Here are two moments in time:

The first was in the summer of 1959.  The second was January 28, 2023.

***

I was ten.  My parents in Toronto thought me spending a week at summer camp would be a good idea.  In nature, on the shore of Lake Simcoe.  I wasn’t so sure.

There was swimming.  I couldn’t.  There were hikes.  I could.  There was craft-making.  I tried.

Maybe ten of us boys slept in a cabin.  Some of them were noisy.  “I want my bed.”  But the truth was deeper than that.  “I want my mommy.”

One night I tossed and turned, feeling so scared, so alone.  Sometime in the wee hours, I got up, put on my clothes, left the cabin, walked to the lakeshore … and turned left.

I was going home.  “Just follow the lake to Toronto.”  Unfortunately the city was about 60 miles away.

The camp staff found me in the darkness, a few miles down the beach.  Whatever happened next I don’t remember. 

***

I was on the first of two flights that were taking me from Toronto to Brussels.  I had checked three pieces of luggage.  I was finally moving to Belgium, without a visa being confirmed … but I was going!

Several previous visits to Gent had showed me: Canadian cities were no longer home. Toronto, London, Lethbridge, Vancouver.  Home was forward, beyond the clouds.  Home was Ghent.

Although I didn’t know the song Long, Long Journey yet, the words were what I was feeling …

Long, long journey
Through the darkness
Long, long way to go
But what are miles
Across the ocean
To the heart that’s coming home?

***

And here I am

Where my soul softly says “Yes”

Sick no more