Friend #30 - Rozalya
My grandma
Rozalya, my grandma, or Roza as she’s usually called, is the kind of woman who can tell if someone I’m dating is worthy of my time by quickly glancing at a single photo. A woman of instinct.
When I was in the eighth grade, she took me to The Bay to buy me a gift for my elementary school graduation—I picked a rose gold Bulova watch. The lady who helped us was a Persian woman who must have been in her 40s. My grandma appreciated her help so much that she insisted we go to the nearest chocolate store to buy her something as a token of gratitude for her help.
I sit at my grandma’s kitchen table and she gets me a glass of water before we begin our conversation.
“I am a very lucky person,” she says. “Because my husband and I have very good children and grandchildren.”
My grandma was born in Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union, before World War Two. When the war began her father left with the army and my grandma, her mom, and her mom’s family escaped to Siberia.
“I say escape because we are Jewish and the Nazis would have killed us. In Siberia, we survived the war,” she says.
Her mom was a technician who worked in a military factory where she fixed airplane motors. “I grew up with my grandma because she wasn’t working and I was the baby in the family. I was only 18 months old when the war started,” says my grandma.
She explains that her family did everything they could to give her love despite the difficult circumstances of war. My grandma liked listening to music and she had one book and one doll.
When the war was over, they moved to Vilnius, Lithuania and luckily her father had survived after being stationed in Manchuria. In 1947, she entered the first grade.
“We lived in a small apartment and my friend Maya lived on the second floor. We went to school together until the end of high school,” says my grandma before sharing through tears that Maya passed away in January.
She then remembers her friend Ira who lives in Montreal and who my grandma also grew up with. Ira was rescued from the Vilnius ghetto by a Christian woman who raised her from infancy to adulthood. “She was raised by an angel,” says my grandma.
In 1948, her brother Yakov was born. “I loved him very much. I was eight years older and I helped my mother raise him,” she says.
My grandma returned to Belarus for university and then settled in Vilnius starting her career in a chemical lab. Shortly after, she met my grandpa, Mordecai, at a friend’s party.
“We saw each other and he asked me if I want to go skating. I wasn’t a good skater but I went and he was much better. I was like a dancing bear. We became friends and a year later, we got married,” she says.
My dad was born in 1964. “Felix was a very cute, nice boy. He was very happy and he grew up to be a good-hearted person,” my grandma says through tears again.
My aunt Yozana was born in 1972. At the time, the Iron Curtain opened for a few years, and Jewish people were allowed to leave the Soviet Union. My grandma, grandpa, dad, and aunt, immigrated to Israel.
“It wasn’t easy raising a baby in a new country with a new language but as the kids got older, it was easier and I started a job at a middle school,” she says. “My husband was going to the army from time and time and working but we wanted a life without war and so we left for Canada in 1981.”
In this new land, Canada, my grandpa worked in manufacturing before starting his business AM Sales which my father and brother now run. A used car dealership that has transitioned to be one for motorcycles. My grandma worked several jobs before spending 25 years in the credit department at Olympia Tile. They are now both retired and enjoy each other's company.
“We are very happy in Canada. Our children got married here and they brought us four grandchildren. I wish to see them all successful in all areas of their life,” she says.
“I have a question,” I remark. “What do you do when someone doesn’t like you?”
“I don’t need people who don’t like me. If they don’t like me as I am then I don’t need them,” she says.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
―Eli Wiesel
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