I remember the rolling prairie. Yellow grass, burnt by the sun and frozen by harsh winters, as tall as me, waving in the sweep of wind as I stand near my father. I remember observing an enormous, filthy moose whose shoulder reached the top of my head. I remember hiking a high mountain trail with a bell clipped to my pack so the bears would know I was coming. I remember floating between pines on fresh powder on a cold morning among mountains scooped out by the slow grind of centuries ice and snow. I remember watching the stars on a clear, late night from the sleeper car of my train chugging through the Atlantic provinces feeling all the world was asleep but me.
I recently found out I’m not a Canadian. Since I had applied for citizenship last fall, I had been feeling a connection to my paternal homeland. I was excited by the possibility of being a citizen of another country with its liberal politics and nationalized healthcare. I knew it was a long shot but I had to find out. However, my father, originally Canadian, had become a naturalized US citizen when he joined the US Navy in WWII all those years ago. Therefore he severed his ties with the Great White North thus making his siblings ineligible.
After I sent off my application, I forgot about it for the most part. Letting it go through its processes and scrutinies, the idea floating around the back of my brain waiting for an outcome. I hadn’t planned my life around the decision so my disappointment was mild. My life had been evolving and changing in the meantime, and defining another path as my application crossed a bureaucrat's desk in Nova Scotia. But a part of me remains wistful and feeling a tad excluded, wondering what would have been.
So life has other plans for me and I keep moving forward as I always do. I will always have Canadian blood in me though and I believe I can say I’m at least part Canadian. I can look across the border to the north and think of family and history that contribute to my life story. But I will have to content myself with visiting the glass towers of Vancouver, skiing the slopes of Banff, or getting a francophile fix in Quebec. I will add to my memories how close I became to becoming a Canadian. It just wasn’t meant to be. On to the next thing, eh.
