An Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree...
I have never known anything about my heritage prior to my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were immigrants through Ellis Island, and we don’t even know the true spelling of my mom’s maiden name. Her dad died when she was four, and while I knew her mother, I was afraid of her. She was a large, loud woman who spoke broken English with a thick Polish accent. She died when I was 13, before I was brave enough to ask her about her life and family and understand that I shouldn’t have been afraid. I should have been proud. I knew my paternal grandmother a little, seeing her maybe twice a year, but I never had a true conversation with her. My dad was the oldest of 14, and he had left home before five of his siblings were born, so he didn’t know most of them well. His dad died when I was 5, so I have only a vague slightly scary memory of my grandfather, who my mother considered a ne’er-do-well. So I knew names and death dates of these grandparents, but that was it. O...