Christmas, the Season of Faith, Family, and Charity

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 Christmas was my Dad bringing home proudly a scraggly fir with sparse branches - fragrant with the smell of winter, tiny icicles hanging from the branches, miniature crystal daggers, melting on my mom’s well-scrubbed parquet floor. I never knew nor asked how he could afford it from his $70 a month salary that barely covered the communist subsidized rent, utilities, and food. No matter how bare the branches of my Christmas tree were, it was magical to me.

We decorated it together with home-made paper baskets filled with hard candy, raisins, and small butter cookies, crepe paper garlands, small pretzels, an orange wrapped in fine tissue paper coming all the way from Israel, a few apples dangling from a string, and 12 red and green 3-inch candles clipped carefully away from overhanging branches that could catch on fire.

Mom’s hand-stitched table cloth made a convenient tree skirt. Two metal bars forged by hand helped Dad nail the tree to the floor at the foot of the couch where I slept in the living room that doubled as my bedroom.

I fell asleep and woke up every morning setting my eyes on the scented tree. It lasted two enchanted weeks before the dried needles fell all over the floor.

Christmas was lighting one of the 12 candles for a few minutes every night, careful not to set the tree on fire, basking in the soft glow while Daddy’s twinkly eyes were beaming with pride that he made his family happy once more. We were rich with love and God’s blessings.

Christmas was standing in shorter lines for freshly baked bread, butter, milk, cooking oil, flour, sugar, and the small pork roast mom always baked in the gas oven. Grandpa’s homemade smoked sausages with pretzels toasted on the stove top were always on the menu. Grandpa used to joke that life was so spectacularly good, even the dogs ran around with pretzels on their tails. Pretzels were sold by big bags, hard and stale, but toasting them on the stove made them taste just baked.

Christmas was Daddy opening the ceremonial bottle of red wine freshly brewed that year by cousin Mircea from Grandma Elizabeta’s vineyard grapes.

Christmas were the village carolers in hand-sewn folk costumes coming door to door, trudging through 3 ft. of snow, pulling a plough decorated with a real fir tree, singing traditional songs and snapping their whips in spite of the Communist Party moratorium, forbidding the observance of such religious traditions.

Christmas was sneaking at midnight to the village Orthodox Church with aunt Leana, the singing deacon, lighting candles and praying, surrounding the building when the crowd overflowed its tiny confines into the yard and the cemetery. The cold chilled us to the bone but the inside eventually warmed from our bodies, the candles, and the excitement of prayers and closeness to God.

Christmas was eating with my Mom and Dad, feeling full, happy, and loved in our tiny apartment, sometimes sharing meals with family members who had traveled far to be with us. The spare wool comforter aunt Nicuta had woven, a blanket, and set of sheets painstakingly hand washed would make cozy beds on the floor for the tired traveler – no fire place to light up, just the coils of steam heat which the government generously made sufficiently hot during Christmas to make up for the cold misery during the winter.

Christmas was peering in the shop windows at the glass ornaments we could not afford but I wished I had. They were made in Poland, whimsical fairy tale characters, no religious symbols of any kind, they were “verboten.”

Every Christmas I longed to have the same doll in the window at Omnia department store, dressed with miniature detailed  clothes, real curly hair, blue eyes, and eyelashes. I never asked my Dad because Mom said it cost three months of his salary. I still had my raggedy cloth doll aunt Stella, the village seamstress, had made for me when I was two years old. When my first child was born, Dad mailed her a large doll similar to the one I had longed for. The doll was so big, it stayed in a corner untouched. My spoiled children had too many other toys to play with and never appreciated the sacrifice their Granddad had made in sending such a gift of love.

On Saint Nicholas Day, December 6, I would put my boots outside the door, hoping that they would be filled with candy in the morning and not coals. Grandpa had a wicked sense of humor – he would sometimes fill one boot with switches and another with candy and a chocolate bar. Chocolate was always in short supply and hard to find.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

Grandpa never bought a blue spruce - we cut a fir tree from the woods. We were careful not to cut down a tree that had bird nests in it. We decorated it with garlands made from shiny and multi-colored construction paper. We cut strips, glued them in an interlocking pattern and voila, we had our garland. For ornaments we used walnuts and shriveled apples from his cellar, tied with Grandma’s red knitting wool.

