The Legacies of Lineage

Yesterday, Jeneane remembered her amazing great-grandmother, and today I add my own remembrance in a comment to her post on Blog Sisters. I guess it’s the holidays.
I took my mother to a Polish church yesterday afternoon to sing “koledy,” Polish Christmas caroles. I avoid going to church every chance I get, but I have a feeling that this could just be my mother’s last Christmas, so I did the right thing.
I remember as a child I used to love to go to our big cathedral-like Polish church in Yonkers at Christmas time — the lights, the candles, the music, the incense, the crowds packed into the pews, everyone regaled in Christmas finery. I still love the smell of that incense, and years ago I bought some frankincense to see if I could duplicate it. Nope. (Maybe my sense memory has something to do with the scent of human sweat combined with that unique incense. Could be.)
My childhood church had a great choir, and they indeed sounded like a choir of angels when they sang the koledy. The church we went to yesterday was sparsely filled, the choir meager. There was no incense. I tried to let my awareness drift back in time, but my brain was too wired from dealing with my altercation with the previously-posted-about cult personality. But my mother sang right along, happy to be connected to something very important to her. And that’s why I was there, anyway.
On our way out, we picked up some “oplatek,” some of which I’m sending to b!X to keep him connected to his family roots.
I’ll miss my son deeply this Christmas, but we’ll talk on the phone, and I’ll probably cry. And then I’ll hug my grandson and cry some more. And my mother will play some koledy on her Lowry organ and, this time, I might even sing.

3 thoughts on “The Legacies of Lineage

  1. I’m not sure why I’m reading and commenting rather than working on student grades, but maybe it has something to do with the holidays, too. I enjoyed your post. That grandmother/grandchild relationship is a very special one. May your focus be there, and not on the altercation.

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