The long journey home

Saturday, December 8, 2007


East or west, home is best.
It's a simple phrase, one of several on a yellow piece of paper taped to the kitchen wall of Zofia Cisowski's home. She made the list weeks ago to help her son, Robert Dziekanski, learn English when he arrived from their native Poland.
Tomorrow, Zofia is going home, a trip that will take her through the Vancouver Airport where her son died in October.
It's a trip she originally had looked forward to, "but now, I am so scared."
Fear is an emotion she lives with now. She's afraid to go to sleep because "everything comes back to me."
She's afraid to watch television because she never knows when snippets of the videotape made of her son's last minutes before he was tasered at the airport and died will be shown.
"I've stopped watching the news. It just makes me more sick," she said.
She's afraid to be alone — and the Polish community in Kamloops has rallied around her, supporting her and just being with her as she tries to get through every day "without my son. I don't have my son. It is so hard."
The trip tomorrow was paid for by a local businessman who wants to remain anonymous. However, he told KTW he had to do something for Zofia after meeting her at a celebration of Robert's life last month. He's also arranged for concierge service from start to finish for the trip because he can't imagine her flying without support.
The Vancouver Airport Authority has also arranged for tickets to Poland, but Zofia said she's not sure she'll take advantage of this.
"I feel no good if they pay for me," she said.
When asked about returning home, she started to cry. The last time she was in Poland was earlier this year, when she visited Robert to make final arrangements for his immigration to Canada. The Polish construction worker was coming to Kamloops to start a new life with his mother.
Her two brothers are waiting for her, as are her nieces, nephews, cousins and other relatives.
She knows she will cry when she gets there, as will her brothers.
"We will cry together, I know. They loved Robert."
Half of Robert's ashes will be buried in Poland, but she won't take them there until later in 2008, after a headstone has been prepared and she has had time to face the reality of the burial. The other half will be buried in Kamloops.
Zofia said she can't express how much she appreciates the support she has received from her community, her church and Kamloops.
More than 300 thank you letters have been written and signed by her. In the lettes, she writes that "while I am vising my family and friends in Poland, I will certainly tell them how kind-hearted and compassionate" everyone has been to her.
That is the message she wants to convey, said friend Barbara Wells. Zofia and those supporting her have been overwhelmed by the reaction to Robert's death.
"I take her out for lunch, people recognize her and they pay for our lunch," Wells said.
"When she goes to Poland she is going to tell people how kindly she was treated in Kamloops, how amazed she is by it all."
Adam Szpak spoke of a man who attended a human-rights forum last week at Thompson Rivers University, an event called in the wake of Robert's death. The man was so disturbed by the story of the immigrant's death that he called a local Polish priest to find out how to get "real Polish food" for Zofia.
The man ended up going through a Vancouver distributor — but he got Zofia her authentic food.
There have been cards from children, pictures from students, messages from so many people Zofia has never met.
Carmelle Lean, a local woman, did a painting of Robert and gave it to Zofia last month.
This support, Zofia said, has helped ease the desolation she has felt since spending hours at the airport, desperately looking for her son while he remained in the secured immigration area, unable to speak English and get help.
That is something the airport authority doesn't want to see happen again. On Friday, authority officials announced $1.4 million in changes to the international area, including 24-hour staffing at customer-care kiosks in the area, access to up to 20 languages through a translation service, multilingual signs with pictograms, and creation of new public-safety officers skilled in negotiations and non-physical intervention.
Emergency services will also be improved.

2 comments: to “ The long journey home so far...

  •  

    dale

    An excellant storey, that had to be written. This item really displays the family side of this situation, and that the police definately overreacted when they treated him as a criminal, not a newly arrived future Canadian.

    I hope someone tells the behind the scene storey as well, as to who was so imcompitent in the way the Vancouver Airport was being run up untill last month. I hope those people are being transferred to other areas, with much less responsibility!

    joe t.

  •  

    Gudonya, kid. I wasn't aware of the Kamloops connection but leave it to you to put a personal face on a national tragedy. This is a fine piece of work. I hope Kamloops appreciates you although, considering your line of work, probably not. But keep on doing what you do. It's important.