The downtown nightlights of Toronto dim low in the rain. It’s new year’s eve; nostalgia and dreams of the future dance together on the stroke of a second hand. I go downtown to celebrate with some friends.
I’m early so I head to the Horseshoe Tavern for a drink before the party. My dad used to listen to live music and dance here, and his father, many years before, would frequent the tavern too, but on a never-ending night of drinking. I know my kin are part of this Toronto institution, and now I am too.
My grandparents were Polish refugees from World War II and landed in Toronto to start anew. They raised three children, in a ramshackle townhouse on a dead-end street. My dad says his father wasn’t around much, and when he was you didn’t want him to be. He was gone before I was born and my grandmother, my Babcia, passed away only a couple years ago.