Chapter Two
Gramma Lilly
My mother was always at my side when I was little. Apparently when she would occasionally drop me off at my grandparents’ place for the first few times, I would stand by the window and scream and cry for a very long time. I guess I felt safe with her. She was loving and kind and she would hold me and comfort me as a baby, singing me lullabies and rubbing my back to put me to sleep. My mother stayed at home with me as a baby, and she was always my go to, for everything. As I got older, My mom would always be very thoughtful, bringing up the topic of my birthday, a few days before, and she would make a point of making it a very special occasion. She would ask me what kind of cake I wanted and what I wanted for my birthday dinner, and then she would make both the cake and the meal, always. I knew I was loved. She was and is a wonderful cook and homemaker and she was always there for me.
I could always confide in my mom, and I often did. I grew up knowing mom’s care and love through her warm embrace, her cheerful attitude, and her strong spirit. My laundry was always clean and great food and fresh baking was always thoughtfully prepared. Growing up I took that all (mostly) for granted. Mom would on many occasions, be in the kitchen humming a song and preparing something to cook. My mother’s family was large, she had three brothers and a sister, and her parents, George and Lilly, lived just outside of Prince Albert to the West on an acreage. Mother and I would often go out to Gramma’s place on a Friday night, when my dad and my Grandpa were both out working on a train (My grandpa George was also a train conductor). Many times when we would go out to gramma’s, gramma would cook peroheya, which is Ukrainian for pierogies.
“Eat heartily Honey,…!” Gramma Lily would half-say, half call-out with great encouragement and a warm smile as she watched from across the dining room table with stern concentration, my face, as I took a mouthful of the warm pierogies with butter and onions, dipped in sourcream…. Perogies and other Ukrainian food were almost a staple food for us when I was little. The pierogies we ate were handmade by a local Prince Albert woman, Ukrainian, of course, or by Granny Hryhor, who was Gramma Lilly’s mother. Granny Hryhor had come to Canada from the Ukraine in the early 1900s.
Gramma Lilly had a wonderful way of preparing pierogies. First she boiled them and then she strained out the boiling water and transferred the tender Peroheya (pierogies) into a frying pan filled with liquefied butter and Breton Cracker crumbs (sometimes she would do butter and onions). She would then mix them in the butter crumb mixture, gently with a wooden spoon and then thoughtfully add salt and pepper,…. She never spoke about the cost or the amount of work involved, and she always had canned or bottled Coke or Schwepp’s Ginger Ale in her fridge and I didn’t need to ask permission to help myself, something I never got to drink at home….
Gramma Lilly and Grandpa George lived in a beautiful big home nestled in the pines just outside Prince Albert to the West. Their home was decorated with paintings, statues, and various artwork that she and Grandpa had acquired through their extensive travels. They kept big guard dogs too, and when you went in the back door and up the stairs into the kitchen there were some red coloured sausages hanging from the wall, very lifelike- but actually plastic. Gramma had a magnet on the fridge that said “never trust a skinny cook” and the guest washroom had wallpaper that had black and white newspaper like advertisements, and interesting sayings and faces. The dogs they kept over the years, I adored, and became very well acquainted with and very often would go outside and play with them for hours at a time.
Gramma Lilly’s house was, therefore, a popular destination for us, what with the dogs and the house coupled with Gramma’s warm hospitality and her love for food and family, all of this brought us there very often and the times at her house were overflowing with happiness,… Afterall, all I would do at her house was play and eat and get warm and strong hugs from my grandparents,… that and praise and cheery kindness,… Sure sometimes I remembered the OCD thoughts, but they were drowned in peroheya, coke, and hours spent running outside with the big jolly guard dogs Azar, the handsome German shepherd, and Jacques, a noble looking Bouvier Des Flandres.