The warm adobe style fireplace built from mud bricks mixed with straw cast a dancing glow on the tree decked with  tokens of food, something our heathen Roman ancestors did during the celebration of Saturnalia. On December 17, the polytheistic Romans celebrated Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing, for an entire week. As Christians, we celebrated the birth of Christ and the religious traditions in our Orthodox faith, in spite of the communist regime forcing the transformation of Christmas into a secular holiday.

On Christmas Eve, after we ate Grandma’s traditional Christmas supper, roasted pork, sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls with ground meat and rice), and mamaliga (corn mush with butter cooked in a cast iron pot), we went to the midnight service at the Orthodox Church not far from her house. Sometimes it was a sloshy trek and other times it was icy and slippery. If we got lucky, a heavy snow would turn our walk into a winter wonderland with dancing snowflakes shining in the weak street lights. We had to bundle up well – the church was not heated and we circled it three times during the procession with burning candles in our hands. I always wore my flannel pajamas under many layers of warm clothes. To this day, pajamas are my favorite garment – cozy and comfortable, keeping my body warm.

When my children were born, Christmas became a tradition of toys and happiness seen through squeals of innocence and twinkly eyes when unwrapping a favorite game, book, toy, stuffed animal, or bike. I taught my children to be charitable and to share with other children who were less fortunate than we.

I decorate my Douglas fir with beautiful lights and shiny ornaments now. My heart fills with loving and longing memories of glowing Christmases past and of family members lost who made our Christian traditions so special.

I hope and pray that American Christmas traditions will be passed on to future generations to light up the season of faith, family, and charity.



Note: An abbreviated version of this article appeared in my first book, Echoes of Communism, 2010 edition.

My Christmas Tree

  

Photo: Ileana Johnson

As long as I can remember, my Dad came home every December with a scraggly blue spruce, fragrant with the scent of winter, tiny icicles hanging from the branches. The frozen miniature crystal daggers would melt quickly on Mom’s well-scrubbed parquet floor. I never knew nor asked where he had found it, or how he could afford it. His modest salary of $70 a month barely covered the rent, utilities, and food. Mom had to work as well to afford our clothes. Prices were subsidized by the government and salaries were very low for everybody regardless of education and skill. We had to make do with very little.

No matter how bare the branches of my Christmas tree were, it was magical to me. Two metal bars forged by hand helped Dad nail the tree to the floor at the foot of the couch where I slept in the living room that doubled as my bedroom. Our tiny apartment only had one bedroom where my parents slept.

Decorating it was a fun job every year since I made new decorations from colorful crepe paper. We had to be creative; we could not afford glass ornaments. We made paper cones covered with craftily rolled crepe paper and filled with candy. I hung small apples with red string, tiny pretzels, home-made butter cookies, candied fruit, raisins, and an occasional orange wrapped in tissue paper with strange lettering, coming all the way from Israel. Each year we bought 12 small red and green candles which we attached to the tree with small metal clips. We were careful to clamp them at the tip of the branch to keep the tree from catching fire when the candles were lit. The tree would live for two weeks before the prickly needles fell all over the living room floor.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

One year I spent Christmas with uncle Ion and his wife. A gifted mechanical engineer, Ion could fix and build anything. He promised that he would fashion lights for his Christmas tree. He worked painstakingly for weeks, soldering tiny copper wires into bundles that stretched along the branches of the tree like a magical cascade to which he soldered at least 200 tiny bulbs sold as bike lights. It was a labor of love! When the wires were finally attached to a relay, the bulbs lit up like a waterfall. Nobody had such a fantastically blazing tree in the whole country. I was amazed at his dedication and craftiness and never forgot his fairytale Christmas fir.

We did not have a tree skirt but we used one of Mom’s hand-stitched table cloths. The whole apartment smelled like the fragrant mountains and, for a couple of weeks we forgot the misery that surrounded us. We lit up the 12 candles on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.

Every night for two weeks, I would admire my enchanted tree until I fell asleep, wondering what special treat I would find under my pillow on Christmas morning. It was never much, but it was such a cherished joy!

