Beyond the Baltic :
Stories from the Polish Diaspora

My great-grandmother Agnieszka went into labor after coming back from the cemetery on All Saints’ Day on the night of November 1st, and gave birth to my grandmother the following day.

In an audio interview I had recorded with my grandmother back in 2016, she told me about how she always loved cemeteries - a trait I share with her. When she lived in Kraków, prior to my family’s immigration to Cleveland in 1968, she would walk around the Rakowicki cemetery with my uncle, pushing him in his stroller and reading the tombstones. She told me, after so many years, she still remembered what was written on one of the gravestones. The words that brought her solace would later be the words that gave me peace after her death in 2020. It was a reminder to take advantage of the precious time we have, despite the pain and suffering we experience. After finding the audio recording during the depth of my grief, we had these words inscribed on her gravestone. In 2023, her ashes were finally laid to rest in the cemetery across from the apple orchard she grew up on in Jodłownik, Poland.

English translation:

Passerby

step louder,

the silence terrifies me

and so does the vast emptiness and darkness of the cemetery.

Oh, to see the golden sun once more,

to cry to my heart's content and to feel

how my heart beats and how my heart aches.