Gramma Lilly’s mother, my great grandmother, I called Granny Hryhor. Her first husband was Michael Katamay, but he passed away and she remarried to a man named Frank Ryhor. She lived with her second husband, Frank, in the West flat of Prince Albert, in a small war-time house. She was often calling our house asking me directly with no introductory small talk,“where’s mom?” when I answered the telephone with a “Hello, this is Jesse speaking,…” She had a strong Ukrainian accent (it sounded more like “ways mam?”) and her English was a little rough, so it was easy to recognize her instantly on the other end of the phone,… “Oh, Hi Granny!” I would say politely,…” Mom’s not home right now,” I’d explain, and then she would ask about my dad,… and I would tell her that he too was gone, and she would often say,… “Tell, mom I got Peroheya…” Peroheya was Ukrainian for Pierogies. “Ok Granny I will,” I would reply,… and then she would just hang up the phone as it was not her custom to say “goodbye.”
Mother and I often visited Granny Hryhor and Grandpa Frank, especially in summer, and it was always interesting. She grew a big garden and she made all kinds of dill pickles, canned raspberries, Borscht (beet soup), cabbage rolls and of course, my favorite, peroheya, all of which she gave very generously. When we would arrive she would always offer me a ginger-ale and vanilla ice-cream float, and before we left on several occasions she would say “wait a minute” then she would come out of her room and say “here this is for Jassey” and she would place a twenty dollar bill in my hand and I would gawk at it incredulously! “Thank you Granny!” I would say with great enthusiasm and slow, sincere, deliberation to make it as heartfelt as possible. I knew from a young age that 20 dollars was very generous, and I made sure to show my appreciation. Therefore, all of these warm spirited people, and these positive feelings) gave me a very solid foundation of courage, hope, and strength in spirit despite my dilemma that had manifested with the underwear incident. I guess the foundation was there instantaneously, powered in the manifested forms of my family and its various people, and also in the forms of warmth and loving kindness.. I feel this now but for a long time, I was bitter and angry– furious, actually. I turned bitter and spiteful slowly, starting in 1995- where I found myself in a downward spiral of despair until about 2020. The decline was grueling and constant, and now it is obvious that exactly during the times of my greatest despair and unhappiness and the worst OCD(anxiety) and depression, I refused to even acknowledge the possibility of any type of spiritual force or entertain any kind of notion of any type of higher power. It is no coincidence. Disbelief and contempt for the Spiritual was, I am quite certain, a contributing factor in the severity of my OCD and depression.
Granny Hryhor often mentioned “Church” and she went every Sunday. Every year on January 7th, we would go to Granny’s house for Ukrainian Christmas celebrations, for which Granny prepared a special meal. Carolers would often come and they would speak in Ukrainian and then they would sing a carol in Ukrainian in beautiful harmony, and Grandpa Frank would make a speech and thank them in Ukrainian. We feasted on Peroheya and roast chicken, poppyseed soup and cabbage rolls, mushroom gravy and cherry pie. Dad told me that in the early years of their marriage, Grandpa Frank would serve all sorts of liquor on Ukrainian Christmas including Cherry Brandy and bottled beer.
Grandma Lilly and my son Shinzo, visiting at Aunty Candy’s place in Vancouver, B.C. It’s so great for the younger generations to hear the stories of the older generations.
My other grandparents, George and Lilly, and Bob and Marjorie always had Christmas gatherings for several days around the 25th of December. I came to really look forward to and love the Christmas season as it was really nothing short of magical. I remember with particular fondness on Christmas day in the evening, every year at Grandpa George’s, someone would go out into town and pick up Granny Hryhor and Granny Paul (Grandpa George’s mother) and bring them out to Grandpa’s place for Christmas dinner. The grannies would sit beside each other, near the fire, with their hands thoughtfully placed in their laps and they would quietly visit, often in Ukrainian, catching up with each other on the past year’s events as they only met once a year on Christmas day. They would visit while kids ran about playing with their new toys, and gramma Lilly worked tirelessly with my mom and several of my aunties in the kitchen getting all of the food prepared for Christmas Dinner. There was a real tree with heaps of presents underneath, and they had a nice stereo system that played all kinds of soft Christmas music. In those days, I believed wholeheartedly in Santa Claus, and in God and Jesus Christ and all the stories in the bible, and despite my misgivings about the odd bout of severe anxiety, I was a very happy child. I thought that life would always be that joyful, that Christmas time would always be that magical, and that the life that was in store for me was going to be absolutely excellent. I took it all for granted, but looking back on it now, it was simply,… amazing!