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Saint Nicholas Day was celebrated on December 6^th. We really didn’t know much about the real St. Nicholas, Santa Claus’s namesake. St. Nicholas was a popular saint in the Orthodox Church and presumed the bishop of Myra in Turkey in the 300s. There were many legends of St. Nicholas - the more famous story that he was the son of a wealthy family in Patara, Lycia. When his parents died, he gave away his fortune. One such random act of kindness involved throwing three bags of gold through the windows of three girls who were going to be forced into prostitution.

On Saint Nicholas Day, I would put my boots outside the door, hoping that they would be filled with candy in the morning and not coals. Grandpa had a wicked sense of humor – he would sometimes fill one boot with sticks and another with candy and a chocolate bar.

Grandpa never bought a blue spruce - we cut a fir tree from the woods. We were careful not to cut down a tree that had bird nests in it. We decorated it with garland made from shiny and multi-colored construction paper. We cut strips, glued them in an interlocking pattern and voila, we had our garland. For ornaments we used walnuts and shriveled apples from his cellar, tied with Grandma’s red knitting wool.

The warm adobe style fireplace built from mud bricks mixed with straw cast a dancing glow on the tree decked with  tokens of food, something our heathen Roman ancestors did during the celebration of Saturnalia. On December 17, the polytheistic Romans celebrated Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing, for an entire week. As Christians, we celebrated the birth of Christ and the religious traditions in our Orthodox faith, in spite of the communist regime forcing the transformation of Christmas into a secular holiday.

On Christmas Eve, after we ate Mom’s traditional Christmas supper, roasted pork, baked chicken, sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls with ground meat and rice), and mamaliga (corn mush with butter cooked in a cast iron pot), we went to the midnight service at the Orthodox Church not far from our house. Sometimes it was a sloshy trek and other times it was icy and slippery. If we got lucky, a heavy snow would turn our walk into a winter wonderland with dancing snowflakes shining in the weak street lights. We had to bundle up well – the church was not heated and we circled it three times during the procession with burning candles in our hands. I always wore my flannel pajamas under many layers of warm clothes. To this day, pajamas are my favorite garment – cozy and comfortable, keeping my body warm.

I decorate my Douglas fir with beautiful lights and shiny ornaments now. My heart fills with loving memories of Christmases past and of family members lost who made our Christian traditions so special.

My Box of Random Memories

I opened the box carefully. I have not seen its contents since May of 1989 after my Daddy’s passing.  The round Pobeda watch with a blue dial and a brown leather band was the first object I picked up. It was Dad’s watch. He was wearing it the day they threw him off the refinery crane into a pit of metal shavings. I think uncle Ion had replaced the leather band because it looked too new. I was surprised that there was no scratch or evidence of the severe fall that cracked Dad’s skull but this delicate glass did not even have a visible scrape. The winding mechanism still runs; I am not sure if it keeps good time. 

There is a small wooden spoon I painted in the tenth grade with the head of a typical peasant girl dressed in Romanian ethnic scarf. I saved it in memory of my grandmother whom I used to watch prepare food for our family with such a simple wooden spoon decorated with chiseled burns onto the handle.

I pulled out an intricately hand-made leather wallet. I opened the folds and the smell of leather wafted like a fine perfume.  Dad gave it to my husband as a wedding present 40 years ago; it looks as it did the day my Dad purchased it. Bill never wore it because it was too big, it did not fit American dollars but I saved it. There are no slots for credit cards; back then, credit cards were unheard of. We conducted business with cash, personal checks, and traveler’s checks. Farmers used the old system of barter. People strapped for cash paid for the doctor’s visit with chicken or a dozen fresh eggs.

Dad used to order hand-made fine wool suits for his son-in-law but a gentleman farmer did not need such fancy clothes. We always gave them away to a Chinese friend who wore the same size. Dad never knew and he continued to order one new suit each year. I am sure, it cost him a pretty penny. I did not have the heart to tell him to stop; it made him happy to keep my ex well-suited. Dad’s cousin was a cobbler who made fine leather shoes to order. They were beautiful but very uncomfortable. Bill never wore those either. We gave those away too but we did tell Dad the truth about the shoes.

