Portals into new timelines 🫶🇮🇹
When I was 5 years old and still living in Poland (my country of birth), my parents dreamed of a better life for our little family. As my brother & I slept they would whisper about leaving Poland and traveling to a land that was not under communist rule. A land where my brother & I could ‘be’ and ‘do’ anything our heart desired.
This was 1983 and soldiers roamed Poland’s streets, there were curfews & almost everything was rationed. People were given vouchers with specific measured quantities for all things, so if you only got 1KG of chocolate & you ate it all, you could not get more until the following month.
I have memories of my parents swapping their alcohol vouchers for chocolate vouchers with the drunks on the street so my brother & I would have more chocolate 💛🍫
One night my father was coming home past curfew, when a couple soldiers spotted him & yelled out: “Papers, show us your papers!!” People needed special documents showing approval to be out past curfew, and my father did not have them. So he ran, he ran as fast as he could, and the soldiers ran after him and began shooting. A bullet just skimmed his shoulder as he took a corner and made it into our building where he escaped them and came home.
That night my parents’ dream of a new life was backed by an even greater desire, & they made a courageous decision that changed all our lives forever. That decision was to escape Poland. It was courageous not only because leaving your country to start a new life can be scary, it was courageous because the law did not allow us to leave. If we were caught escaping, my parents would go to jail & my brother & I would go to an orphanage.
Yep, that’s right, even though we had grandparents and aunts and uncles, we would go to an orphanage 🙃🙈
One day my parents told us we were going on a holiday to Bulgaria, and within a couple of weeks we were on a train, a train that felt like it had no end, as many many hours went past before we arrived at our destination. However, we did not arrive in Bulgaria as our holiday tickets clearly stated. We took a detour to Italy 🇮🇹
My parents had to lie to us, and only my mother’s parents knew that our holiday to Bulgaria was a way for us to leave Poland and find a new home somewhere else in the world. They lied because they didn’t want to risk us saying something to someone and getting us caught ⛓️
Yet when we arrived in Italy, I still didn’t know this was not a holiday, so when we arrived at our so-called “hotel”, it was not as I expected. There was barb wire all along a tall wall and soldiers with big rifles guarding it. And honestly, I thought we should have stayed home in our apartment in Poland as it was much nicer 🙃
You may have guessed it, we were not in a hotel, we were in a refugee camp. Now contrary to popular belief, refugee camps are not all rainbows and butterflies 😜🙃, I watched my parents lose so much weight and work very hard picking tomatoes and cleaning houses just so we would have enough food. And when my parents told my brother & I that we were not going back, we were very sad and we cried for ages. You see, I had left my favorite teddy bear at home, and I already missed my grandma 😥
The months went by, and I filled my days by visiting an abandoned house filled with street dogs & their puppies. It was truly heaven on earth to have all the puppies crawl all over me 😍🐾🐶🥰 To this day when I smell the top of a puppy’s head the wonderful smell takes me back to this amazing house of dogs 🐾💛
One day my parents had saved a bit of money & the Italian government offered to pay 50% off everyone’s winter clothes, so our family traveled to Rome and purchased shoes and jackets. Now until this day I had winter shoes that were given by charity but they were a size or 2 bigger than my feet, so it was so great to have boots that fit me perfectly 🥰👢 Our visit to Rome included visiting the Vatican, going to a restaurant & staying in a hotel for the night, it was magical 💛
Why am I sharing this story with you, you may wonder? Well, a few days ago I left Rome to board a cruise ship & travel through the Greek islands & Italy. And as I sit on my balcony, drinking cacao and looking out onto endless sea, my heart is full of wonder, love & deep gratitude. Not just for this amazing now moment, yet also for Italy 🇮🇹
It is almost 40 years later, & I was back in Rome, back in Italy, back in the place that took us in while we waited for Australia to offer us Asylum. I cannot even begin to describe how extraordinary it was to be back here and have flashbacks of my time here as a kid. One evening I walked along a street in Rome and I was teleported into my 6-year-old self, I had on my new grey boots and red jacket that we purchased in Rome, I had a full belly as we had just eaten dinner and I felt sleepy. I felt everything I felt almost 40 years ago, and now I walked along the streets again.
Italy was a portal into a whole new life for my family and me, and for this, I shall be eternally grateful to her 💛 While in Rome, I connected to the spirit of this country and I thanked her on behalf of my family & I 🫶 I thanked her for taking us in and being the bridge to my current life. Words fail me to describe how my parents’ courageous dream, and Italy’s beautiful heart changed the course of my life.
I feel this is why now I love to be a bridge for others to shift the trajectory of their lives and support them to enter the realms where everything is possible 💛 Thank you to Italy, thank you to my parents & thank you to you for reading this story 🫶 Everything is possible 💛
Much love, light & abundance Gaby
