"We're all gonna be here forever..."

Malgosia and Andrzej's Fields

My aunt Ana is suddenly clutching my arm and waving towards the horizon to the northwest of us, at a large patch of trees in the distance.  It is very windy, and the cold is starting to set in for the evening, and we are on our way home from one of those typical Polish hospitality visits.  You know: unannounced, a thousand kisses on cheeks, coffee, tea, cakes, conversation, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, get up, more kisses on cheeks, bundle on the clothes again, slowly make our way back home.  We had just gone down the road to my cousin Franek's place, which is the original Krolak farm.  


Franek's father was Wladislaw, the oldest son of five children (4 boys and 1 girl), and to the eldest goes everything.  It's not favoritism.  It's not valor.  It's more like a Darwinian thing, with the eldest being the biggest and strongest, and therefore the obvious choice for carrying on the "species". 


My father, Stas, was the next oldest, with Josef and Marian being the youngest boys, and finally a daughter, Ana.  Ana is all that remains of that generation, not counting in-laws, and it is through her memories of by-gone days that I have any idea whatsoever now of the life my father once knew. 


She is pointing to where she used to watch over the cows and dream that Stas was coming home and that he would be coming over the hill covered with the grove of trees.  And how happy she would be if that speck of a man in the distance were indeed him.  And how it would be such a big re-union in the family, and I'm sure, out would come the vodka, and the festivities would begin, just like the story of the prodigal son.  Her eyes grow misty and she is clutching my arm quite strongly and getting her point across as best as her broken English can manage, but I understand her, and her tears become contagious.  

The grove of trees in the distance, from which my Aunt envisioned my father reappearing

This land.  This air.  This wind.  These clouds.  These trees.  This road.  Those houses.  This place is our place.  This is where we come from. 

Neighbors place.  Was also an old, tiny store when Ana was a child

Malgosia's farmhouse

As I walk along, I can only imagine how it was; with no cars or tractors, then through the ravages of the biggest war the world has ever endured, and then through the shackles of communism, finally to emerge as a typical Polish farming community struggling to survive, actually, in a world where shopping is the #1 pastime (Sieradz, a town of appr. 45,000 has 3 big shopping malls or "gallerias", but no cinema) and therefore, jobs providing more income with which to shop are more important.


My father was never remiss about thanking the powers that be for World War II.  It was his ticket out of Dodge, and for a precocious young boy who had already used up all the educational opportunities available to him locally, and with a father who had no intention of promoting him beyond the life of a farmhand, Germany's shipment of young Polish farmhands to replace their local boys that had been conscripted was a godsend.  Twisted logic, but I have learned from this never to judge any situation. 


Ana's dream was finally realized, only about 58 years later, but my father did not come walking over that hill from the forest. How many suppers had passed?  How many days in the fields had passed?  How much time must have passed until everyone basically believed him to have either been killed in the Korean war, or to have just vanished into the soup cauldron that is America....Everyone's lives in Poland had gone on:  Wladek inherited the farm, had 3 boys, (2 of which are now deceased), Josef went to seminary and then went into farming (the farm at which I am now staying) and had 1 daughter, Marian became a veterinary scientist and had 1 son, and Ana went into clerical work, mainly for various banks and offices and had 2 daughters. 


There was a prodigal son return.  And when my father found his family after so long, for the first time in my life, I saw him cry.  War and ideologies are crazy creatures and double edged swords.  They alone were responsible for the worst and the best things in my father's life.  In that respect, I suppose they are like religion: capable of bringing out the best and the worst in humanity.  


Stas had 6 years to be with his family before he departed this world.  Six years is not a hell of a lot of time for dearly loved brothers and sisters and their families to catch up on 58 years of absence.  Some of my own friends had even more time than that to know Stas.  But everyday I wake up in this house, I look out the shrouded windows (Polish households are obsessed with sheer semi-laced curtains) upon that same landscape he looked upon as a child, and for me, it is different.  Because I am looking through the eyes of his realized dreams.  That he got the hell out of here and "made" what he wanted of his life.  


As Malgosia and I return from dropping Ana and Cezary off at the train station, we drive past the cemetery.  This is the route to and from Sieradz, so Gosia passes the cemetery all the time.  She calls out, "Czesc, chlopiec!" (Hi, boys!), to Wladek, Josef, and Stas, all the sons who rest there.  A warm feeling comes over me, knowing that my father made it home and indeed will be here forever.  I have had the lyrics of a wonderful Lyle Lovett song in my head for most of the time I have been here, and some of them are particularly apropos.  So I will leave you with them.


"And there are more I remember
And more I could mention
Than words I could write in this song.
But I feel them watching
And I see them laughing
And I, I hear them singing along:


We're all gonna be here forever
So mama, don't you make such a stir.
Put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve."  


(" Family Reserve" by Lyle Lovett)