Tag: Family

An American Dream

In early January, we had chicken paprikash (tocana de pui in Romanian), and we told stories of Dave’s grandparents. A perfect evening.

Pofta Buna (Good Appetite): The Romanian Way of Cooking

Dave’s grandfather gave us a cookbook, Pofta Buna, sold as a fundraiser by a Romanian Orthodox church in Cleveland, OH. It has recipes for chicken paprikash and other familiar foods.

Dave’s grandparents, John and Olympia, seem to have lived the mythical American Dream. They came to the US young and with an entrepreneurial spirit made a life for themselves in Detroit and found happiness and success.

Born in the US, returned to Romania

The children of two Romanian citizens, Dave’s grandfather and his sister were born in the US, so they had both citizenships. Prior to John’s birth, Dave’s great-grandfather (also John) wanted to come to the US, but his then-wife preferred to stay in Romania with her boyfriend. Maria Beretei did want to go, and they went together, unmarried. When John and his sister Mary were born in the US, they were illegitimate. When the family returned to Romania, Dave’s great-grandfather got a divorce from his wife and married the mother of his children.

John and Mary grew up in a small village in Romania near the Hungarian border, Chiribis, in the commune (seems kind of like a township in our terms) of Tauteu, in the county Bihor.

Lost his Mother Early

John and his mother got Typhoid when John was a pre-teen, and the doctor came to their house and said that if they made it through the tenth day, they would live. John’s mother died on the tenth day, and John lived.

Tusha Mary, their father, and John.

John’s father’s first wife had lost her boyfriend, and since John’s father had lost his wife, the two remarried. Yet, the children of the intervening marriage, John and Mary, were resented and treated poorly by his first-and-third wife. Young John got out as quickly as he could, taking a tailor apprenticeship in the big city as a teen, promising his sister he would get her when he could.

Came to the US on his own, then sent for his sister

Near the start of World War II in Europe, John made an application at the American Embassy to return to the US. Although he spoke no English at the time, he was an American citizen. He came to Detroit, where there was a strong Romanian community.

John was making his way in the US, and his sister was still in Romania, unwanted in her family home. One of John’s best friends, Florian, liked the look of John’s sister in a photograph, and he knew John wanted to bring her to the U.S. Florian said that he would help bring her to the US and there would be no obligation to marry him. After her arrival in the US, Mary married Florian. And Florian doted on her, sure he’d hit the jackpot. And maybe he did. I met Tusha Mary once, in her home in Dearborn, when Dave and I just started dating in 1994.

Making their Way in the US

John made his way with confidence and personality, befriending and influencing people with his charisma and strength of character. He had good timing, coming to the Motor City during a boom time, and he had the skills and drive to prosper. John met and married a woman named Olympia, who had made her way to Detroit from a different village in Romania. John served in the US Army, and would have gone to the Pacific front but the war ended before he was deployed. Olympia worked in an auto factory (Ford) and after their wedding, John and Olympia lived in a duplex next to Unciul Florian and Matusa (“Tusha”) Mary. John and Olympia had a son and a daughter. John eventually owned his own tailor and drycleaner shop adjacent to the Rouge Plant in Detroit. They moved their home and shop from Detroit to Dearborn, moving into single family homes from the duplex.

Dave’s grandfather John (right) in his shop

Retirement in Florida

Eventually, John and Olympia retired to Florida. I met John and Olympia in the 1990s, well into their retirement. John was gregarious, friends with everyone he saw at Costco and other stores he frequented. He was a small man, and I’m tall, so I have a vivid memory of him sidling up to me on an early visit. He got very close to me, looked up, and asked me if I wanted a drink, eyes twinkling, loving to indulge his grandson’s girlfriend.

Me and John, taking down some grapefruit from his garden in 2004

I remember John’s tailor training showing up in the safety pins he kept tucked inside the waistband of his trousers, and in the clothing he liked to purchase on sale and give to his son-in-law and grandson. He knew what was made well and worth buying.

I knew Olympia less well. She was starting to slip away from Alzheimer’s disease as I became part of the family. One of her repeated stories was how much John’s sister Mary was like a sister to her. Olympia would show me, or anyone, Mary’s photo and profess her love for her. Olympia lost her English before she lost her Romanian.

John turned from husband to caretaker before she died, attending to her first in their home and then visiting her every day when she was in the Alzheimer’s ward of a nearby nursing home. My digital photos of Olympia are all from the nursing home, and they do not seem to capture her personality so I am not including them here.

Olympia passed first, then John got sick a few years later, and he passed away a couple of years ago now.

An Arc of a Life

A Romanian Orthodox priest presided at John’s funeral. And his burial was attended by an honor guard from the US Army. I thought about the funerals the Army honor guards must see, varying religions and ethnicities, coming together in the US and in the Army. I thought of John’s journey: from the US to Romania and back again as a youth, and then his path in the US, from immigrant to businessman to retiree, taking a turn through the Army on his way.

