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Searching for My Mother's Son
Maria Nolan
Australia
09 November 2001
Part II:
This article was written by my half brother after he returned to his home town in Poland, it was published in the local paper. They are his thoughts and emotions about the separation from his mother and then the reunion and her death 4 days after his arrival. It has been edited for privacy reasons using (xxxxx) in place of names and towns.
Polskie Drogi (Polish Roads)
Kazik was born in January 1939 in (Poland), when he was 6 months old world war 2 erupted which mixed up his biography. At the beginning of 1940 Hitler’s army moved the entire family to work in Germany. Kazik with his grandparents were transported to a small village, in Germany, but his mother was sent to the north of the country. Grandparents looked after (Kazik during the war and his mother had no way of contact with her family or her young son. After the war ended he and his grandparents returned home to Poland and lived in a small house on the grounds of the health resort because grandfather was able to get a job there.
Kazik's mother stayed in Germany and was trying to find her family. There she married a Polish man from Lublin in 1946. In the year 1949 when Kazik was to do his 1st communion a letter arrived from his mother who was still in Germany. She was informing the family that she was going to migrate to Australia and wanted to take her young son with her. Grandparents didn’t agree and did not want to let Kazik go as they loved and cared for him as if he was their own child.
In 1950 after his mother’s migration to Australia contact with the family in Poland ceased. The political situation in Poland in those post war years didn’t favour the spread of correspondence and contact with families outside the borders. Kazik’s mother by then was involved with bringing up her other children, 2 daughters and 2 sons and trying to keep the family together as well as working. Life in Australia was no bed of roses. It was hard work constantly occupied with the family, children and everything that is a daily task.
Kazik lived with his grandparents, finished school, did his service in the army, married and had his own family. Very often he would think about his mother, but he had no news from Australia. He then started to think that his mother is probably dead and he would never get to see her or meet her.
Kazik’s mother was organising her life in far away Australia but needed to make contact with her son, she didn’t know where he lived. Her daughter Marysia was writing letters to all the government and civilian offices and churches in Poland to try and find his address. Received various names of people with the same name but no match and no address. At long last in 1999 she received news that Kazik her 1st born child still lived in Poland and she received his address. In autumn 1999 Kazik received a letter from his mother and this started the correspondence. In spring 2000 came an invitation and plane tickets for Kazik and his wife to come to Australia. On the 26th June 2000 he and his wife left Poland for Australia. This was the beginning towards the meeting of son and mother, 61 year old Kazik and his 80 year old mother, to meet for the first time since he was a few months old.
It is difficult to write about the moment of their first meeting, A very sick older woman lying in her bed looked at her 1st born son as a grown man. A joyful meeting mixed with tears, very moving and happy as well as the fullfilment of a dream of such that no one would have dreamt or would have thought it could come true. And the mother who for 60 years would have thought about her son and that towards the end of her days she would actually meet her son. To touch, kiss and hug just like before the 60 years had gone. And he at first glance sees her, he doesn’t know her. He always missed her the one who gave him life and fed him- so close, close. Raining questions, questions and a lot of talking. Mother is asking son about his life, his wife, his children and grandchildren, about her dear homeland. Kazik & his wife showed her photos of the family and the park and church and memorabilia from her town. Kazia looking at the photos cries but is happy to see her family. Because over all these years she would always wonder and think about the past especially at night when she closed her eyes and with a kaleidoscope would shift herself to her Polish postcard and her young life.
Kazik with his wife met their families in Australia, brothers and sisters as well as their immediate families. Everybody is very happy that at last the whole family is complete. Now they can get to know each other, talk about their lives, their families and to get to know about their different countries and how they live.
Unfortunately what is beautiful is short lived sometimes, then starts the sad and harsh reality. On the 4th July 2000 Kazik’s mother was letting go of her earthly body. Death comes quickly like it was simplified, the days between gave Kazik time to meet his mother and inevitably she wanted to take what belonged to her. In place of the happiness after mother and sons meeting comes the days of mourning and the last farewell at the funeral in far away Australia. Family of Kazik said that mother was very ill after a few strokes but she waited for him, she extraordinarily came through the strokes and stayed alive for those days for herself , her son and the entire family.
After the funeral Kazik wanted to go home to Poland as soon as possible. His happiness with meeting his mother changed to thoughts of nostalgia, longing for his own family and his homeland.
Brothers and sisters in Australia organised site seeing trips around Sydney- they saw the preparations for the Olympics, they could have possibly stayed to see the sportsmen from all over the world, but Kazik was reliving his meeting and the loss of his mother and needed to be back home in his own surroundings, his family and his homeland.
On July 26th Kazik and his wife returned home to Poland. The family in Australia have been keeping constant contact with kazik and his family and are thinking of visiting the land of their parents birth, meeting once again with their brother and his family in Poland
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Return to: Part I
This article appears here with the permission of the author.
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