oliverntures

These five people mean the world to me.

From knowing them as “my dad’s friend’s kids,” between birthday cakes and gatherings—became childhood friends. Somewhere along the way, we turned into family.

Three years ago, two of us had to move to Canada, little me was convinced that we’d never share the same city again.

With a bleak light of hope, a small miracle enacted: we saw them not just once, but twice. Hope returned, so soft but still stubborn as a wooden board.

However that lingering fear of me stands still, completely filled with concern, that we would never see each other again together as a group, due to our limiting finances.

Summer 2025, we would see each other again, after a for who knows how long, a 2 day and 2 days only.

We went bowling, had a huge feast, and even watched concerts together.

A season that sits in my memory like a warm, unhurried breath. A Period of grace: stretched mornings, cozy breakfast, karaoke mornings, and ordinary moments felt quietly ordained.

There was a pure innocence to those weeks, not naive but unforced, the kind of purity that let simple mundane things hold meaning. I moved through the city with a childlike appetite for detail, just absorbing the simple treasures of life, as if it time was moving slow, winding down the mists of life fluidity.

Markham, in general lived in that memory as the region of love: warm dinners in small kitchens, laughter that lingered after sincere goodbyes through every gathering, family who waved from houses away, long walks where conversations deepened without pressure. Love there was patient and unassuming; the friend who texted to say “Welcome Back to Toronto,” the unexpected invitation that turned an ordinary evening into a story.

I remember the cadence of the streets, bakery bread and rain-washed pavement, how chill afternoons with sunshine, the lakes where I had my morning runs at. I remember afternoons spent wandering independent bookstores in Fairview, the quiet thrill of discovering a hidden sight and cozy cafés, and the way nighttime softened the city into a low, comforting hum. Everything felt both familiar and new, as if I were seeing everyday life through lenses freshly cleaned by curiosity.

That time taught me how tenderness can be ordinary exclusive in Canada: acts of care that require no announcement, kindness that occurs no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. It taught me to let the small things matter. To taste sunlight on a commute and to catalogue conversations not for performance, but because they mattered. It taught me that purity isn’t the absence of complication but the presence of wholehearted attention.

When I think of my trip now, I don’t just recall places. I recall the feelings that places held. Toronto remains a little archive of love: the streets, the people, who made my experience memorable and pleasure.

It’s a reminder that you can carry a season of grace with you, folded into memory like a well-worn map, always there to open when you need direction back to something softer and truer.

Though I’ve been a pain to deal with, I’m thankful and grateful to everyone who showed up.

It wasn’t just fun; We weren’t passing time. We were making memories.

The poem, A moment of Happiness says that

The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar

as we laugh together, you and I.

In one form upon this earth,

and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

I’ll always recall my time to Toronto 2025, a period of grace, innocence, purity, and organic childishness. Markham, the region of love.

On the final day, I cried my eyes out, ugly, but honest tears. Thanks to the education system and money problems, maybe ten years until the next time. Or maybe longer. And that terrifies me.

When you’re close friends with a group of people, close enough to become family, you are family.

It’s terribly difficult to encapsulate that we will not see all 6 of us together again, as a full group.

But to my five: I’ll be here, because I don’t know how it goes, and I don’t want things to change, I’d pray they’d stay the same. The six of us, Always.