In my late teens I had a recurring dream of myself older, somewhere in my thirties, with the long hair that I later did have, wearing her coat… the coat you see here. In the dream it is night and raining. From a distance I see myself begin to cross a wide city street. The sheen of the wet night on the streetcar tracks leads the light from the street lamps toward me. Looking out from within this older self, I scan the street for cars, notice the light on the tracks and begin to run across the slick pavement. Then there is a blinding flash of light, a crash, and the dream ends. My mother died when I was in my early thirties. After a time, I took all her beautiful clothes to an upscale vintage clothier. All except this coat. – Stephanie Rayner
We arrived in Toronto, at Union Station, on Caribana Weekend 1985. A friend came to pick us up and took us to his condo on Lakeshore at Long Branch, where he set up a bed for us in his dining room. It took me three weeks to find a job writing computer programs for a large downtown company. We moved into our own place in a drab, ugly high-rise at Bathurst and Steeles. A couple of weeks later, somebody at work told me about the CNE and said we must go … my wife and daughter went on the rides but I just stood and stared at this green rugby shirt at the booth of the “All Things Irish” stand. As a lifelong rugby fan and a major admirer of the Irish National team, I was fascinated and I massively wanted that shirt. The jersey was forty dollars … groceries for a week. – Many years later, for my fiftieth birthday, my family gave me that same jersey… I now wear it once a year on March 17th. – Miki Uhlyarik
The civil war started in Rwanda on October 1st, 1990. When it happened we didn’t know it was going to become a genocide. Tutsis started being taken to jail or killed, and every day you were wondering if you were the next target. Within one week from October 4th, many Tutsis, close to 10,000, were jailed without any explanation, just based on assumptions and made-up stories that they were helping the Tutsi rebels. During this period of time, some of my friends, neighbours and co-workers were taken to prison. It was just a question of time until I would be taken also, and I knew that life in prison without money would be terrible. I got the idea to hide money in my pants so that if I was taken I could use the money to bribe people to get what I needed. I made a hole in the lining of the waistband and put in 25,000 francs (about $40 now, $250 in 1999) inside. I wore only those pants and one other pair I altered the same way, and never used the money for anything, saving it for the time I would end up in prison. – Leo Kabalisa
After the war my mother and my father awaited transport to Canada in Berlin’s American Zone. My Uncle Moishe was in the Russian army in the Russian Zone and my mother decided she was going to smuggle him out with the help of the Red Cross… She trekked for miles to find the barracks, managed to pass inspection carrying an American passport into the Russian Zone!!!… all while pregnant with her first baby… My mother left behind her beloved sister Isa in Riga… She always worried whether Isa would be endangered by my mother’s illegal adventure… In 1977, Isa’s daughter was getting married… My mother was so sad that she could not go… she was sure there were WANTED posters of her at every police station… After months of coaxing, I convinced her that after all this time there could not possibly be any risk… At Russian customs… we were thoroughly interrogated… We stayed in a hotel room, as we were not allowed to stay with my aunt… and we were followed… I started to understand a little bit about the paranoia that had occupied my mother’s psyche for so many years. This is a photograph of my mother and her sister Isa at the wedding, with their hairdos and party dresses on… reunited… in a kiss… – Soozi Schlanger