I remember four houses. Four trees. Four families. One family. My Grandmother's house, my mother's house, Uncle John and Aunt Vernie, and Uncle Stanley and Aunt Tessie. We were the core, living on 4th Street and 5th Street. There were others, but they always came to us at Christmas. Sometimes we went to them. Sometimes we didn't. My mother was the oldest girl. The first born was Uncle Joe, who never married. Next came Veronica, then Stanley. They were the advisers to Babci, my Grandmother Mary, a woman of the largest smiles and the heartiest laughs.
In our part of a very small town, my family, in our tidy houses, were respected, not because of money or position, because we had none, but because what little we had, we shared with the less fortunate, the Church, the neighbors. It was just the way we were. Perhaps it was a vestige of life in the old country, where we were never in charge of our own destiny, or maybe we really were Catholic, Universal, and Apostolic in the way we saw the world. Whatever it was, the servant mentality fit me well. I love to help, to serve, to teach, as did all of my Aunts and Uncles.
A very special tradition for me, was the morning of Wigilia, Christmas Eve, when each house had to have a male as it's first visitor, to ensure the arrival of the Christ Child at the empty seat at the table. When you were the first to say "Na szcescie, na zdrowie, i na tem sczwentem Wilgilia" you went away with a hand full of silver (and when I was twelve and older, a belly full of wine) and a strange connection to the Christ Child himself.
There is no one left to share the tradition with me, no one left with whom I can break the Oplatek in the evening and repeat the wish: To luck, to health, and to a holy Christmas Eve. I say it now, to you. May you have a lucky, healthy, holy Christmas and New Year.
No comments:
Post a Comment