If summer is Canada’s welcome party, winter is the senior immigration officer — unbending, unsmiling, and fully in charge.
Every immigrant has a first-winter story. Here are three from our community.
1. Nneka — “I Thought I Was Dying”
I stepped outside and my face hurt. I called my cousin and said, “I think something is wrong with the air here.” She laughed for five minutes straight.
“I called my cousin and said, ‘I think something is wrong with the air here.’ She laughed for five minutes straight.”
But then my neighbour knocked on my door with oxtail stew and said, “Your first winter? Baby, you are going to be fine. You just need better socks.”
2. Emeka — “I Discovered Heated Seats and Found God”
My colleague offered me a lift. When I sat in her car and she turned on the heated seats, I had a spiritual experience. Heated. Seats. Who invented this?
“When she turned on the heated seats, I had a spiritual experience.”
3. Aisha — “The Snow Made Me Cry”
One evening, I looked out my apartment window and it was snowing. The soft, slow kind. And I cried. Not because I was cold. I cried because I was actually here. I made it.
“I cried because I was actually here. After years of planning, forms, rejections — I was watching snow fall, alive and free.”
Share your first-winter story: stories@gathermedia.ca.