Zoom call at 3:00 a.m. Winnipeg time. In most homes, this would be an unwelcome intrusion, but on this morning—September 30th, Truth and Reconciliation Day—it felt like a sacred calling. A laptop screen glow in the pre-dawn darkness, connecting Winnipeg to Lviv, sister cities bound by history, hope, and the determined belief that truth matters.
Twenty years. Two decades of teaching, learning, caring, and growing roots in Canada, starting with Manitoba soil that had welcomed so many before. The journey began in 2004 at the University of Manitoba, a student who in one year also become a professor among many, carrying dreams and determination across oceans to share knowledge about social work and social development. Now, in 2025, three hundred students who take social development in the fall term alone, their weekly discussion posts representing everything that education promises: understanding, growth, and the courage to build better communities.
The Weight of Forty-Eight Hours
The visit home was never meant to be rushed. Truth and reconciliation cannot be hurried—it requires sitting with discomfort, listening deeply, and honoring stories that have been silenced for too long. But sometimes life demands we compress our caring into impossibly small windows of time, fitting two decades of gratitude into less than two days.
Thank you, Shelly, for booking the room. Such a simple act—reserving a lecture hall—yet it held everything. Within those walls, past and present converged. Students currently learning social development sat alongside those who had taken community development courses nearly twenty years ago. Some had continue community building themselves, carrying forward the knowledge like a sacred trust, weaving it into the fabric of local neighborhoods, transforming theory into lived compassion.
These weren’t just former students. They had become friends—part of a Canadian journey measured not in semesters but in shared meals, late-night conversations about making the world better, and the quiet conviction that every single person matters.
Every child matters. This truth echoes differently on September 30th, when all of Canada pauses to remember the children who never came home from residential schools, the families torn apart, the languages forbidden, the cultures nearly erased. Everyone has been a child. We have all needed protection, nurturing, and the simple affirmation that we belong. Yet some children’s truths have been honored while others have been deliberately silenced, systematically erased.
The work of reconciliation is not easy. It requires those who have caused harm to listen to those who have been harmed. It demands that we sit with our discomfort and recognize that not all truths have been treated equally—some matter most, while others have been buried under policies designed to eliminate rather than embrace.
The Support That Makes Coming Home Possible
What makes it possible to do this hard work? Support. Care. Love. And the willingness to share our truths with each other.
The calendar had shifted at the last moment, transforming a regular day into an urgent pilgrimage. Planning while providing twenty-four-hour care is nearly impossible—every parent, every caregiver knows this exhausting mathematics. Yet friends rearranged their schedules, carved out precious moments, understood without needing lengthy explanations.
Audrey, Leona, Elaine, Scott—Canadian family not by blood but by choice that allow me to re-connect and celebrate Canadian Mama Birthday. Professors Len and Brad, who saw potential and nurtured it into purpose spend time to listen to my stories and offer their presence and time to allow me to share. Twenty-plus years of social work journey, celebrated not with formal ceremonies but with the gift of presence, of showing up, of saying without words: you matter, your work matters, we see you.
Carmen and Judy transformed an after-lecture dinner into something transcendent—food and conversation that nourished body and soul, the kind of gathering where ideas flow as freely as laughter, where professional and personal blend into simply being human together.
Oksana, Volodya, and their family understood that even five minutes can be memorial, can be holy. When time is scarce, quality becomes everything. Five minutes of genuine connection can carry someone across continents and through months of separation.
Sharing Truth at 3:00 a.m.
At three in the morning, while Winnipeg slept, another truth was being shared. Ninety-plus professors and students from Lviv Polytechnic’s Department of Innovation and Education gathered virtually, eager to learn research skills that would help them document their own truths during unimaginably difficult times. I met my MEd teachers (Oleksandr and Roksolyana) under incredible leadership of Tetyana at the conference connecting Rome, Gdansk, Lviv and Winnipeg
Winnipeg and Lviv—sister cities connected by Ukrainian heritage and now by technology that collapses distance. Speaking as a professor, as a researcher, and as a caregiver who understands that protecting older adults is connected to protecting children and preserving truth are inseparable acts. Research is never neutral; it is always about choosing what stories to tell, what knowledge to preserve, whose voices to amplify.
In Ukraine, where war has made truth both precious and endangered, teaching research skills becomes an act of resistance and hope. In Canada, where Indigenous truths have been systematically suppressed, teaching social development becomes an act of reconciliation and repair.
A Chance Meeting, A Closing Circle
The airport offered one final gift. While leaving Winnipeg, a chance encounter with Yaroslav, newly arrived from Ukraine. He carried good news—Manitoba had nominated him for permanent residence through a special provincial draw, a program designed to welcome those fleeing war and seeking safety.
One year in Winnipeg, and already becoming part of the Manitoba family.
The symmetry was profound. In 2008, becoming a permanent resident of Manitoba meant putting down roots in soil that promised safety, opportunity, and the chance to contribute. Two decades later, watching Yaroslav receive the same gift, knowing that Manitoba would become home for him and his family just as it had become home before.
But here is the truth that must center this story: Indigenous Peoples welcomed Ukrainians to these lands. They welcomed them 130 years ago during the first waves of immigration. They welcomed them twenty years ago. They welcome them now. This is the truth that must be remembered, honored, and never taken for granted.
Coming Home, Going Forward
Twenty years of teaching. Forty-eight hours of intense connection. Three o’clock in the morning dedication to sharing knowledge across continents. Five-minute gatherings that become sacred. Chance meetings in airports that remind us why this work matters.
Every child matters—Indigenous children stolen from their families, Ukrainian children fleeing war and destroyed by Russian invaders, all children who deserve safety, identity, culture, and truth.
We need to do better. We need to keep sharing truth and learning from those who have been harmed. We need to recognize that reconciliation is not a single day but a lifelong commitment to listening, learning, changing, and building relationships based on mutual respect rather than colonial dominance.
Thank you, Manitoba, for being home. Thank you, Indigenous peoples, for your hospitality despite everything. Thank you to everyone who rescheduled, who showed up, who shared five minutes or five hours, who understood that coming home—even briefly—is about reaffirming what matters most.
The work continues. The students will graduate and become community builders. The research will document truths that must not be forgotten. The newcomers will put down roots. The friendships will deepen across distance and time.
And every September 30th, we will pause to remember: Every child matters. Truth matters. Reconciliation requires all of us to do better, to listen deeper, to honor the truths that have been silenced, and to build the kind of communities where everyone—Indigenous and newcomer alike—can truly come home. For me September 30 is also a special day that gave to the world a wonderful person, my Canadian Mama and I am grateful that I can say Mnohaya Lita Audrey in person and keep saying it in spirit as Air Canada will transport me back to Kamloops in next few hours so I can return to Mama and be back to our home in Westsyde area of Kamloops. Thank you to everyone who stayed with Mama as I visited my Canadian home. Grateful to be able to know that I can travel safely and with adequate support caregiving is possibility to balance care, grace, humility, kindness, dignity and love!
This story honors Truth and Reconciliation Day while celebrating twenty years of community building, teaching, and the connections that make us family across borders, languages, and histories.
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