It's Evolution, Baby! Part 1: The Transplant

In honour of the new year i'm going to share with you my evolution in a 4 part series filling the month of january. a way to celebrate 2010 and new beginnings.


3 devastating events have defined me. the outcome of these 3 events subsequently made the 4th and most devastating of them all become the least detrimental to my physical and mental health. if not for the early 3, i honestly believe the 4th would've left me blind, numb and dumb. thankfully i evolved.

My parents got divorced when i was fairly young, about 7-8ish. I saw and heard things, children really shouldn't. it was confusing. it was bad. i realized much later that the divorce was definitely for the better but at that time i wanted nothing more than for them to stay together as would any child. memory and privacy and fear of seeming to lay blames is stopping me from elaborating further on this, so i'll move on.

needless to say i was heartbroken and scared as hell. i became heavily introverted as i was a shy kid to begin with. i was never that kid that went running into the hands of adults. once i was comfortable with you, though, i would be pretty hard to shut up. i stayed this way well into high school but a slow transition took place into the extrovert and somewhat exhibitionist i am today. my mother was always hell bent on sending me to counsellors, they never got anything out of me. i just didn't want to talk.

my brother and i were then shipped off to india to live with my father's parents. i still don't know for sure but i'm assuming it was to protect us from the messy divorce and also spend quality time with our dying grandmother (which everyone but my brother and i knew about). this turned out to be the most valuable experience of my lifetime. i lived there for 3 years. the last 1 being spent at a boarding school. the thing that hit me the most and right away was the poverty in india. nothing like orphans with missing limbs and dirt caked faces, begging for change to make you feel lucky. the affect of which sticks with me to this day and i'm sure will not leave me for the rest of my life.

not only did i learn to be grateful but also i now gained 24 hour access to my brilliant grandfather and my ever loving, sweet grandmother. my grandmother was adored by the entire neighborhood and was called "biji", an indian nickname for grandma, by everyone including those around her age. she was very kind and was rewarded for it by the neighbors with their constant help and support at the drop of a dime. sometimes the house would be full of women from around the neighborhood, helping with chores and meals when my grandmother's painful fits got really bad. she had breast cancer, by the way, i forgot to mention and she lived with it for over 20 years. (it wouldn't occur to me until after her death when i was told of what was going on that she didn't have breasts, they had to be cut off) while all this went on my brother and i were kept in the dark. we knew she would get "sick" but that's about the only thing anyone told us. "she has a headache" was the most common explanation. my grandmother taught me a thing or two of community, kindness, patience and real, unconditional love towards mankind. i can keep going on about the life lessons in india that i came back with but we don't have all day and some will be talked about in more detail in the future.

back to canada. i came back hoping my parents worked things out. and truthfully, they tried. we lived together as a family for a few months upon our arrival even though they slept in different rooms. they gave it a shot, it didn't work, i accepted it. it made more sense. my pre mature maturation from the experience in india gave me the foresight to realize somethings just can't be and are better for it. at this point i was in my pre-teens and still introverted but somewhat content. having to adjust to what felt like a new lifestyle but in a familiar way was more of an obstacle. my mom still obsessed with me seeing a counsellor. i didn't talk.

a couple of years later, my grandma called. my brother and i still in the dark, wouldn't know until later that that phone call was her swan song. i can still hear her voice and i'm terrified of forgetting it. she sounded full of life.