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Remembrance of Things Past |
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| When I was growing up there were a few items that connected me to my family's past, but even those precious objects served to highlight the lost links. There is a gold medallion, for example. It is a relic of a baptism. The date inscribed on the back is still legible, but the godfather's initials have been meticulously scratched out. Fulgencio Batista was not a name to be associated with in any form in Cuba. Not in 1959.
There's the photograph of my brother—a solemn little boy proudly standing at attention in a perfect replica of a United States Army MP uniform. That was destroyed because even a child's play uniform could serve as evidence in a mocked up trial. My mother hid the photograph away out of pride and stubbornness, perhaps. I'm still surprised that she didn't destroy the photograph. I own a bracelet that was given to my mother when she was twelve years old. It was sewed into the lining of a heavy winter coat because even boarding a commercial airliner, my mother wasn't convinced her luggage would not be searched and her few pieces of jewelry appropriated as "state" property. I'm not complaining, mind you. My brother and I were always very conscious of just how lucky we were to have our father with us. An uncle wasn't so fortunate. Unlike my father, he wasn't in the military. He was, however, a police official and as such, faced a firing squad for his so-called crimes. As for my grandparents, I know my grandmother loved to sing and that she had a beautiful voice. My grandfather was a gentle, loving man. He was a rancher and a businessman. My mother has a million and one stories about what it was like growing up with her parents and her many uncles and her aunt. But all I have of them are those stories and the fading, creased photographs. So I'll continue to wander through antique stores and estate sales, running my hands over the polished grain of cherry and mahogany. I'll bring home vintage gowns that my grandmother might have worn when she was a young woman and add to my collection of delicate silver reticules. I'll keep searching out those pieces of discontinued Wedgwood china and the cobalt glass that glows like the Caribbean Sea at midnight. And for each of these treasures that once belonged to someone else, I'll find a special place in my own home and in my own heart. |
Copyright © 1997 Maria C. Walljasper. All rights reserved.