Free When Dreams are Calling by Carol Vorvain Page A

after my landing in Canada, who helped me to find my
first
apartment and watched over me ever since, was neither rich nor handsome.
    He was a common Canuck working his way through
life, with no
tertiary education, a bit frumpy and short, always tardy, and all over
the
place. But his heart was beautiful, helping everyone from the last
beggar met
at the subway to the closest friend met in kindergarten. That’s not to
say he
was naïve. He had a knack for people, could tell the bad ones from the
good
ones, the sincere from the crooks, after just a few minutes of
conversation.
And he was rarely wrong.
    He judged people not by their clothes, their
cars, or their bank
accounts. What he was looking for in a person was far beyond what money
can buy
or what one might have today and lose tomorrow. He was looking for
genuine
kindness.
    Looking back, in Romania I wouldn’t have had
the curiosity to know
him better. Well hidden in my own upper social class, guarded all
around by
preconceptions, I used to judge people by their formal education or
their lack
of it.
    But my life in Canada taught me more than that.
Here, the richest
man could choose to drive a Honda while the poor one might have saved
his whole
life to proudly now drive a Mercedes, or the cleaning guy at the mall
could
have been a doctor with a PhD from a country ravaged by war, whose
studies were
not recognized.
    None of those aspects changed who those people
really were, what
they knew, or what they had.
    Robert was a true man and not knowing him would
have been entirely
my loss.
    For all the confidence he had in me when no one
else had, he was and
remained my hero, my guardian angel. Thanks to him, I survived all the
storms,
I found the strength to follow my dreams and to never kneel. He was my
armor,
my torch, my refuge.
    And to make it all complete, he was the
funniest man I’ve ever met,
living day by day by the motto, “Seven days without
laughter makes one weak.”
    It was Sunday afternoon when, after crying
about my fate all day
long, he came over, accompanied by his unmistakable, unflagging good
cheer.
    “I know the best way to see that perfect smile
on you again,” he
proclaimed.
    “Why do I feel scared of asking what that is?”
    “I don’t know. Why do you, eh?”
    “Because I know you?”
    “Do you, missy?” he said, cracking a
mischievous smile. “Get
dressed; we’re goin’ to the Human Body Exhibition.”
    “Where?”
    “To the Human Body Exhibition. Haven’t you ever
wondered what’s
inside this little head of yours? I always do,” he said, amused. “I
wanna know
you inside out and then I can die happy.” He paused for a few seconds.
“Although
I might prefer the ‘live happily ever after’ version.”
    “You’re joking. You’re always joking. Can you
ever be serious?”
    “Can I or do I want to?”
    “I’ve got a hunch the answer to both is no. At
least stop laughing
all the time. People will think I’m tickling you.”
    “You do, you tickle my fancy. All the time.
Plus if I want to have a
laugh, I’ll have to be the first one to make others laugh,” he said on
a
serious tone. “Now, you have five minutes to get dressed. After that,
whatever
you don’t have on you, stays home. And the five minutes start…NOW!”
    “All right already. We’ll go.”
    And so we went to see this famous exhibition,
which showcased
preserved human
bodies that had been
dissected to
display
bodily systems. At first,
the idea seemed crazy: I wasn’t a
fan of horror movies and I wasn’t planning on being a surgeon. However, after
an all-day session with skulls, skeletons, open veins, and pubic bones,
I came
home and looked in the mirror and thought I looked gorgeous and on top
of that,
guess what, I was alive too. What better reasons to celebrate and start
a new
week smiling?
    Robert also remained famous in my personal Guinness book of
records as the fastest guy, running not away from me, but after me. I
was
flying to Romania without telling