A delicate ladies watch, well-worn, was my gold watch I bought when I first started to work in the U.S. I am not sure why I bought a real gold Swiss watch for the grand sum of $150, my weekly pay. I wanted something that would last a long time, which it did, but also something valuable that no communist would ever confiscate just because they were in power. I was told Wyler Swiss watches  are no longer made.

At the bottom of the box is an album which Mom assembled when Dad passed away. I opened a few pages and I realized that they are all photos from his funeral. So painful to look at his casket, the mourners, the flowers, his frozen face in death, barely recognizable after the long suffering in a hospital that gave him no food or fluid infusions for three weeks prior to his death.  Aunt Marcella fed him droppers of liquid and kept him alive until he lost so much weight that his organs began to fail.

Aunt Marcella, now 92 years old, is still alive and, following a successful broken hip repair surgery, has been moved to a nursing home that caters to the elderly with special medical needs who have no immediate relatives. Such places did not exist under communism, families took care of the elderly. But families have split up all over the world now.

A sterling broach, now tarnished black, is my 1977 wedding present from Dad. He bought it in the Omnia department store in our home town for 900 lei, literally more than his entire month’s salary. He had seen me admire it in the window every time we strolled past the department store on weekends. It was such an extravagant gift! I cleaned it and the delicately woven silver looked brand new again. Tiny amethysts cabochons decorated the round surface. It must have been made in China because it was the only trading partner for fine jewelry during the communist era.

A silver fish pendant, covered in delicate cloisonné scales, was a gift which Mom brought back when she traveled to the home country in the mid-nineties. There is an old silver violin and a frog pin I collected from the early 1980s. They have oxidized as well, not having been touched in decades.

A beaded flower necklace I painstakingly strung bead by bead added color to the Memory Box. I was so homesick and lonely in 1978, I picked up the hobby from a craft book. An experimental artist at heart, I could not afford to paint or draw, materials were hard to find in the backwoods where we lived and probably expensive, way out of reach for our $200 per month income. But beads, a needle, scissors, and fishing nylon thread were cheap. And my eyes were sharp as an eagle’s back then. One solitaire gold earring, still shining, was stuck in the red velvet lining in the corner. I wondered who lost the other one.

A black-beaded and quite heavy evening bag, with its brass snaps and chain turned green from the passage of time, was not missing any of the intricate design opaque beads. Daddy gave it to me before my high school prom to match the red woven polyester dress. I have worn this black bag many times since to parties and held it close to my heart and wrist. It was something tangible from the Old World that I missed so much. And Daddy worked really hard to buy me this special gift.

The brass key to the Memory Box is still held by a red and white silk tassel. The beautiful mother of pearl inlay swirled delicate cranes. The box came all the way from Korea in our friend’s luggage who was assigned there on military duty.  He had expensive taste and knew how to pick lasting gifts. The dark wood and lacquer stood the test of time quite well despite the humidity in the South.  

What will happen to this box one day, who will throw its contents away and replace them with her cherished memories?

Contemplating Mortality

Handsome Bogart, 18-years old
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

I used to think that it was rather morbid that my in-laws had purchased their burial plots when my husband was a small child. Every time we went for a visit, we stayed in a hotel across from the hilly Memorial Gardens, with a large white praying statue on top. The lush green grass and the occasional Canada geese grazing on the slopes were peaceful and comforting evidence of perennial life.

Every time Ray would drive by he would joke in his inimitable dark humor that he bought his wife an anniversary gift and she never used it. It gave me shivers, imagining my husband’s parents deceased.

As the way of all flesh goes, it seems to be closer and closer that Joan may have to use that anniversary gift from long, long time ago. Time flew by and, as it did, we thought of living, of family, of togetherness, of life’s accomplishments, not of mortality. We thought of ourselves as living forever until someone close or known to us got really sick and died. We brushed away the annoying thought of death, as if it would never happen to us eventually. Yet we all leave this earth as dust, a short lived spark in the memory of those who know us, perhaps love us, who are still alive and left behind.

