My father would have been 100 years old today. Wlodimir Wyszynski was born on a farm in present-day Ukraine, Educated to about grade 6, he crossed the Atlantic alone as a 17-year old in steerage of a plodding steamship to Canada. He laboured all his life, from farms to factories
and anything he could find in between. He became a veteran, a husband, a father. Whenever I'm feeling hard done by, I recall his journey and thank him for how easy and wonder-full my life is.
My parents have been travelling with me since they died! That's right. I have carried some of their ashes in my pack through dozens of countries and cultures. They have been snorkelling with me on the Great Barrier Reef and they have snuck into the Pyramids of Giza after dark. They have even been arrested with me in Mexico, where they were mistaken for a different white powder!
How symbolic and very emotional for me then, that today Walter Wyszynski's son, who has also crossed oceans alone, will be the Guest Lecturer at a Beijing University! Like him, I don't know the local language. But he'll be in my jacket pocket and his strengths will get me through --- they always have. I am forever grateful that I my father's son and I wonder where his spirit will
take me next...
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