Like the lace handkerchief

Saturday. February 3, 2007

Dear Mago,
Monday is Babcia's, my Swedish mother’s, birthday. She's turning 92. We’ll celebrate tomorrow at Sunday mass, followed by a breaking of bread and a toast with champagne at home. Babcia doesn’t long for birthday cake these days (if ever), but more for family attention and peace. I, on the other hand - who can still seek solace in puerile dreams - find myself looking forward to a big piece of “princesstårta”, justifying my appetite as requisite fuel for next week's work, for an abiding need to support myself.

Babcia is just about the same age now as you were when I last saw you in Los Altos. I’ve told her that I am publishing your diary from the war years, but I don’t think she’s interested. Having come to Sweden from a concentration camp in Poland, on a Red Cross bus, she has her own relationship to World War II. She does, however, ask about mom’s health (yes, your dear daughter-in-law Anne is now in her 91st year). It seems that people with whom we share firsthand memories, especially of our own generation, take natural precedence over others. Maybe that's why Babcia once washed and ironed the lace handkerchief that Anne left on her visit to Sweden in the early 1970s, safekept it and returned it to her in the US several decades later. This seems hardly to be another symptom of postwar coquetry or dalliance, but quite the contrary: of consideration, perhaps for unexpressed grief. But what do I know? We call these nonagenarian grannies who, like the iron curtain, separate your generation from mine, our "iron ladies" - hotheaded and hard, stubborn and vociferous, flat and simple, backward as they can be thoughtful.

Since computers are not a part of Babcia’s generation, our “iron ladies” remain innocently unaware of the virtues and vices of modern technology. Or do they? While informing about plans for her last birthday, mother Anne suddenly said: “I don’t mean to interrupt you darling, but what is a blog?” Apparently satisfied by my answer, she simply responded: “Thank you dear, I knew you could explain.” Hallelujah! A vote of confidence! Perhaps I can be called on to witness, in the ultimate court of conscience, and bridge times past and present.

If so, let it be known that I've always enjoyed your jingles, like the rhymes on personal gifts - knowing that they are not intended for the world. I notice too that the word “faithful” appears in the opening sentence of both of your last entries. Last week you feared that you wouldn’t be very faithful to your diary. Today, less than a week later, you are already prepared to confirm your fears. Is this deliberate evidence of a typical female tendency to be self-effacing? Perhaps you are expressing a legitimate fear - of a lack of time for reflection. I have to admit that I need at least a week in between your entries to reflect and comment on them. Babcia's birthday isn't until Monday and already I'm preparing. Distance, time and space, are prerequisites for reflection. And sometimes I wonder if faithfulness – like a lace handkerchief left somewhere behind – is quickly finding itself at home in an obsolete world.
Love,
your granddaughter