I had an eerie feeling the first time I visited my Dad’s grave. It was perhaps because I was really sick when he died and I could not attend the funeral so many thousands of miles away. In a sense, I never really had closure. I stared for hours at the pictures of his funeral my uncle had sent me, but it was not the same. It was as if he was still alive in some far away corner of the world.

But I was staring then at this corner of the world and reality slapped me in the face. My Daddy was but dust and my memories of our lives together for the first twenty years of my life. With the grace of God, Dad and Mom made me, cared for me, and loved me enough to let me go to a better place so far away. How do you ever thank your parents for choosing life?

I knew Dad’s mortal remains where interred there, but his spirit was somewhere else, in Heaven, but in some ways it lived inside of me. It was so quiet around me, you could almost hear every sound nature made, buzzing of bees, the wind moving the tall grasses, and the leaves twirling on tree branches in the gentle breeze. The earth was alive but my Daddy was part of its dust. His bones were resting in a bag deep in the earth, the wooden coffin perhaps long decayed. I planted a flower on his grave wondering if sufficient rain would keep it alive after my departure. How long would it be before it withered and died, turning to dust?

My mom is losing her battle with dementia and she hardly remembers her life in the correct sequential order. We are happy when she remembers our names.

My mother-in-law is paralyzed following a botched spinal operation and will be sent soon to a hospice, closer to the ultimate chapter of her life. Her beautiful blue eyes are still the eyes of the little girl she once was, not understanding what happened, why time flew by so fast.

Bogart is our beautiful Snow Shoe Siamese whom we adore. He is turning 18-years old sometime this year, we don’t know when because my daughters adopted him from the pound. The vet told us, he was one year old then. Although his previous owner abused him in the first year of his life, we gave him a good and loving life and home.

Bogart is showing signs of old age, turning lean and meowing more than usual, probably from arthritis pain, but can still do a hippodrome routine once in a while, running up and down the stairs, thinking he is a race horse. We clip his twisted claws which sometimes get snagged or tangled on various pieces of furniture, tapestry, or leather chairs. He is an old kitty, a centenarian in human years.

As hubby and I are struggling with profound health issues, we are now fully realizing that we are no longer the immortal young who thought we could live forever. It seems like yesterday when we met, the years flew by, but we never had enough time together, we wasted part of our youth with other spouses who were not our soul mates.

My husband is an American hero who dedicated his entire adult life to his country and I hope that someday he will take his proper place at Arlington National Cemetery.

We cannot understood why we were here on earth and why God created us, for what purpose, but we now understand that we are no longer immortal and we hope that we are going eventually to a good place, part of the circle of life, leaving traces of us in our children’s DNA.

Does it matter for most people where the final resting place will be? The sun will rise again, rain and snow will soak the ground, the moon will cast ghostly shadows in my beloved woods, the fierce hawkish wind will blow, and the earth will renew itself as it had done for millennia. We become again invisible atoms in the universe.

 

My Dad Was Left to Die 25 Years Ago

My Daddy shortly before his untimely death

Today marks a quarter of a century since the passing of my Dad before his time. He did not die a natural death, it was an agonizing 30 days of deliberate starvation in the hospital and lack of medical care, lingering and clinging to life after one last beating by communist goons. They cracked his skull when they threw him in a pit of metal lathe shavings from a refinery’s scaffolding. It was not the first time he had been beaten for various reasons, but this time it was most cruel. The metal shavings caused tiny bleeding cuts all over his body as well.

Dad was a very honest man and hated all the theft and stealing that took place around him every day. He would not take one piece of anything from his job even if it was thrown in the trash. Everybody worked for the government for the same inadequate and “equal” salary. People stole from their jobs and traded (bartered) with other workers who also took materials or finished goods from their workplace in order to survive. Dad reported often such theft and the culprits would take their revenge when Dad least expected. Other times orders came from on high to teach him another lesson for having raised a child like me who chose to live in the freedom of capitalist America at that time over the exploitation and tyranny of communism. He never hid his anti-communist feelings and steadfastly refused to become a member of the Communist Party.

