Speak now or forever hold your “Piece”

True love, my grandfather invented it… This story embraces me, as to my roots both the romantic and the crazy running wild in my DNA… to love, to life, to my DNA…to God!

Speak now or forever hold your “Piece”

Have you ever walked down the aisle in life, dressed in white? Of course, I speak to those who are of the female gender, but wait let me be inclusive and timely, so I speak to all… Dressed in white a symbol of purity, not many are such I would leap to say not any are pure, even those within intact genital… Foolish man, thinking that it is of the physical that makes for virginity…

Here dare I say, I agree with St. Augustine the theologian with clear sexual issues. Yet in regards to what it means to be a virgin, I am on his side of fence when he states even the woman raped is still a virgin, such words elevate truth…. While I am on the subject of truth, I will now begin my “true story”…

My mom’s dad, my grandfather, (Grampy) the only grandparent I knew the others dying prior to my birth, a man born in Vienna,  Austria who spoke three languages, a builder and handy with a knife as well. He was somewhat of an artist, he carved and created works of art in his spare time and for his small granddaughter (that would be me, he made wooden puppets) somewhere in my keepsakes is a cross, Grampy craved out of coal.

 I find that most European born folks are a bit more “upfront and blunt”, about things in life, both men and women, my grandfather was no exception to this rule. I also have found through my own experiences with certain ethnic groups some are “in your face, love-ee-dove-ee types” or reserved maybe “cold emotionally types”… My grandfather never seemed to me as a child to be the “love-ee-dove- ee type”

Regards my father’s DNA he was a “purebred” so to say (yet since the borders of Poland changed so many times in history, who can say); my dad’s claim to DNA is 100% Polish. I always suspected there had been Russian present as well especially since there was talk of the Czar in the family when I was a child. My dad stemmed from a large poor family, 8 children and poverty was his childhood, his family remained tight and hence I was always surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins growing up…

It was my mom’s family though that intrigued me the most, especially Aunt Jenni my mom’s only sister, she was my godmother as well. Even as a young child, I always knew there was something different about Aunt Jenni and I liked “different” from an early age… as the saying goes, “NO ONE, tells me nothing!”… Growing up, I was never told of my family history on my mom’s side. That was given to me as a young adult as a “special inheritance” … the truth about “grandma” and Aunt Jenni…

My grandma Mary I never met her but as a child, I was told she was very religious kept a strict Eastern European household rooted in the Catholic Church. Priests would come to her home and bless it, food was blessed at Easter and she also was very active in funding raising for a church to be built… This was the “party line” I was given as a child about grandma a woman of tradition and religion. My mom would tell me about the pretty holiday linens my grandma would use and her ability to cook grand meals. As a child I developed an “imaginary grandma” from the descriptions I was given of her… She was sweet, pure, loving and cuddly in my mind, just the way everybody’s grandma was and certainly the type you read about in fairy tales.

One day… when I was a grown, I asked mom where was Aunt Jenni born and how long was grandpa and grandma married before she arrived on the scene… There was a pause and then my mother began the story…

Well, sweetheart my mom began you are old enough now to hear the truth, the truth I thought, haven’t I always been given the truth in life, are you saying, I have been lied to in life??? Is this going to be a pattern in life, people will lie to me and tell me it is the truth, only for me to find out it wasn’t! Oh, my G*d… people are lying to each other! And me!!!  Yes even back then, my thoughts would race…

Your grandma, my mom went on to say fell in “love”… I am starting to understand word usage better as in “fall” in love… when my grandmother “fell” in love; it was not with my grandfather!

Okay, now I am starting to lose emotional ground in regards to grandma, as my mother continued on I have to recalculate my “pretend grandma”… Grandma “fell in love”, with a Germany solider mom said, a married Germany solider.

Okay now I think grandma was from Poland, those borders were really breached, by the Germans on many levels unknown to me prior. My own grandma was now breached!!! 

 My mom continued her story…  Grandma, sweetheart my mom said became pregnant… OH MY G*D!!! Grandma with child, I thought and it Ain’t grandpa’s… My life is a sham what about those stories of priests and food blessings???   Mom’s story continued to be pregnant by a married man (and he is not your own married man) was very scandalous (I am thinking it is not the best option even now)… The German solider denied he was the father and went back to his wife… (now I am thinking where was Maury Povich, when my grandma needed him, he would have done a DNA test on that guy and shamed him before all American with a… “YOU ARE THE FATHER”)… the story continues…

Grandma gave birth and the child is your Aunt Jenni… AUNT JENNI! Was my response, yes my mother said…? Now the pieces are fitting into my life, I always did like Aunt Jenni on a special level I thought… Now I am totally into the story of grandma and I want to know how she met grandpa…

Well, sweetheart was mom’s reply, grandpa met grandma when Aunt Jenni was about 2 years old and he “fell” in love with her… (There is the “fell” word again. I wonder if “fell” is the original 4-letter word used in human history.) … 

Grandma was upfront with grandpa, mom said she told him the whole history of her life this caused grandpa to “fall” more in love with her, her depth of honesty seemed to be somewhat of an aphrodisiac for my grandfather… so he asked her to marry him…ah how sweet… except to his family who knew all about this “fallen woman” my future grandma…

If you marry her grandpa’s family said, at the wedding we will stand up and protest this marriage we will let it be known that she is a “fallen woman”… My grandfather replied “speak if you must but I will marry her and I will stand at the altar with a side arm and when someone stands up and speaks ill of bride, I will shoot them on the spot”….

 True to his word my grandfather married my “fallen grandma” with a side arm at his side… and he folded his jacket over the handle of the gun, so all could see he was armed just in case they thought his threat empty… No one spoke ill of my grandma that day and my grandpa spoke the words “I do” to her and they begot my mom, who begot me with my dad whose mom was a bootlegger and a very devout Catholic as well…

My mom ended this story with, sweetheart  I think it is time you learned of your great Aunt Julia as well she was a flapper and “involved with a few men who carried sub machine guns” and when they died their funeral entourages were miles long, for you see they were good Catholics and always donated money to the church…And I was shown photographs of Aunt Julia at one such funeral with many priests in attendance…

So why do I share this story… for it is true my eldest brother was given my grandpa’s special gun… and I write to show my pride in grandpa for being the most romantic man ever!!!! …

Willing to blow the knee caps off his family members if they trashed talked his bride… You might think this is an anti-religious piece as well as being totally crazy… to the contrary it is a testimony to the “Marriage of the Lamb”…

For you see I have this mental image of Jesus Christ standing at the altar waiting for his bride, (his church) with a side arm attached to his tunic waiting for anyone to say…. “Hey you cannot marry that one, she is such a slut, just look at her life and she never followed the rules and she was such a bitch…She ripped into doctrines and rules and dogma, what the hell, man, clearly she is a “fallen woman”…

 Like my grandma, I am clearly a fallen woman, like most of us on the planet, yet Jesus will marry us all with a side arm at his side ready to shoot if he has to the accusers who will say we never followed the rules… for you see the guy has “fallen in love” with us all… and our past does not matter, as it did not matter for my grandfather…

My grandparents wedding photo is hysterical, I will treasure it always…I hope they have a good photographer in heaven as well to snap some photos of Jesus Christ marrying his bride “the Church”…