Carmichael, California. The ancestral Goligowski family home. This is my aunt Norma, one of the triumvirate of favorite aunts in my life. This place feels like home, aunt Norma and uncle Herman have lived here for 45 years. We arrived here yesterday to a cacophony of sounds, noises and boisterous activity. It was their Easter gathering and there were about 42 people here in all. They have raised a family of 6 and now have 18 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren and assorted hangers on. Her children here (5) are all my 1st cousins, some I haven’t seen in 40 years. I think some I have never seen. Her 6th is Jeanne who I visited in Ft. Collins earlier in my journey. After everyone has left we talk late into the night about her family and the wider Loegering clan. She has some illuminating insights into people and events. One conclusion we make is that we both had the privilege of being raised and spoiled by the same woman: my mother Zita. It is not too often people of different generations can say this. My mother was almost as much older than her as she (Norma) is of me. Norma and my Aunt Chris (Connie) were my mothers first two children, albeit only partially and not by birth. Only when she first began school did Norma learn who her real mother was.
In the morning we visit more until Herman says he hasn’t visited in the morning so much in a long time, he finally says it is time to set the chickens free and went outside to his acres of many living things. Some of these include a 40 year old blind goose, every kind of cherry tree you can imagine, flowers, plants and vegetables in a profusion of life. Interesting fact: he has a single tree that grows plums, apricots and peaches. This is due to grafting, a mysterious process where humans wave their enchanted wands over plants and they perform magic feats. Only here can you in one afternoon sit at a computer, rototill, feed chickens, play cribbage, do a crossword, learn horticulture, listen to polish polka music on an old 8 track player, get chased by an aggressive gander, watch a hawk come in for the kill and discuss world history.
We just received the sad news that my first cousin once removed, Brian Ihnken, was killed in a motorcycle accident on Holy Saturday. The shock of sudden death is all too familiar to me and is part of the human condition. I know the impact to those closest to him, their lives will never be the same. In saying this I also know that I am becoming more acclimated to the knowledge that I don’t want to be the same person I was. The pain of loss is more bearable as I move within the protection of the love of my extended family but will be tested again when I am home and alone. I can stand the pain but in beginning the process of reaching out and healing, I think there will be breaks in the darkness.
Mary and Brenda: I didn’t have much time with you but you seem like younger more outgoing versions of Jeanne. Which is a very good thing. I now am seeing Jeanne in a little newer light. She is kind of an artistic, mystical searcher getting back to our family’s horticultural roots.
Chris: A big former Navy man who is in the last scene of “The Deer Hunter” with Robert DiNiro. They used newsreel footage where Chris is running across the deck of an aircraft carrier as helicopters are shoved off into the sea. They were the last helicopters from the rooftop of the American embassy after the fall of Saigon. Did I ever tell you about SIDIPO. . . . . . .? A good man with a fun wife: Kelly.
Jon: I won’t say you are named after me but I don’t usually believe in coincidences. Your story of ministering to the wayward youth of Washington DC is a wonderful, difficult and tragic story. You obviously had the charisma to build a group of 30 into 150. But five suicides, one of them before your eyes, are too much for a 22 year old studying to be a priest. Your life has taken a different turn and your girls obviously adore you.
Herman: A more perfect patriarch could not be imagined. At 85 you run rings around most men, but you hug like most men of your generation don’t. You were the last man standing at the Security Park facility of McDonnell Douglas in Rancho Cordova. A place where Saturn IV and Saturn V rockets were tested. You sacrificed your hearing to America and helped Kennedy keep his promise that we would be on the moon by the end of the 60’s. I love your hunting stories: searching canyons until finding one, then moving downwind and keeping below sight lines so the Muledeer can’t see you, sometimes crawling hundreds of yards.
Norma: I’ve already said most of it because your family is your work of art. You drive like my little woman used to, as if you own the road, just not as mouthy as she was. Your reactions are still excellent. Your home and Anne’s home are the ancestral homes of the Goligowskis and Millers but they are run by Loegering women, who like running things, have steely resolve and other than you, tried to clear the world of hard drinking men. As your sisters age, they all begin to look the same except you, you are different. And I love you. Jon