Family Matters
A minute ago I was down in the basement doing laundry, and thinking, “I need to ask Mom when people are getting here for my graduation,” and in my mind I thought, “Poppa-in-Grandma,” all one word, like I used to when I was a kid. And it took me about 45 seconds to remember that my grandfather died four years ago. And then I started to cry. I wish he could see me graduate. So I had a little uber-emotional girl moment while puting detergent in the washer. And I’d just like to send this out into the universe, for my Poppa, who– ashes to ashes and dust to dust– is part of mother earth again now:
Poppa, I hope you would have liked who I grew up to be. I hope you would have been proud. And I hope you know I think about you often. That I rehearse my memories of you to tell the children I will have some day, who will never know you like I knew my great-grandpa. They will be wonderful great-grandkids. Better and prettier and smarter than me, just as each generation is. And they will eat Petitsa and Pigs in a Blanket, and wear plaid flannel shirts in the wintertime, and play with the toys you made me when I was a little girl. And I will teach them about the Chosun Reservoir, where you fought in the Korean War, and never let them forget that we are part Croatian and all Briski. And they will be smart and stubborn and sassy and independent, like you and my father and I are.
