My grandmother was
born in Czechoslovakia, and she always told a story about her father feeling
that there was a war coming when she was a young child.
"He brought our family to America in a banana boat when I was four,"
she said.
I later realized how fortunate she was. Czechoslovakia became an iron block country after World War II. The war would have brought them great hardship, perhaps even breaking the family up. However, I still don't know if I buy that story about the banana boat.
I remember how thrilled my grandma was when we went to Austria and stayed in an ailing pension in Vienna. The roses came back to her cheeks, and yet I never thought to ask her what it was that she remembered. Could she remember, or was she thinking of stories her father had told her? She spent years learning Czech- her pocket language books littered all the coffee tables in her tiny apartment. I always assumed she did it so that she could speak to her aging father better. I was born on the same day as he was. He lived to be 98 years old.
Gramma was a beautiful piano player. When we came to her house, she opened the pine bench, pulled out her favorite music, sat carefully down at the stand-up piano, and began to play. She rocked her head back and forth, smiling softly, her eyes half closed, floating along with the music. As she got older, her arthritic fingers began to curl. She continued playing. One day when I was sitting on the bench playing with her, I realized that her fingers were pressing one key off what it appeared she was aiming for, they were so gnarled. She must have adjusted herself to set her hands one key off so she could keep playing her beloved piano. She never gave any clue as to how difficult it was for her to play as she got older.
Grandpa, I remember, always had a story, and he sat in his armchair and seemed to be constantly packing his pipe but never smoking it. He smelled of cloves and smoky fireplaces on winter days, even in springtime. Comforting. There were piles of books all around his chair, with slips of paper marking places in them, and manila folders that had thick, secret contents of single-spaced, adult typed pages. I imagined him to be a brilliant man, even if I was too young to tell, because he was a judge.
I think my fondest memory of him is from my high school graduation. He came. I thought he always did that for the grandkids. He was so happy and excited for me. I remember him giving me a big bear hug, and putting his hands on my shoulders and looking into my eyes. "Good job, congratulations. Now see what else you can do," he said.
Later my mother told me that he had not attended any one of his own six childrens' graduations, and most likely he had attended none of my other cousins' graduations.
I felt special. I do know that he always enjoyed a good mock argument with my dad. He liked to test intellectual prowess, and had a sharp eye for it. Maybe he thought I was special. Maybe he was trying to fill in, to be there. Maybe my dad asked him to.