Family

I was born on December 4, 1962, youngest child of Robert and Patricia Stephens. I have two sisters and one brother. Our dog, Tiny, a fox terrier, came to live with my family shortly before I did. I remember my childhood fondly, especially vacation time and holidays such as Christmas and Easter.

When I was very young, I remember going to a cottage every summer for a week vacation. It was only a three bedroom cottage, so my parents had one room and my older sisters shared one room, leaving the third room for my brother (8 years older than I) and me. My memories of this cottage time are dim and mostly refreshed by photographs. I remember swimming and playing on the beach. Also there was a playground. One day, when I was at the playground, my sisters wanted to go back to the cottage before I was ready to go, and they left me at the playground by myself. When I was ready to go back to the cottage, I couldn't find my way. I remember knocking at doors and asking for help to get me back to my family. Obviously, someone did eventually help me find my way back. I also remember a song that my sisters made up about the outhouse there. They called it "Kaibo" and it was to the tune of "Downtown".

Like everyone else, I have memories of Christmas traditions that still have the ability to make me wish I was a child again. Every Christmas morning, we would get up early and open our presents from Santa and look in our stockings, and then it was time to get ready for church at 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. After the service, we would go home and have lovely sticky buns, made by one of the ladies from our church, for breakfast. I remember certain Christmas gifts more so than others. I remember when I got my first record. It was a 45, and I had wanted it so badly. The song was "The Most Beautiful Girl" by - I think it was Charlie Rich. I remember the year that my brother had taught me to play backgammon - he gave me a beautiful backgammon set, leather case and all. I think I cried. Each Christmas my dad's mother and my aunt and uncle would arrive on Christmas Eve. My grandmother always got my room, because it was the quietest room in the house. I, then, slept in the rec-room in the basement. I remember waking up in the middle of the night once, with my sleeping bag covered in bugs that had crawled in out of the cold from the crawl space beneath the addition at the back of our house. I ran upstairs and slept in my dad's lazy-boy the rest of that night!

When I was in grade 10, our family pet Tiny died. Not long after my dad found a tiny stray kitten on his way home from work. He carried her home in his pocket and from that moment on they were nearly inseparable. She was so small and fluffy, we decided that only name that suited her was Tribble, based on the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". Tribble lived with my parents for 18 wonderful years and now lies under a beautiful yellow flowering shrub in their backyard.