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Illustration by Christine Wei
“I’ll get the train,” I say to my sister. “It’s easier,” when in reality, it’s the heart-wrenching goodbye at the departures gate that I can’t handle.
I’ve been living in Canada for more than 20 years. I came from England with my husband on a two-year work permit and we stayed, becoming citizens in 2010.
But after my last visit home it occurred to me that the longer I live in Canada, the more I miss England. Not in a nostalgic, rose-coloured-glasses kind of way, but with a deep, visceral longing. I was at the CNE in Toronto last summer when a marching band passed by. The bagpipes, brass and drums winded me like a punch to the stomach. It was a sudden and unexpected sound of home and I stood, tears rolling down my face, as the band passed.
My friend calls England “the Old Country,” which conjures pictures of steam ships taking weeks to cross the Atlantic and telegrams sent only on special occasions. In 1930 my uncle, Leslie, emigrated alone from England to Toronto when he was only 17. I can’t imagine what it must have been like trying to find his way at that age, and I often wonder whether homesickness and lack of money to go home contributed to Leslie taking his own life just a year later.
Connection with English family and friends online is great and watching a good British drama on TV is my idea of a perfect night in – but it’s no longer enough.
I miss being wrapped in the fabric of England and the English way of life. I love the British sense of humour. I’m homesick for the rhythm of it, the familiar turns of phrase, the way people relate to each other. It’s a deeply embedded longing for familiarity where I understand the micro-idiosyncrasies of “Englishness.” When I’m in England, being called “love” makes me almost weep with gratitude. I long for the place where I was born and grew up and where my most precious memories live.
I’ve tried being British and stiff-upper-lipped about it. “Don’t worry, love.” I tell myself. “This homesickness thing will pass. It’s nothing that a nice cup of tea and good cry can’t fix.” But I know that it’s not true. This is something that a cuppa can’t fix. However nice.
“Living in Canada is like I’ve already won the lottery,” I tell my Canadian friends. And I truly mean it. Canada has been my home for a long time and I’ve embraced the culture, assimilated to it, thrived in it.
I love it all, the lakes and ponds, the sound of cicadas and the flash of fireflies, a cobalt sky on a sunny winter’s day, the sheer vastness of the country, the lilting Irish cadence of Newfoundlanders, the magnificence of the Rocky Mountains, the midnight sun of the Yukon, the briny sweetness of Digby scallops and the genuine warmth and generosity of Canadians.
But it’s not home.
My husband, Mike, says he wants his body buried in Canada and his heart buried in England.
I’m nearly 60 now, and as I’ve started to reflect on my life, the sense of lost time sits like a guilty secret within me. I see how much of my family’s lives I’ve missed. I dread a missed call or a message sent in the middle of the night. Those calls have come over the years and I remember anxious hours spent crossing the Atlantic hoping to make it home before my Dad died. Family is precious and my sister having survived breast cancer makes me want to spend every minute with her.
When I look back I see how heart wrenching it must have been for my family to lose me to Canada. But I was so wrapped up in the adventure of it all that I didn’t consider what it must have been like for them. Years later, my twin sister Margaret said that my leaving was like a bereavement.
When I was an E.S.L. teacher my students and I often talked about “home.” Coming to Canada was my choice and I have the luxury of going home whenever I want, but for some, going home is not an option; war and violence separate many students from their families and countries. Some students have the funds to return for a visit, while for others it’s been years.
“I have many pictures,” said one Venezuelan student as she picked up her phone. After a moment she placed it back on the desk. “I cannot do it,” she said. It was too painful to look at pictures of family and home.
Homesickness has crept up on me and is picking away at my sense of wellbeing. Canada has been home for a long time but now homesickness has lodged itself within and refuses to leave.
I’ve noticed Mike and I talk about “when we go home” now rather than “if,” as though it’s been subconsciously decided between us. So perhaps our bodies can be buried in Canada and our hearts in England after all.
Jayne Evans lives in St. Clements, Ont.