamas. It was only a few inches of snow—just enough to creep up over my feet and onto the tops of them. My sisters were outside now, too, and one of them was feeling it with her hands. I leaned over to pick it up, feeling it melt on my skin. Dad was still back at the entrance to the house, smiling and laughing. He seemed to be waiting, and I couldn’t figure out why—
Until my nerves caught up with what was going on and I realized that my feet were turning bright red from the cold. With a shriek and a scream, I turned to run back into the house. In my rush my feet were slipping, and I could barely get my balance as I pummelled up the stairs, which were also slippery, and hobbled my way back into the safety of a warm home. Dad, who had seen snow plenty of times back in Russia, let out a laugh at my desperate scramble for safety. I shot him a look that only a teenage son can give a dad, then joined in laughing. It was unknown, but it was my life now.
We lived less than a kilometre from the junior high school I was attending, and the next few months had me walking with my crutches through the slippery snow, clutching the bars of the crutches in weather that I could never have imagined. My Paraguayan face, freckles and hair and the injury that prevented me from doing pretty much anything made me a target for taunting and bullying just like anyone else. It doesn’t take much to be targeted for bullying in junior high, and my introduction to Canada was no different.
That was all about to change.
First Christmas in Canada, 1970
Junior High yearbook picture, 1971
4. Between the Posts: Canada, Part 2
By the time I got my cast off in January, I had made enough of a connection with a few guys from my school to know that they were playing soccer. One Sunday evening there was a practice at the high school that backed onto our junior high school (they shared fields), and I decided to go to the practice as a spectator.
The gym was full of boys my age and older. They were quick and strong, and I watched tentatively from the side. I was wearing my runners, just in case. The balls bounced off the floors, the gym walls and occasionally the roof. I was itching to get out there and race around, to feel the ball make contact with my feet, to catch it between my hands and roll out of a dive. I looked down at my leg, thankful that the cast wasn’t there anymore.
A few of the players were talking and looking in my direction. After a few drills it looked like they were starting a scrimmage, and I started inching my way closer. The coach looked my way and waved me forward.
“You want to play?” he asked. I nodded, too afraid to say anything. “Okay,” he said. “We’re making teams.” He looked down at my legs. My left leg was significantly smaller than my right, the muscles having atrophied from lack of activity while they had spent the last three months cooped up in a cast, forced to swing like a giant club foot attached to my leg.
“I broke it a few months back,” I explained.
“It’s good to go, though?” the coach asked. I nodded.
“All right.” He clapped his hands on the ball and blew the whistle. The players gathered around, and some laughs were exchanged, though thankfully not at my expense. They were friends and had clearly known each other for a long time. A few balls were bounced, and one of the players tested a few of them out with his feet before deciding on the game ball.
Players were spreading out as the coach put them on their teams. I went back to the side where I’d been standing, making sure to hide my limp as I walked. I’d been chosen as a goalie because I didn’t have great mobility with my weaker leg, but I still wanted to keep my weakness hidden as much as possible. With a blow of the whistle the ball was thrown into play and the game was on.
Adrenaline surged through me. I had played back in our cow pasture with the natives. I had played on my own behind the barn, kicking the ball off its uneven surface for me to catch.
But this—this was a game.
The ball was bouncing lightly on the ground, kicked back and forth by the quick feet of the boys. I watched it with sharp eyes, observing which players I had to make sure to keep an eye on. A burst of speed here, a quick dribble and deke there. Soccer had always been my love, and it was quickly becoming my passion.
The opposing player was coming up the left side with a good lead on my defender. The striker shifted the ball from the left to right foot effortlessly, and my eyes caught a blur of motion out of my peripheral. His body language made it look like he was going to kick, but there
