After four days of travel to and from the funeral, I’m back in Gothenburg. Playing chess in granmas room felt odd with her not present, and suddenly every medicin and picture on her dresser took on new meanings. The blanket I’d used as a backdrop for her portrait was on her bed, and our youngest half-brother was sitting on it, dispensing dubious chess advice.
Once in Sanok, seeing relatives I hadn’t seen for years was truly a memento mori moment — gray hairs, walking canes, half-serious comments of “it’s us next” over dinner and photo albums. The jovial uncle who used to tell dirty jokes now tells of the dirty jokes he told the nurses when recovering from surgery.
Below are all the pictures I took in chronological order. I don’t know what grandma would have thought of the video, but she might’ve asked if doing it hadn’t made me hungry, and perhaps I ought to have some dumplings.
Thanks so much for posting these pics, Mateusz. I loved your Grandma as I do my own -she was the one I was closest to of all my Grandma’s siblings. My school friends in Poland when I was growing up always ask about my grandma and her twin sister :) They thought our grandmas were twins since they looked a lot alike…
I remember a lot of stuff about your grandma. Even my Dad was sad to hear about her passing and said to give you guys and the family his condolences.
I have some home movies involving your Grandma and our family -we were watching it with my mom last week – lots of good memories. And what you write below about her and food is all true :) I remember that as well – she was always feeding people. My nephew loved her for that… She always worried about everyone else, like you say. She’d always talk to my brother -he called her a lot and she would talk to him and cry with him on the phone.
I loved it when I was in Polanczyk once and began to question her and my grandma about our family so I can make a family tree – they would constantly argue about it and finally just started laughing histerically ’cause my grandma would say: “oh he had 2 sons” and your grandma would say: “no no no Stasia he had 3 daughters!” and my grandma would get quiet for a second, smoke her cigarette and say “yeah -maybe” and your grandma would burst out laughing saying that this family tree will be a work of fiction ;) She had a great sense of humor, was a very hard worker and was just an overall wonderful person and we will all miss her greatly. I will be in Poland in September -hope you & Tomek can come down as well? I’ll be going down to Sanok and Witrylow also – haven’t been in a while…