He was 61 years old and preparing to fly with exuberant anticipation to the United States to see his only child receive her doctoral diploma on May 13, 1989. In his excitement, he had packed a suitcase since January when the dreaded Securitatea (security police) notified him by phone that he had been cleared and a passport was forthcoming. Little did he know that even then, his passport and permission could still be revoked, which they did. He wrote and called a few times, at great expense, to ask me what to pack and what I wanted as a graduation gift.

I just wanted my Dad. I had not seen him in four years. Every time he applied for a passport, the communist handlers told him NO with impunity, calling him downtown to the precinct just to harass him. He had no fame or fortune, just enough money saved in the bank account for his burial. The commies had already confiscated everything when my mom defected to the United States after a three month visit. They punished him for her staying behind in the free America of 1980. For nine years we tried to bring him as well with no success. The communists left him with the clothes on his back and the rented, sparsely decorated, and tiny concrete block apartment on the fifth floor of Block A6 in which I spent part of my childhood. He had just retired and had received two months’ worth of his meager pay for which he had worked since he was 18 years old, 43 years of hard manual labor.

A phone call from my uncle shattered my happiness. I did not want to go to graduation anymore. I worked so hard for the degree but, at that moment, I only cared about my ailing dad. He clung to life for almost 30 days, spoon-fed water and clear soup by his sister Marcela, an angel sent from above. The hospital did not do much to ease his pain or make him better; they just gave him a terminal diagnosis and a bed in the ward where he spent his last days in a conscious but unable to speak much state. He shrank to 80 pounds in 30 days.

Such was the socialist medical care – rationed care for the masses and the best treatment and access for the communist elites. Dad needed a CT scan to save his life and state of the art medical care and drugs. There was only one CT scan machine available in the Communist Party hospital to which my Dad was not allowed access. He expired 30 days later, holding in his hand a wrinkled Easter Sunday photograph of me with his two granddaughters.

In physical therapy at the time, unable to travel 8,000 miles by plane to the hospital and to the funeral, I was devastated. The president of the university convinced me to at least attend Commencement Exercises. I reluctantly agreed only because my Dad would have wanted me to go and see my efforts through to the end.  Our President at the time, George Bush Sr. was going to hand out doctoral diplomas and shake my hand. He subsequently wrote to me a very lovely and caring letter of encouragement.

I pinned on my mortar board the phrase, “4 DAD,” in big, bold letters, and dedicated my degree to him. I would have never made it there had it not been for his loving care and encouragement to strive to be the best during my 18 years of growing up in our modest abode.  I think Dad was so proud, smiling from Heaven, and I felt his presence beside me. It was a beautiful and hot sunny day, not a cloud in the sky when I accepted my diploma with shaking hands and tears streaming down my cheeks.

I hope my Dad’s passing 25 years ago on May 12, 1989, a victim of Ceausescu’s totalitarian and brutal regime, and the death of 100 million other innocents who died at the hands of Bolsheviks, Stalinists, Maoists, Castroists, and other Marxist dictators, will serve as a wake-up call for all the misguided and misinformed Americans who believe the lies that communism is the answer to undeserved redistribution of wealth, non-existent "social justice," and "equality" by government fiat.

A Late September Day in 2012

Between the suffocating smoke wafting to the third floor of my cousin’s villa from burning egg-plants on the indoor grill, the ambulance sirens, the wild dogs roaming the streets all night barking, and the cock-a-doodle of the rooster from the chicken coop across the street announcing the start of a new day, I had no chance to sleep past 7 a.m. The rooster is a bit confused, he cock-a-doodles all hours of the day and night.

I woke up to a cacophony of sounds of a big city, so close to downtown, I could see the cathedral spires from my window and hear the bells toll. The trolley bus running up and down the street below was filled to refuse with humanity packed like sardines, going downtown to work. A mass exodus of villagers occurs every morning and every late afternoon. Driving to work is prohibited by the high price of gasoline, the lack of parking spaces, and the deliberate narrow roads and streets, built at a time when only the ruling elites were allowed or could afford to purchase a car.

I took a picture from the window of my bedroom. The skyline is very crowded by drab high-rises that dwarf my cousin’s beautiful and elegant ocre-colored villa. This section of the street has not been demolished yet to make room for more utilitarian concrete twelve story apartment buildings. I love the red roofs on the remaining homes on Malu Rosu Street. They are so cheery in an otherwise landscape of grey and pollution filth. It has not rained all summer long, it is dusty everywhere and grass, unless copiously watered, is crisply brown.

