Lithuanian dream-time part 1

Lithuanian dream-time

By E. Michael. Bablin

There were only a few Lithuanian words I would understand. The words were Christmas time words spoken by Grandfather, he would speak these words they would sound very far away and very close at the same time. Watching him speak they seemed one by one to slide past his tongue and to meet the golden air of new beginnings like 1906 and steamers crossing the Atlantic and new days in America.  At Christmas, it was different. There was Christmas Eve dinner, which was the most important of all evenings. Sometimes, there was a plate set aside for dead relatives who would want to join them in the celebrations. But he would hear stories of Grandpa Bablinskas, who fell asleep during a picnic, near the cemetery, and when he woke in the graveyard the next morning with the drowsy air of fogginess in his eyes, in the early morning, mist hung over him like the cloud of the afterlife. He thought he was dead. He began to get up and stumbled in a daze, like the days of all the old ones who stepped off that boat on the shores of Ellis Island after ten days at sea to land in a place called America. This was real Lithuanian story, the one that spoke of factory working and the Priests farm which was a park with a band stand, apple orchards and family plots the Lithuanian families could plant summer crops. Lithuania was born in Amsterdam, NY, on May 28th, 1904. By 1905, Father Z came to town. And stopped the factory working men from fighting like goats in a bar. He purchased lots and a farm.

That’s what it was called before it was the cemetery. In 1906, the spot became the farm. Then the farm became the park Where the young Lithuanians would come and enjoy life look up at the sun and for that moment in the park, they were in Lithuania.

Knowing all this, I planted beans, played hockey, and sailed away on the Chuctanunda creek totally unaware that 100 years ago all the grandparents of Lithuania who were 15 years old  dreamed and sat on summer lawns of past 1910’s summer suns by that same Creek. All in dreams and green leaves reflecting Sun glow on each tree like the trees that Grandma Kerbelis was sure to see. Like those leaves that turned into the Sun’s glowing and were soon covered with snow only to repeat the process year after year. I was 15, I found a map of Lithuania from the 1930s. It was old, incredibly old. There were creases in the pages. If you move it, it fell apart in your hands as it turned, still there are cities, towns, rivers, and all these on the map. Names I could not pronounce but wanted to. It was the map of all the world which began at Trakai Castle, gave the world every pure and golden sunshine day that could only come from old-time dreams of freedom. So, in my head, late at night, I see sisters and brothers in faraway places riding horses. Fighting Russians howling, mad, and fighting. Fighting for family, trees, and every lump of earth. I see great battles of old Lithuanian kings who conquered the land and couldn’t stop fighting because that’s what we must do. The maps flew on golden wings with the divine wind. They sailed away here with Grandpa Bablinskas and blessed the golden leaves that fell on the same cemetery he did not wake up in, on another day.