The Polish Connection

Today, as I logged into email, I found myself going into my catchall account first, which is strange as usually that account gets checked last.  It was as if subconsciously, I knew there was something special waiting for me. And I was right. There amongst the flotsam and jetsam of marketing spam, was an email from a genealogist who had been hired by my long lost cousin Jeff to rediscover our Polish roots.
I was overjoyed to see my cousin’s name – we haven’t spoken in years, but at the beginning of my life, he was a close to me as anyone could possibly be. And these last 14 years, I had mourned the loss of our friendship. So hope springs in my heart that we may be able to rekindle some sort of relationship via this project he has begun.
I wasn’t really able to add much to the information they already discovered but I loved hearing all the cool stuff the genealogist had been able to dig up about my maternal grandparents. This is an area where I know so little, not having known my grandfather since he died when my mother was an infant and talking with my grandma very late in her life when her memories were less than clear wasn’t very productive. And now, with both of my parents gone, the eternal questions “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?” seem to resonate and become more and more important.
Things I always suspected, but never knew for sure:
– Grandma’s father was Jewish, her mother catholic
– Grandma ran a bar to support herself, my mom and uncle (read: speakeasy!)
Anyway, the saga is just beginning to unfold, more as it comes.