Mon pays, c'est l'hiver…

Born and raised in southern Greece, where the temperature rarely drops below zero, my mother had never seen snow in her life. The suitcase she'd packed contained a flimsy raincoat, which any seasoned Montrealer would have laughed at, and a number of dresses, since no self-respecting young Greek woman would have been seen wearing pants back then.

Winters in Montreal in the late 60s and in the 70s were no laughing matter. Global warming wasn't even in our vocabulary and the city was notorious for receiving obscene amounts of snow during the cold months. Unprepared and unaware, too poor to afford a car, my mother ended up with pneumonia during that first winter.

She quickly learned the vital lessons all immigrants learn when they arrive in this city: a good coat and good boots will save your life (and your sanity); when it's gloriously sunny in winter, it's the opposite of warm; when the weather report mentions the windchill factor, ignore it at your own peril; even if you leave your house in the morning under gorgeous conditions, it doesn't mean that a blizzard won't be blowing through the city by the afternoon.

Winter is harsh in this city. "Beware of what comes out of Montreal, especially during winter," wrote Leonard Cohen. Colder than Moscow, Russia, Montreal has a way of discarding the weak and making survivors of us all. If there ever was a unifying factor, a common denominator by which to measure old stock Quebecers and the newcomers to this province, it's the way we choose to stay and tackle winter.

By the time the "snowstorm of the century" hit Montreal on March 4, 1971, producing 110 km/hr winds and dumping 43.2 centimetres of snow on the city, my parents were seasoned veterans and probably barely blinked an eye.

Montreal winters are a right of passage, a pitiless hazing of sorts that separates those who have the fortitude to remain and those who choose to move on.

After all these years, when you ask my mom what she remembers most, she doesn't point out the finger-numbing cold, the harshness of the winter wind or the overwhelming amounts of snow she battled on her way to work each morning. She recounts the first time she ever laid eyes on the kids sledding on Mont-Royal on an early Sunday morning and how dazzling the sight of freshly fallen snow was at night.

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

My chorus is not a chorus, it's a gust

Ma maison ce n'est pas ma maison, c'est la froidure

My country is not a country, it's winter."

After all these years, my mother still chooses to forget what doesn't matter and remember what does.