Usually,
when uttering these words, my grandma – Buni, had that faraway look in her eyes,
and her voice would tremble a bit. On the few occasions she had time to sit and
take a breather from her never-ending chores, she used to tell us stories about
her life. Sometimes, she used the same words to scold us when we misbehaved. “Back
in my day, we ate everything our mother put in front of us” or “Back in my day,
kids weren’t such cheeky troublemakers. We used to respect our elders”.
But, of
course, we liked her stories best. They were usually about her childhood or her
years as a young wife and about the days before the Second World War. She
talked about the happy times, although we all knew about the bad ones, too. The
times when the communists took everything from them, throwing Buni in jail and
sending my grandfather to work on the Canal for being capitalists, the “enemies
of the socialist state”.
(My
grandfather was the kindest, most caring person. He had never hurt anybody in
his life.)
The regime
wanted to take their children – my mother and her brother – away from them and put them in an orphanage.
My great-aunt, Buni’s sister, took them in and provided for them by reading
cards, working as a sort of fortune teller.
But Buni
didn’t like to talk about those times. I am sure she remembered them, but I think
it was too painful for her to revisit. Going from a happy life to having almost
nothing left is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. She didn’t want to talk
about my grandfather’s illness either, after he was finally allowed to return home
from the Canal to die there, I suppose. She loved him very much and never
remarried.
Is it true
that we generally remember only the good times in our lives? That we tend to
paint a sheen of nostalgia over our past experiences?
Personally,
I don’t think so. I remember everything. Good and bad alike.
You won’t
hear me saying, for example, that communism was better than other regimes.
I remember the
dark period that marked my life, from childhood to young adulthood, so well. I
remember the long queues for milk at 5 o’clock in the morning, standing in the
freezing cold, the power outages, the lack of heating in our homes, the two
hours of propaganda programs on the TV.
Of course,
being young during that period meant I had some nice memories, too. Especially the
times spent with my friends.
I was a
stubborn, obstinate adolescent and I was determined not to let a dictatorial regime
strip my life of happiness. So I grabbed it whenever I could.
Because of
all this and because Buni’s words still echo in my head, I’ve decided to write
about that period, about that dark age in Romania’s history. I don’t want to
forget and I want others, those that were born after 1989 or those who were too
young to remember, to get a glimpse into what communism did to us.
If you have
stories of your own that you would like to tell , feel free to share them with
me. We’ll remember together.
(The photo of this post was taken in 1942, during Christmas. In the center of it is my grandmother, surrounded by family - my grandfather, her sister and grandfather's brother. Good times, hapy times, as you can see from my grandmother's smile)
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