My mother was the youngest of three sisters. All three were sponsored by an uncle who had previously moved himself and his immediate family pre-World War II from the Pale of Settlement in Russia to the United States, where he and his family became American citizens. Their success in removing themselves from a society which was famous for its oppression of Jews, encouraged others in their more extended family to follow his example. But whereas he had the wherewithal to emigrate, they did not. So he paid their way.

We two girls, offspring of two sisters, resemble our mothers. The two younger of three sisters.

The three sisters, little more than emerging adults at the time in their late teens, voyaged to Canada to make their future lives there, with hope and aspirations to find a better place for themselves. They spoke Yiddish, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. Then they learned English. (When I was a child I was embarrassed by the immigrant-quality of my mother's English. My father's was never accented by any of the European languages he had acquired a proficiency with. Eventually that 'accented' English disappeared into a fluid use of the language.)

It took the sisters decades of careful saving to finally pay off their debt to that uncle who lived in Georgia, U.S.A., but each of them made good on their debt.

The two younger girls eventually settled in Toronto, while the oldest married and made her home in Hamilton, Ontario. That family would eventually decide to move to the United States, leaving only the two younger sisters in Canada. I would see my cousins from time to time, but not all that often; three boys born of the oldest sister, and a boy and a girl born to the second oldest sister. While I was my parents' first-born, I was years younger than all of them, but one.

I adored my aunt's children, the boy and the girl. The girl was four years older than me, the boy two. And since both their parents worked at tailoring at Tip Top Tailors, those two children had the run of the streets. I was both appalled and intrigued when I began to understand that although I had certain freedoms as a young child to be on my own in the neighbourhood where we lived, something that would most certainly frighten current parents, my two cousins, to use a phrase that might have applied to some degree "ran wild".

They did things I would never have thought of doing; free spirits, free to wander wherever they wanted, to experience life quite prematurely related to their age. I envied them and I feared for them. I thought they were the most audacious, beautiful, romantic young people I would ever know. I still recall my then-fifteen-year-old cousin on a rare occasion when she was sleeping over with me, whispering to me in the bed we shared that she aspired to become a mother as soon as she possibly could. No mention of marriage, just motherhood and I was scandalized.

She eventually had six children, one after the other, starting with the first one born when she was sixteen. Their father was a gadabout, sometimes living with my cousin, more often not, in a flat in a large three-story house that my aunt and uncle eventually bought in the High Park area. They never married, and doubtless he never supported his growing brood. Eventually my cousin found a man with whom she could share her life, a tall young immigrant from Holland. They had a child together, making for seven children in that family. He died about five years ago, after they had shared a half-decade together.

I haven't seen my cousin in at least 45 years; our paths just never seemed to cross. We did exchange letters and telephone calls, which she initiated, before his death, bringing me up to date on how she and her children were faring. Very well, indeed on that score. Out of those seven children she has innumerable grandchildren.

Yesterday evening, just as we were finishing up with dinner, the telephone rang, and there was an old familiar voice on the other end. She is now 80 years of age, her oldest child is 64. She has travelled extensively; to Holland repeatedly with her husband, to Italy several times, to Australia as well, where her oldest daughter lives, and many other places that intrigued her. She is the kind of person who is enthralled with life, a perpetual optimist, bright-eyed and enquiring. She would now, she confided, like to take a long river trip in a ship quite unlike the great ocean liners that now ply the oceans like small cities. She would like to visit Russia, to go to where our mothers had once lived.

Despite her age, she well might do just that. Did I mention how talented she is? She paints delightful scenes in bright palettes of glowing pastels. She still owns a modest little getaway in Florida, and she's planning to launch herself into another three-month stay there before winter sets in. She's just moved into a new condominium, having finally sold her country property with its wonderful gardens, and she finds it like living in a small village; she has acquired friends everywhere.