My Babci (grandmother) Never Left Poland

 

Yes, my grandmother never left Poland. This document, her Imperialist, ruling East-West Eagle passport, proves it (above pic). She did leave her family and homeland, impoverished by greedy usurpers who populated Siberian gulags and firing squads. However, she never left Poland.

Poland stayed in her soul. While it’s almost impossible to separate a Polish person from their land, even the powers of hell will never tear Poland from the Polish soul, the resilient Polish heart. As St John Paul attested, “Our Western neighbors wanted to steal our bodies, the Eastern ones, our soul”

Celebrating the 150^th year of his birts, the Polish playwright Stanisław Wyspianski, remember the  epic words he placed on the lips of the poet in his Polish Wedding (Wesele). This Polish Michelangelo painted masterpiece church walls and ceilings, with national saints among flower-laden trellises. He fashioned brilliant, emotion-inducing stained glass, uniting gardens of iris, nasturtium, geraniums, flaming branches and lily pads with heavenly stigmata rays. Try remembering his original imagination through captivating graphic art, paintings (“Motherhood” being the most telling) poetry, theatrical works, carving in wood (Italians use their marble, wood is the Polish equivalent). See http://mnk.pl/zbiory/wybrane-dziela-stanislawa-wyspianskiego also https://www.franciszkanie.pl/artykuly/stanislaw-wyspianski-i-krakowscy-franciszkanie

My Babci did not leave this Poland. She celebrated her spiritual legacy by loving her grandchildren with games, handmade toys (a handkerchief kitty) and sewing traditional Kraków women’s outfits for her adult dance ensemble (Babci -center right duo in dark skirt). Babci never left Poland. She taught this priest at 7 years of age how to dance. When shared at a grandparent’s day celebration in 1980s Cheektowaga, this memory converted senior community gossipers for life.

Perhaps she sensed it would come in handy. While Alzheimer’s’ paralyzed her lips, eyes and mind, one summer afternoon, she and I were listening to the Polish Radio station.  An orchestra struck up an oberek. Picking her up, off the floor, we circled, twirling and hopping around the living room. Gently releasing her onto couch pillows, she raised her hands, opened wide her eyes, and exclaimed, “My angel!” (Mój aniołku!)

Poland was her in singing, both faith and folk songs, but especially carols. She led every Christmas Vigil Supper singing, and particularly loved the simplicity of the hay carol (Śliczna Panienka). She started one of her uni-lingual granddaughters early. That grade schooler performed the song, “Hey! Near the forest”, (Hej! Tam pod Lasem) for the whole family. Well, for some adults, potentially embarrassing moments are hidden in memory.

Babci never left her Poland. The Black Madonna Queen reigned over her kitchen table, which when christened “the kids’ table,” I never sat at. The image’s banner waved her homeland’s sincerest of petitions (I learned only a few years ago was the oldest extra-Scriptural prayer to the Mother of God), “Under your protection we flee” (Pod Twą obrone).  At that throne-room table she served her yeast raised, sweet raisin-egg bread (placek), the more expensive pecan sandies (to costly for my Dad), made “orange labeled” coffee because caffeine would stunt our growth, and prepared the symbolic Easter menu which we all took to church for the Holy Saturday blessing. She ruled, the family, and grandfather (in family matters) with her wooden spoon scepter. Once widowed, at this table Papa ate pork and beans one day, and beans and pork the next. Hot dogs with local horseradish mustard were his close second.

Every Sunday, Babci dragged my diplomatically, anti-clerical grandfather (Papa) to church. He provided transportation in his light green, stick shift Rambler. Papa told me stories about being forced to study in Russian, jokes about bodily functions or successful angling with an alarm clock, and problems due to priests’ major blunders. Babci’s spoke about being scared to make the night supper trek to her Dad in the peat bog, pond fishery. She spoke of her father making shoes, the beauty of  her homeland's countryside, and a lady who stuffed a journey dumpling (pieróg). Munching on it all the way, her husband finally reached the filling just as he reached the distant town.

During her father’s second trip to the US, husband with daughter wrote mother in Poland. The invitation for her Silesian born Mama to immigrate and join her family was met with the rebuke, “Has that America driven all of you crazy? I was born here and shall be buried here.” Her husband soon, returned. Babci, stayed with her young husband and new born daughter.  It must have torn her heart to pieces, to begin at 17 years, alone without her parents. She always wanted a return visit. Papa grunted, “You want to go back to that mud?!” Maybe Papa left Poland, Babci never did.

Babci never forgot Poland. What she dubbed a “fluffy mushroom” (grzybek), I later learned was a

soufflé omelet. Running to the bedroom and jumping into her made-up bed was the way I entered. Beware! Yeast might be rising her raisin dough, under the feather tick (pierzyna), nestling between two hot water bags. At home, my parents would never allow this.

I was always excited to hear my parents were going to Canada or out of town for a dance. That meant I stayed over Babci and Papa’s house. We watched wrestling with Papa, from behind a swinging, two-door, 18” black and white set. My grandfather fought these TV athletes with outbursts of emotions and tiny nitro-glycerin pills. Later, Babci would tuck me under the feather tick with a kiss, glass of water, and a galvanized bucket “potty” nearby, “just in case.”

Sleepovers were great. Her daughter, my Mama, would scold me for rocking the foot pedal on her sewing machine. Babci didn’t. And the cuisine was uniquely fine.  However, how bitterly she cried when her last yeast-raised, sweet-raisin, egg bread fell. A sad day it was to forget the specifics of that ageless, oral tradition. Dementia was settling in.  I am sure in these years her memory went back to Poland, often.

Yes, I‘m eternally grateful that Babci never left Poland. The riches of her immortal soul made loving, a work of art, a Polish masterpiece. And she left it to me. (Above pic: author with Babci & Papa on his 8th grade graduation, 1968)

Polish Grandparents’ Days Jan 21-22, 2019