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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 2010 5 My Babusias Companions on a personal journey Babusia, babunia, babtsia dido, didush — you had two of each, and that was what you were supposed call your parents’ mothers and fathers if you were raised Ukrainian. In my case, all but one were in heaven, and she lived far away but loved me sight unseen and sent me books. And then, when I was 5, she joined the others in heaven. Like many of my generation, I was born to parents who fled Ukraine and did not know my grandparents. But I as a child, I did not feel the loss because I had a diffe rent kind of extended family. My brother and I had 2 ½ sets of parents — instead of grandparents we had two uncles and an aunt who lived in the same building, loved us, and spoiled us. Life was good. It was also full of stories about the people and lives lef t behind — happy stories and sad stories. We were raised to be proud and protective of a people, a language, and a country we saw through the eyes and hearts of our parents. I grew up, went to university, met my husband, got married, and had a son. And I rai sed him like I was raised — with happy and sad stories, to care about the place where the Ukrainian grandparents he had never met came from. And like me, he did not feel the absence of grandparents — my husband’s parents were there to love him, as was my aunt . It was I, as an adult and mother, who felt the void. It was I who wished I could have shared my happiness with my parents . It was I who wished that my son could have known not just my aunt, but also my parents and uncles. But life was still good. And in 2 003, right after he graduated from 8th grade, my son Roman and I flew to Ukraine. We were going to see the country were our babusias had lived, and to visit someone — a woman we had come to love and who had become a surrogate babusia for Roman as my aunt’s h ealth continued to fail. For both of us, Ukraine was to become the Land of Babusias, and this was to be the first leg of a journey of self - discovery. We flew into Kyiv and were met by our friend and her daughter with whom we were staying. St aying with the m and traveling with them , we were able to see Ukraine from the perspective of ordinary people. We were struck by the contrasts. On one hand , the beauty of the countryside, the historical architecture, the generosity of the people, and the belief in a bett er tomorrow. On the other, the corruption, an economy in chaos, and the differ - ence s between the haves and the have nots. At the Ethnographic Museum near Kyiv we saw a very old woman with a bucket of clay, patching the foundation of one of the buildings. S he was trying to earn a few pennies because she could not live on her pension and she didn’t want to beg. This was my first babusia, and it was she who painted herself into my life. And while she will never be a painting others will see, she will be one I forever feel in my heart. On our first visit to Lviv, I wanted to see and show my son the house where my mother grew up. As a child, I had heard stories about the house, the garden, and the family left behind in the Ukraine. My family had lost touch with those relatives during the difficult days of the 1960s when contact with family in the West often had adverse consequences. We found the street and the house, and I knocked on the door. The elderly woman who answered the door looked at me and my son and as ked briskly, “What do you want?” I explained that I was from America and that my mother had grown up in that house and that I wanted to see it. “Tanya?” the old woman asked as she called her two grown children and her grandson to the door to meet us. The old woman was the wife of a cousin that my grandmother had invited to live with her and help her through the difficult years. My cousin had passed away a few years earlier, but his wife, two children, and a grandchild still lived there. That first visit t o Ukraine was an incredibly uplifting experience — rediscovering family, finding roots, reconnecting not just with the spirits of my ancestors but those of my parents, uncles, and aunt. But especially with my mother’s spirit. I stood in places where my mothe r had once stood, trying to imagine and experience and feel some of the things she used to tell me about. And one quiet evening just before I left Ukraine, I was standing in a field outside a little village and felt a warm breeze and then a sense of peace I have never felt before or since. A part of me had found a home. Connection established. Three years later we returned to Ukraine. This time, my husband, who does not share our Ukrainian heritage, joined us. This trip was different. It was after the Oran ge Revolution and what we had watched on television my Ukrainian family had experienced in person . And I had also changed. I had started to paint, and it had changed my life.
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