For me, I’m thankful for meeting John and I appreciate being a part of the family he and Olympia created. Like him, like his daughter, Dave and I love to entertain. So we carry on a few of the traditions, though perhaps keep more closely to the spirit of them than the specific details. We do offer people drinks and cook for them, yet unlike what is recommended in Pofta Buna, we do not boil our green beans for 40 minutes before serving them.

I appreciate the memories, which can be brought back now with a dinner or a shopping trip or some storytelling over a drink. John and Olympia, we miss you and are proud of you and we remember you. May we make you proud as well.

January 18, 2014
Comfort in shared experience, even of grief

I am grateful for Great Writers. They connect us to each other, connect us to ourselves, through voicing what is glimmering on the edges of our consciousness. By expressing these things, they bring them into focus and validate them.

Grave, taken in Ellmau, Austria

My father has been gone for over a decade now. When I was a child, he “left” me once before when my parents divorced, so his death was a second loss of him. After that first loss, his commitment to me was clear. And somehow that experience of commitment continued after his death.

At the time of his death, I felt that the handful of people that would lay down in traffic for me had decreased, never to be replaced.

Although I do not feel his presence now in a specific way – we don’t hold conversations, he doesn’t haunt me – he is with me now in some ineffable way. I experience that his love for me has expanded and envelops me, like a warm coat.

So, I was interested to read just that experience described in a recent New Yorker article on Roland Barthes’ mourning for his mother. In William C. Carter’s Marcel Proust: A Life, Proust described the trajectory of grief to a friend this way:

“You will know a sweetness you cannot yet conceive. When you had your mother, you thought a great deal about the days when you would no longer have her. Now you will think a great deal about the days when you did have her.” Once [his friend] has adjusted to “the terrible experience of being forever thrown back on the past, then you will feel her gently returning to life, coming back to take her place again, her whole place beside you.”

That’s my experience. I was angry as he was dying, I fretted about his poor health and poor self-care, focusing on our impending loss. And now, after the initial shock, over the years, I have felt his presence, his love, expand again in my consciousness. Perhaps a trick of the mind, a self-comforting chimera, or maybe simply this is what adulthood feels like. No matter how this happened inside my head, I am thrilled to see it is not only my experience, but the experience of others, captured by Proust.

Even in the loneliness and isolation of grief, there is union or communion across the separation of time.

October 19, 2010
House Blessing

We moved into a new place in August. For a while there we were almost camping because we had the kitchen ripped out…it didn’t feel exceptionally homey.

Our fabulous Ann Arbor construction crew gave us a working kitchen in our bump out just before Thanksgiving. We moved our plates, spices, glasses, and cookware into the kitchen the weekend before family arrived from Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

And, then, with the help of Dave’s family cooking at the house, china plates from my family, delivered a few days ahead so we could wash them, mashed potatoes and appetizers from Fenton, sweet potatoes from Kalamazoo, and ambrosia fruit salad from Rochester Hills, we had a great meal. The place was full – we had fourteen for Thanksgiving dinner. Six from the “Greiling” (Johnson) side: my aunt and uncle, my cousin and her family of four (hubby, two kids, and one on the way), and three on the “Bondy” (Sopt) side.

And, because of lovely memories and shared traditions, several more people were there in spirit. My Grandmother Greiling, whom I never met, shared her china with us. Grandma Higbie’s pie safe held the desserts, and Dave’s Grandfather Bondy contributed beautiful flower arrangements. I wore pearls my father gave me, and a bracelet from my mother.

I am thankful for everyone who blessed our home that day – to inaugurate our kitchen and celebrate with us. Now, finally, after a few months in the house and a handful of days in the new kitchen, the new place feels like home.

November 29, 2009
Privileged Misfit – The Tall Book

The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life on High by Arianne Cohen

I’m on vacation. And I read The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life on High by Arianne Cohen today. Just sat down and read it, cover to cover, with a break for a fishing trip and dinner. Very pleasurable. I read sections aloud to my husband, to explain why I was laughing out loud. I learned a few things (why it can take generations to attain a genetic height potential, due to environmental effects passed down somatically)…and I definitely recognized a feeling and a pattern or two in this straight talking and funny book. Oh, and I’m quoted on pp. 169-170 (excerpt from my tall blog post).

Arianne Cohen details how the tall and the super-tall are privileged misfits – commanding higher salaries on average, but unable to find clothes or seats that fit. I’ve always been a misfit – knees jammed into the back of the airplane seat ahead of me, not in any way average, despite my desire to blend in. Yet this book showed me lots of ways I’ve benefitted from this, and made me thankful for my own tall mom who showed me the ropes and who did not make me feel at all like a freak (who knew people gave hormone therapy to tall girls to keep them from realizing their height?!).

