EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALMarch 16, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
From There To Here
In 1994 Stephanie and I graduated from Queen’s, I in painting and
she in History. Stephanie went on to do graduate work at the Institute of Child Study at
the University of Toronto. She became a child counselor and then a special education
teacher. She traveled to British Columbia, to Northern Ontario, to Europe and to Africa.
On January 6, 1997 Stephanie was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her cerebellum.
Within a week of the diagnosis she underwent a ten-hour surgery and then completed
twenty-five sessions of radiation.
It’s been a year-and-a-half since our last visit. She was pale and
thin. She had a perfect, strawberry-blond wig, styled identically to her most flattering
previous cut. She was physically weak, but victorious and hungry to make up for lost time.
She was happy to be travelling again.
Today I stand at a massive stretch of pavement. It’s a runway at
the border of Spain’s La Linea de la Concepcion and Great Britain’s Gibraltar.
We are 350 kilometres from Seville. Stephanie lands at dusk.
Gibraltar is a chunk of English-speaking rock bolted to the edge of
Spain. It is a flashback to the dank, stale innards of England. It is pubs and fish
n’chips. It is also strolling Bobbies, pounds sterling and condominiums. It’s
playschools musical with the military’s children. In 1704 Gibraltar was seized by the
British in the War of the Spanish Succession, and was granted "in perpetuity" by
the Treaty of Utrecht nine years later. The "Rock"’s strategic position as
the gateway to the Mediterranean made it essential to Britain in colonial times, and the
treaty is still invoked in response to Spanish claims to Gibraltar. Each year 4 million
visitors stream across the frontier at La Linea, most of them Spaniards lured by Duty Free
shopping.
Stephanie steps into the crowded terminal. Her stride is quick. She
carries a hiking pack and a rolling suitcase and a shoulder bag. She greets me with a
healthy head of ear-length, apricot tendrils. It’s a year-and-a-half since I hugged
her bony frame. It’s three-and-a-half since she promised to save her money and visit
us, and it’s eight-and-a-half since we corroborated our disorderly living habits and
sealed a lifelong friendship.
