People ask me where I learned to speak english, as I am originally french speaking. It sounds good to say I learned on the street and in a way it is true. I learned by playing with english speaking neighbors. I remember wanting to play dress up because my friend had high heel shoes in a box that attracted me but i did not know what they were called. I somehow got the words barbie dolls mixed up with high heels or shoes and every time I tried to ask her to play dress up we ended up playing with barbie dolls which I hated. But I must have figured it out at some point because now I know the difference between dolls and shoes.
My other motivation to learn english was that my grandmother used to speak english to my mother when she did not want me to understand. She had been sent to school in Toronto as a young girl, her best friend had been an Ontarian and so she loved to speak english. I either inherited this from her or she taught me to love english. Either way I am thankful today to be bilingual. Both my grandmothers were important women in my life and each one had interesting stories to tell, some sad, some funny…I will try to share a few of them with you.
Here is one about my great grandfather and my great aunt. At the end of the 19th century, my great grandfather was a well respected man living in a small town. He was an authoritarian man. After five years of marriage and two children he decided to return his wife to her parents claiming she was unfit. But nature being what it is, he did call her back after a time and got her pregnant with a third child before sending her back for good. Maybe because she was the result of a long abstinence, this last child, a little girl, developed an intense interest for boys, that was deemed inappropriate for the time. Determined to solve this problem, the father offered to take her to Montreal to meet a potential suitor. Very excited at the thought of coming to Montreal and meeting a young man, this naive child readily accepted. Thinking that she was entering the grounds of a boys’ college she followed her father inside St Jean De Dieu mental hospital, where he left her…never to come back…