I’m going to need a stack of these to share with tall friends, mothers of tall folk, those who love tall folk, and other humans. Learn more at TallBook.com.

August 1, 2009
Rest in Peace, Barbara Greiling

My stepmom, Barbara Greiling

My stepmom, Barbara, died yesterday of liver failure. She was the mother of a son, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. She took care of my father in his illness and until his death. She loved to laugh and she loved her family, and she was generous and warm with me and my sister.

May 15, 2009
Why I keep a personal journal and a blog

I wanted to write about journaling in the old days, before weblogs, micro-blogs, and Facebook. I want to write about old school journals, with pen and paper, specifically bound books of paper. I will share with you the reasons why I keep a journal, and how blogging has affected but not replaced my interest in keeping a personal journal.

Me, journaling in my Miquelrius notebook on vacation (Hawaii), helped by a cat muse (Dixon)

I have been keeping a personal journal for 29 years.

I am not exactly sure why I started a journal, or exactly when. The earliest journal I have in the plastic bin in my basement dates from 1980, when I was 10 years old. Those early journals are lists of daily events – we did this, we did that. This was boring, that was fun. I used lots of exclamation points!!!!! I wrote to my journal as if I was writing a letter to my best friend. I’d even address the reader as “you”. I have the sense I wrote to capture what it was like to be that age, so that I might have a record for when I was different, the older that I was always moving towards. Maybe I was lonely, maybe I was trying to escape what was happening in that moment. I’m not sure. I didn’t explain why I was writing.

Later on I commited to keeping a journal because I thought it was good practice. I wanted to be a physician who wrote books. Maybe like Chekhov, the Russian playright, or William Carlos Williams, the American poet, or maybe even Oliver Sacks, whom I hadn’t discovered yet, but who writes nonfiction about people and what we can learn about the mind and life from neurological conditions. I kept a journal for raw materials for whatever books I might write in the future because I had this idea that I would combine my parent’s lives. My dad was a doctor, a psychiatrist in fact, and my mom a high school English teacher before she had us kids, and an author when I was young. So, I kept a journal for raw materials.

I find I don’t have to sustain something for the original reasons I started. I haven’t become a physician, I’m not writing fiction, poetry, or any long or structured nonfiction. Yet, along the way, I think I learned that writing out my thoughts was good for me. I’m an external processor. I have to try to articulate my thoughts and feelings to understand them. And writing things out is a very safe way to practice thinking. People have this funny habit of taking what I say seriously, when I’m only trying it on, like a pair of jeans at the store. Seeing if it fits. I learned it was good for me to write, it was safe.

I write on planes, on trains, in buses, whenever there is a long period of time to fill or for reflection. I always take my journal on vacations. I write when I’m up north at the cabin. I write when I’m on a yoga or meditation retreat. I write after a big event or about a transition to help me understand and work through things. I write when I can’t sleep and am troubled by a worry or a conflict, I write in the middle of the night when only the cat is awake with me and I need solace and understanding.

You might think I use the journals for something. It’s odd, I almost never go back and read them. Sometimes if looking for something specific – a date of a critical event, maybe, I might burrow into them, but mostly they are written and forgotten. They are something my mind uses to process and to rid itself of things. I shed things by writing about them.

Years ago, maybe 10 years ago now I was on a plane, writing I suppose quite furiously in my journal, and the man next to me started up a conversation. He said he was a psychologist, and he cautioned me not to try to work everything out in my journal, that I needed to work out some of what I was trying to understand in the actual world. He cautioned me not to depend too much on the journaling.

My favorite journals are Miquelrius notebooks I buy locally at Hollander’s in Ann Arbor. The binding is durable, the pages are lined, they’re not too rigid or thick. They feel good, they travel well.

In the last few years I have been blogging. I started my blog in 2006, when I was working for a web company and trying to help our clients think about blogs, whether it would help them with SEO, how they might use it, and I wanted to be able to speak confidently about blogging, I wanted to live what I was recommending, so I started one in June 2006.

I found it added something different to my writing: the concept of an audience. I don’t actually imagine there’s a huge audience for these thoughts, but there are a few – especially friends and family – and the thought of a reader changed the writing somewhat. Enough so that I still keep the journal for the more interior, private thinking. This blog is a little less navel-gazing, a little less open, a little more polished than the journal.

And it has done what the psychologist suggested, helped me communicate a little more of my thoughts to others close to me. One nice benefit is it has helped me and my mom share more. Which is at least part of why some studies have shown that people who blog are happier, happier because they’re sharing. A little self-reflection, a little self-revelation. Both are good for the mood and the mind and the relationship.

So, I’m going to keep journaling privately to work out thoughts and practice thinking, and I’m going to keep blogging. Not sure if there will be other, more formal writing in my future, but this is good practice for now.

April 30, 2009