Day: April 30, 2013

Rest in Peace, Dziadek

When I first met him, I was still learning Polish, and the intricacies of the cultural formal/informal divide largely escaped me. I knew kids referred to adults in the third person, as “Pan” or “Pani.” The fact that it applies to complete strangers as well had largely gone over my head, so I began talking to him in the second person, like we were equals and I’d known him all my life. By the time K and I married and I could legitimately speak to him in the informal second person, I’d already been doing so for almost ten years. As I got to know my father-in-law, long before I even could have imagined he would be my father-in-law, I realized that his gesture of laughing off my apology later when I realized my linguistic mistake and mentioned it was not a gesture. He probably really didn’t mind, and not just because I was an ignorant foreigner.

Escorting the bride
At Fall’s Park
Fort Sumpter
Evening of arrival in 2007
Jablonka living room, 2011

When he developed cancer some years ago, I really thought it to be little to worry about it. Perhaps it was denial; perhaps it was the understanding that, in fact, people beat cancer all the time. Two friends of mine, in fact, recently beat breast cancer. People win against cancer all the time. Of course, cancer more often than not seems to win, but Dziadek was too stubborn to let cancer best him, I rationalized. Too stubborn and too strong. As if overcoming cancer is a question of willfulness, obstinacy, and strength. If it were, it wouldn’t have had even the slightest chance of gaining even the smallest foothold with Dziadek.

With L at Falls Park
Grand Canyon, 2007
In-laws, Jablonka, 2004
A plantation
On the Yorktown

Indeed, for several years, it looked as if he and his doctors had indeed subdued it. For about five years, it was as if nothing had happened. Daily walks, guests in the bed and breakfast, weekly games of bridge, Mass every Sunday morning at 7:30, responsibilities in the village, parties when we visited — it was as if the operation, the chemo, the time in the hospital had never happened. He still got up ridiculously early every day to stoke the fires in two furnaces for guests, and when we were visiting, he was usually taking his morning coffee break when I stumbled downstairs in the morning.

Downtown Spartanburg
Blue Ridge Highway
Grand Canyon
Civil Wedding, May 2004
Somewhere in Arizona

The thought of heading to Poland this summer and not have him in the morning poking at me about how long I’d slept the night before — anything past about six thirty was a waste — makes the visit, on this side, still more than a month off, seem hollow. So much will be missing.

Christmas 2007
Jablonka kitchen with Kajtek
Christmas 2007
Falls Park

When it returned, the cancer struck his leg and quickly robbed him of one of his daily traditions, something K and I picked up as well during our visits there — indeed, while we still lived in Poland and went for family visits. A quick turn to the left at the end of a short paved road, a hundred meters to the next road, a rutted dirt road, and a right turn and within a few hundred meters, one is in the midst of hay, potato, and beet fields. “Idę na spacer!” he would declare matter-of-factly in the early afternoon, sometimes the late morning, and off he’d go, calling the family dog to his side and shuffling through the gate, settling his hat comfortably and muttering dzień dobry‘s to those he passed along his way.

As the weeks progressed in late 2011, he admitted during weekly Skype conversations that the walks were becoming shorter and shorter. Walks all the way to the river became a rarity. Then walks to the fields became scarce. Then the walks were confined to the yard.

And then they disappeared.

With new friends, 2007
Easter 2005
Party after civil wedding, May 2004
Jablonka living room, January 2013

It might be trite to add “like all of us” to that previous sentence. Trite but true. We all disappear from the flow of everyday life, but so often those disappearances are so distant, people we’ve never met, never heard of. Indeed, the vast majority of deaths in the world go completely unknown to all of us. Almost all of us. It’s the “almost” that gets us sooner or later. And so that’s why it’s difficult to comprehend the loss of Dziadek, to accept the loss of someone so central to our lives.

Table Rock, North Carolina
Post-wedding return, 2004
Fat Man’s Squeeze, Table Rock
North Carolina hike
Parish Halloween Party

Yet there’s no choice: we must accept it. Some things are easy to accept: he’s no longer suffering, and that’s a blessing in itself. But we’re selfish; we think about “me” before we think about anything else. It’s our first instinct, and the rare people who don’t turn automatically, almost reflexively, to the first person pronoun we call saints. So perhaps being a little selfish about a loss is acceptable. Human.

Whispers of Summer

A rough few months: someone always missing. Papa, K and the Boy — the family always seems divided.

Now, having them all together again, it’s a lovely way to welcome the coming summer.

In a way, it’s a whisper of what’s coming for L and me: the cool evening today, the local libation, the soft sunset all are similar to summer in Poland, where L and I will be spending several weeks once school releases. We won’t all be there: there will be someone missing from both sides, and that will cast a hue of hollowness at times. But only at times, for when we let it, joy can almost always overcome sadness.