I recently with my mom, brother, and grandmother to see where my grandmother had immigrated from over 70 years ago. As we drove through the mountainside, my grandmother told stories about her youth, the members of her family, and what strength and good-hearted stubbornness it took for her to in search of a better life. We mapped the far distances she traveled, imagining what it was like to scale the mountains without the modern transportation that stands there now.
She moved to the US and left her family behind My 91-year-old grandmother, who we lovingly call Grosi, when she was 20. She left 10 siblings and her mother behind, struggling to make ends meet so she could have a better life and support her family. Grosi pointed out where she used to pick blueberries as a little girl, where the one-room schoolhouse was where boys learned math and science, where girls learned homemaking and sewing, and where the Post office was.
We drove past where her mother's house was, imaging her mother still at the garden gate, tending to her flowers. I felt the weight of the country's history, being able to map back to where everything happened for my grandmother and her family. I saw the pride and excitement on her face that she could share our history and heritage with us.
I could imagine her as a young girl, and taking in the unchanged landscape we looked at together. The country itself felt frozen in time at moments, many of the old buildings preserved through the ages. She showed us so mu.
