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BABA'SШЮК AN» OL'HA KOBYLIANS'KA by HELENE TURKEWICZ-SANKO Dear Maria, I am in good health and with the help of God, I wish the same good health to you. That is all I can say. Maria, what I will say next is very important and I know that with my words I will cause you great distress, but I must till you the truth. God wants it that way... I have but two more hours to live, and I begged the officers permission to write to you during the last moment of my life... They found me in the trenches ... I could hardly stand on my feet... For days I had nothing to eat; on my chest, in m y pocket, I had a handful of our native earth which my father placed there as I was parting with him. He said, "If you are to fall on foreign land, may this native earth pave the way to God. This earth is holy." Now they took this earth away from me as well as my arms. They isolated me and took me to the court martial. I did not know what I had done wrong... maybe that I fell asleep when they were retreating? I wanted to defend myself, but I could not understand their language, just as they did not understand mine. Court martial does not have compassion, and is as brief as a spark of fire. It does not ask much and resolves quickly ...My language, my mother tongue, we both lost hold and everything vanished under our feet. Something happened, a few words in a foreign language, and my mother tongue and I vanished ... nobody knew my language. Dearest Maria, do not cry! Look, do not think about me. Think about the land I am leaving to you. Think about this green little piece of land of yours, through which runs a little brook, and where the pussy willow blooms before Easter and from which we both took branches for Palm Sunday. Remember our cow that feeds you at home and which cried when I took some hay from the manger as I was leaving for war. Make sure that this cow is well fed and never goes hungry. Look after the children I am leaving to your care. Remember my old father who is losing me. When J was saying goodbye to him I noticed how he had turned gray and how his shoulders were down. I do not dare to think how he looks now. Take care of him. Do not lose your mind like a soldier during the war. Do not lose your mind, my dear wife! Take care of yourself, you, to whom I pledged my devotion. Look often at the Lord's sun which I must leave so soon in my life ...from time to time, light a candle in front of Christ Our Saviour. Your husband, Vasyl' V. The letter from which this excerpt is taken can be found in the works of Ol'ha Kobylians'ka. It is a very long letter which constitutes the "novella" entitled Letter from a Condemned-to-die Soldier to his Wife, subtitled Story from Ukrainian Life in Austria during the Terrible Year of 1916. We wonder, as we read the passage, what Maria told her father-in-law and especially her children? We also surmise that she was not alone in this predicament and that she, as many Ruthenian wives, suffered hardship in silence, and we feel fortunate that writers like Ol'ha Kobylians'ka became the voice of Ruthenian men and women. For some, Vasyl' would be a hero; others would consider him to be a traitor. But either way, the story has been told. And every person has his or her story to tell and every story deserves a place in the Book of Life. Our life journey is something about which we very seldom think because we are so busy with our daily work and responsibilities, and yet the story may be a source of great wealth for our children and our grandchildren. Folklorists believe that there are two lasting bequests we can give our children — Roots and Wings. When we send our children to school to learn mathematics or English and obtain a degree, we give them Wings so that they can be independent as they leave the family nest. But just as importantly, children need Roots. We can give our children and grandchildren Roots by leaving information about ourselves and about the events in our lives. Knowing our past history will help them to understand one's family. American folklorists are very efficient in this area. One such folklorist, Marcy Jackson, actually created a book to help grandparents accomplish this task by answering over one hundred questions which relate to the following: Our family and our family tree Our childhood (2-12 years) Our teenage years (12-20 years) Our family traditions and celebrations Our marriage Other big events in our lives Our own personal views and feelings About our children It is a fact that the best twentieth century ethnic autobiographies have often been written by women and were started in a school notebook at a kitchen table. One such woman writer was Fran?oise Ega, a native from the French-speaking island of Martinique, who passed away in Marseilles, France. In her book, Letters to a Black Woman (Lettres a une Noire), she describes how she started writing this book. She portrays herself in the kitchen of a small apartment in a low income housing Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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