CL Pauwels at Large

Family still haunts my thoughts and my writing – division, dysfunction, lack of communication, the many elephants in the room. And as we say farewell to yet another family elder, the questions continue to pile up:

• Grandpa L:
  • Which semi-pro baseball league did you play for? What position?
  • How did you, from Central Ohio, meet Grandma, from Central Wisconsin, in the early 1930s?
  • How did you end up settling in Woodville, of all places in between?
• Grandma L:
  • Ditto above: How did you, from Central Wisconsin, meet Grandpa, from Central Ohio, in the early 1930s?
  • How did become such an expert at tying flies (fishing lures) that you were part of the demo at the Chicago’s World Fair…and then never do it again?
  • What was the secret to your un-reproducible chicken paprikash?
  • Did your mother bring the washstand now in our home with her from Hungary?
• Nana:
  • Was there really a formal portrait of your grandfather in full Native American headdress, or did Dad imagine things? If so, what happened to it?
  • What tribe would that make us descendants of?
  • Who are the individuals pictured in the lovely sepia portraits we found buried in your bottom dresser drawer?
• Baba:
  • Why did you never mention your sister? Tell me about her.
  • How/why did you become the expert coin collector I always knew you as?
• Grandma C:
  • Why did you convert your first and middle name (per your birth certificate and early school writings) from two names into one by the time you were an adult?
  • How many generations has the family clock now in our kitchen really been around – since your mother? Your grandmother?
  • What’s the real story behind that family mystery no one would ever speak of?
  • Why were things so prickly between us?
• Grandma/Grandpa M:
  • What is the significance of the large swatch of red patterned silk preserved under glass that’s now in our care?
• Dad P:
  • What was your dad like?
• Mom P:
  • Why did you save a 6-inch rubber Pillsbury Doughboy in your cedar chest?
• Aunt G:
  • How did you survive those dark days living on the streets, and how did you find your way home again?
• Aunt P:
  • In a family of people who loved to laugh, what made you so angry?
• Uncle J:
  • Why did you always call me “Candy” when my name is Cyndi?
  • Where/why did you learn to play banjo?
  • Why did you leave the US Naval Academy at Annapolis mid-term when it seems a better fit for the nuclear physics you then studied at Ohio State?
• Great-Aunt Z:
  • Where did find the recipe for what is now the family-favorite Friendship Cookies, or did you create it yourself?

And what questions remain for those few elders still with us – that we should ask now, before it’s too late?