Generations

Have you ever been to a place that’s different. The air is heavy or the light is dry. I do not know how to explain it. That is how today is. I hate days like this that leave the imagination to nothing but memories. And somehow the only memories that tickle my brain during times like these are old ones. Old and brassy full of stories that are hard to tell. Hard to place into the current world. Sometimes I think of memories and the way things played out. I think of how things would have been if my family had stayed in Poland instead of coming here. How my world would be different. And then I think of how the world, my current world, is different because of what happened. Of why things happened like they did, and how the people are different because of it. I don’t know how to start, but it must be told. And there are so many stories. I am not sure how to tell them or which ones, but I will try. I promised myself and the memories that I would retell them. and one does not promise something without the memories haunting them until each and every word is placed next to another until it is all out. What is there to tell if not the past? To where can we look but there? All that is now was built from what happened then. And today so many are forgetting it. Forgetting the history that could make them better. Things are the way they are. It is written. There is no changing them. My family descended from the Polish and Norwegian immigrants of the very early 1900s. I am told what my Grandma June’s house was like back then, and I have an idea of how my Grandpa Ed’s house looked until his father was taken by appendicitis. Just a few short years ago there was no cure for the sudden pain and infection. It would take a father from his child and pregnant wife. Now, it is cured over night with some expense, but hardly any pain. I wish that what we know now could have been done then too, but then things wouldn’t be the same now. I do not know what my life would be like if my Grandpa had had a dad. I do not know what life was like for my Grandma Virgie, or her family or her generation. I know that her life was hard. Her mom’s husband also died, I am at a loss for what. What does it matter? It only matters that someone knows. That someone else can know and that someone’s someone can someday know. Such is life. My Grandmother Virgie grew up with a horrible step-dad who beat her mom and her brothers and her. His legacy must live on with theirs because his memory is entwined with theirs— in every sense. Those in this book who are remembered for their horrible actions are only remembered because of those they hurt. The lives of those who were hurt still live on and only because of them do we remember anyone else. The story I tell is for my mother, grandmothers, and aunt. No one else. I write it as if I am talking to them, not you. You, my friend, are only a witness. And you will hear.