The street is eight minutes-walk to downtown yet many homes still do not have running water – the city never attached them to the water department system. A few have their own electric pumps. Every morning there is a stream of people bringing buckets of dirty water and dumping them directly into the street drain. When the drain clogs and over runs into the street, the fetid smell forces residents to call the city’s water department.

I am fascinated by my surroundings yet it is so noisy, I miss my quiet home and the solitude of my woods. Anna’s cactus is in full bloom this morning. It started opening last night. The delicate white flower stays open 24 hours and then it dies. I saw it last year when it bloomed earlier. The warmer temperatures this year must have tricked its biological clock and it opened a couple of weeks later.

The hurried urbanites on foot from the surrounding grey and dingy high-rises crowding the landscape discharge into the streets like a huge colony of ants looking for food. True to form, a large portion of the citizens’ budget is spent on food and housing. For this reason, politicians like to bribe the lower class voters with tokens of food during campaigning, luring them to the voting booth on Election Day with food as well, including free bus rides.

Not much is illegal in this country anymore, the corruption is endemic. White collar crime or traffic offenses are seldom punishable. Most people know someone who can forgive their violations for the right cash payment or bartering other types of favors. A favor is not just something you do for a close friend or out of kindness, it is commodity money, and must be returned in kind.

Driving on the highly congested roads is a hazard in itself. Drivers never stay in their lanes because they do not exist as a painted space; sometimes one lane is occupied by three cars side by side and only a native can understand the irate hand signals indicating who has the right of way. Passing takes place on the right, on the left, in-between cars, on the shoulder, and on the sidewalk. Pedestrians are fair game even in designated cross-walks. Crowding three cars in a parking space designed for one and double parking are quite common.

Cousin Ana drove us to the abundant market, full of vegetables and fruits, flowers, and busy bees buzzing the nectar oozing from crushed fruits. I bought a purple mum and candles to take to my Dad’s grave in Popesti. The gas station attendant filled our SUV with $10 a gallon Diesel. I remained silent on the way to Popesti. Memories were flooding back as landmarks flashed by – the country school where my six cousins graduated from, the creek filled with fish where we bathed in summertime. The road was blacktopped and I was riding in a comfortable car instead of the communist bus smoking oil and fumes inside for two long hours, bumping us with every pot hole.

The cemetery seemed over run with weeds in some places but the view to the valley below was spectacular. I stood on the cliff, peering into the distance, re-living my 5 km walk to the country fair with Grandma and cousin Gigi. The trek seemed endless for five year olds but the reward at the end was worth it – a ride on the merry-go-around, freshly roasted corn, and a clay whistle or toy Grandma always bought us.

Wild flowers bloomed around the dilapidated church, which had fallen into disrepair because there were not enough builders for all the construction projects after the fall of communism in 1989.  I had met an architect in Washington State earlier this year who told me that she had traveled to Romania to give pro-bono construction advice in many church projects in Maramures.

Dad’s cross has weathered so badly – he passed away 23 years ago, six months before the fall of communism. He would have loved to have seen the positive changes that took place since the demise of Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime.

I planted the purple mum and watered it copiously. The friendly owner of a house nearby lent me a shovel and gave me a bucket of water. He was playing with his little girl in the yard. I lit the candles and said a prayer in memory of my Dad’s sacrifice. It felt sad and comforting at the same time to be so close to the person who gave me life and freedom, to the places where we grew up and yet I felt such longing for my home in Virginia.

My heart ached for the unfulfilled past but rejoiced in the present. I was well enough to fly 7,000 miles to plant flowers on my Dad’s grave and pay my respects to his life cut short by the commies. America, the promised land, has given me so many opportunities that I would not have been permitted under communist Romania. Had I stayed, I would have been just another daughter of the poor and exploited proletariat. Because Dad let me go, I had a shot at a better life. I never squandered this gift.

