In the summer, sitting on a bench at the tip of René-Lévesque Park, surrounded on three sides by Lake Saint-Louis, I could imagine myself by the sea, which, since leaving Northern Ireland, I missed more than my mother. The green and blue of the park helped me forget, for an hour or two, my homesickness, but as soon as I returned to my daily routine, it came galloping back.
Then, at noon on a beautiful sunny day in April 2009, as I sat by the water in René-Lévesque Park, my homesickness disappeared, but this time, it was for good. It never came back, and I never looked back.
I was more than surprised. Suddenly, after 35 years of thinking about Ireland every day, taking my holidays there every two years, thinking that I would retire there and die there, I no longer felt any emotional attachment. How can I explain this turnaround so quickly without any action other than my daydream by the water?
I knew this turnaround wasn’t the park’s doing—my previous visits, while enjoyable, hadn’t transformed me in any way. It was too sudden to be the result of the wisdom that sometimes comes with age. Nor had I had any career advancement or intense new love, and I hadn’t won at 6/49.
The only recent change in my life was the closure of the small firm where I had been working for 18 months. As a project manager, I was responsible for implementing a scheduling application in call centers throughout the United States and Canada. I was very proud of myself for landing this job in my late fifties with only a minimal knowledge of web technologies and no knowledge of call centers.
I thought this job would be my professional swan song until I retired. I was wrong. A few days before Christmas 2008, the U.S. headquarters announced by email that the company would be closing its doors at the end of January 2009. With my 60th birthday on the horizon, that email was the final blow to my career. It was not the gift I wanted Santa to bring me.
Without a penny of pension after 35 years of work and nine different jobs in three industries, I could have said to myself about immigration: “All that for that?!” I could have been bitter — against Canada and Quebec — but on the contrary, I felt very zen, very at peace with myself. I rely on the language of Cervantes to express what I felt: the Spanish word for “retirement” is jubilation.
In February and March 2009, almost every day, I went hiking or cross-country skiing in Mount Royal Park or Michel-Chartrand Park in Longueuil. These sunny outings, under a very blue sky, which I called my “sun pills,” cured me of my winter aversion. By the end of March, winter was no longer a nemesis: it was a friend.
In the spring, I didn’t buy the one-way ticket to Belfast I had long dreamed of. Instead, I bought a brand new bicycle. Almost every day, I rode my bike to one of Montreal’s great parks, including Parc René-Lévesque, where, as you now know, I took the leap toward “body and soul” integration.
None of the immigrants I know, despite their success and decades spent in Quebec, have managed to achieve the deep integration that I testify to in this text. They continue to tell me, with a hint of sadness: “Patrick, we love it here, but it’s not our home.”
And it’s a shame, it’s a great shame to live with your heart torn between here and there.