The water well in front of the cemetery is dry now; people have their own hydro-pumps. The houses nearby are shaded by pergolas covered with grapevines laden with golden and red grapes, waiting to be picked. The crop is abundant and the grapes are especially sweet.

I took a few photographs and left my Daddy behind, alone but surrounded by such simple peace and tranquility. His resting place is sacred ground – he gave his life for what he believed in most ardently, freedom from oppression. I know he is looking over me from heaven because I escaped to freedom and I am able to carry on his legacy. I have touched so many lives in my career, he would be happy.

 

 

 

 

What Communism Wrought

Today my Dad would have been 84 years old. I still mourn his tragic and premature death at the hands of communist goons who took over the country of my birth and terrorized people for 41 years. Dad was barely 61 and healthy.

The benevolent dictator Ceausescu ruled Romania with an iron fist, lording over the frightened and defenseless population. His portrait was everywhere next to his hideous wife, “the Mother of the Country.” She had given herself that title along with a Ph.D. in chemistry. A fifth grade dropout, she had grandiose ideas of her faux accomplishments.

Dad hated Nicolae Ceausescu and his co-dictator wife, Elena, with a passion. He never hid his utter disdain for the arrogant, narcissistic, and uneducated couple who rose from the poverty of community organizing with empty promises of paternal and maternal care for the weak, the poor, and the downtrodden, to a life-style of the rich and famous.

Torturing, imprisoning, and killing millions of innocents, the Ceausescus had appropriated their possessions and amassed such a vast wealth, it was hard to tell how much money he had in Swiss bank accounts, how much art, jewels, land, and homes.

The dictator was proud that he gave “homes” to all his subjects, the proletariat, crowding country and city folk alike into high-rise concrete apartment blocks, while taking their homes and land for agricultural cooperatives or grandiose buildings and palaces dedicated to the Communist Party. Hastily built of reinforced concrete, the nine to twelve story apartments were Spartan, ugly, cold, dirty from the heavy pollution, and chipping concrete chunks like loose teeth.

The benevolent dictator made sure that there was no middle class left when he finished his fundamental transformation of the former prosperous monarchy into a socialist/communist republic. He kept changing his mind as to whether the country was a socialist popular republic or a communist one, frequently altering the Constitution on a whim, adding more articles, while robbing Romanians of their former rights and freedoms.

People were frightened to speak to their neighbors or relatives because nobody knew who was an informer. The country had become a country of snitches for a few extra lei (the official currency) a month, meat and other necessities, proper medical treatment at the Communist Party polyclinics and hospitals, and access to drugs at their well-stocked pharmacies. Adults turned in their own parents and relatives. Children often did the same, without realizing that such childish indiscretions would send their parents to jail.

Dad was under the commies’ radar all the time because he refused to be a member of their party and always blamed them publicly for destroying the country. He was not shy to assign blame and to criticize the dear leader and his wife. Although a pacifist who could not hurt a fly, Dad was always beaten and imprisoned every time the Ceausescus traveled anywhere near my dad’s location.

The peoples’ discontent and misery was palpable but they did not dare discuss their thoughts with anybody. Dad had the courage and foolishness to say what was on his mind. He did not care that the communists had built a very strong police state: regular police, traffic police, security police, economic police, military police, and ideology police. Dad really believed in human beings’ inalienable right to freedom and economic independence, not dependence on an omnipotent government. He saw every day how this all-powerful government robbed people and gave back very little, while pretending to care.

Since goods were in such short supply due to poor centralized planning by communist bureaucrats, people learned to survive through stealing from work and bartering. Dad hated theft and reported the culprits all the time. Since theft at work started at the top and trickled down to the lowest ranks, orders were often given to punish my dad for daring to expose the thievery. He was beaten many times for his honesty. He always recovered, more resolute that he was doing the right thing.

One day his luck did run out. A savage beating and dropping from a certain height into a metal shaving pit resulted into a cracked skull that was not treated at all at the state-run hospital. Receiving little food or water, he died four weeks later, a slow and agonizing death, shrinking to half his healthy size.

Dad is in Heaven now, satisfied that his premature death was not in vain. Many people who know and understand how a totalitarian regime robs humans of their freedoms, are picking up the opposition against communism.