When the call came, Letycja Wojcik was expecting it. She’d rehearsed it in her mind a half-dozen times, which ended up helping not one damn bit.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon –” she choked up for a second “soonasIcan.”
She hung up and hurried out into the black morning. The sky was a sheet of angry grey clouds, typical for this time of year.
“You’re listening to WVAR and now here’s the Top of the Morning News,” the woman on the radio declared in a far too eager voice. “In Washington, Congressional hearings continue for Supreme Court nominee –”
Letycja grunted, switched the radio off and drove down the dark streets in silence. After a few minutes, she pulled onto the highway. The only people other than her out at this hour were the snow plows. Letycja fell in behind one and then gritted her teeth and passed it, despite the slush and ice on the highway.
On and on went Federal 44, out of Orchard Park, past the new Buffalo Airport, past the sprawling Curtiss-Wright factory complex straddling the OP/West Seneca line, past the stadium, and finally into Lackawanna. She left the highway, passed a cemetery, a seminary, and a preschool, probably some kind of metaphor there, and then hung a right onto a side street. There was the hospital. OLV - Our Lady of Victory.
Every time she came there, every time she read the name, Letycja wondered if it hurt the local Poles – the ones born there, the ones who remembered. There was no victory for them, no miracle of Lepanto, no miracle of the Vistula, only defeat, exile and, one by one, death in foreign lands.
Letycja parked across the street and then jogged over to the big red-brick building.
The woman working the front desk recognized both Letycja and the look on her face. “Go on up, hon,” she said. “I’ll sign you in.”
Letycja murmured her thanks as she hurried to the elevator. She stabbed the button for the sixth floor and shifted from one foot to the other as the elevator slowly climbed up.
A soft chime pinged and each number flashed a little as the floors went by.
Letycja shut her eyes for a second. She remembered the time he’d seen her off to Camp Barlow for Basic Training, wondered how he felt, wondered if he somehow hoped things would go wrong and she’d end up shooting Germans. Probably not. But...
Jesus, what’s wrong with me?
Letycja exhaled, opened her eyes, as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open.
605 was two left turns and then eight doors down a long hallway from the elevator.
She pushed her way into the room and took it all in.
A nurse she sort of knew, a doctor she definitely knew and liked and hated at the same time, and the hospital chaplain, a young Nigerian-American priest.
And on the bed, silent and asleep, her grandfather Zdzisław Wisniewski, her dear old dziadzia. He was dying, had been dying for two years, and now this was it.
“Good morning, detective,” Dr. Makowski murmured.
Letycja nodded at him, at the nurse and at the priest, all at once, then looked at the little man on the hospital bed. How did you get so small, dziadzia? she asked herself. In her memories, in her mind’s eye, he was still the big ex-boxer, the former Marine who carried her around on his shoulders.
She balled her fists, clenched them tight, nails digging into her palms. It turned out she’d only thought she’d gotten used to, accepted, the thing that was eating him up from the inside, making the big man a little thing beneath a thin, starchy sheet, a little person surrounded by machines and tubes.
“Morning,” Letycja mumbled.
“It will not be very long now,” Father Usanga said in a low voice.
Letycja nodded. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. “Is he... has he woken up at all since last night?”
That had been rough. Just her and him, and Father Usanga administering the Last Rites.
She wondered if dziadzia even knew what was going on. He’d spoken, but softly, in broken peasant Polish that Letycja couldn’t quite understand. Did he know? Did it hurt?
“I’m sorry, he hasn’t,” Dr. Makowski said.
Letycja heaved a sigh and rubbed her eyes for a minute. “Yeah. Okay.” She sighed again. “I want to sit with him. Alone.”
“Of course. We’ll be right out in the hallway.”
Letycja nodded and turned her back to the door as the three left as quietly as they could.
She lifted up the plastic and faux-leather chair and pulled it closer to the bed, then sat down.
“Hello, dziadzia. It’s me, it’s – hnh – it’s Little Letty,” she said as she leaned closer to him. There was no movement except the painfully shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed with the help of the machines. His eyes were closed, his lips open only enough to let in a tube. “I’m here. It’s morning now, you know? Looks like it’s gonna snow again.”
The EKG next to the bed beeped softly every couple seconds.
Letycja gently laid her hand atop his small, liver-spotted one.
“Your turkeys were out again last night. I saw them down by the creek.” She took a deep breath, held it, exhaled. “And the deer, too. Tracks all over the side of the driveway.” Dziadzia and his deer. Up until six or seven years ago, when his knees got bad, he went hunting up in the Adirondacks. But the deer that lived in the woods around his house, those were practically his pets. It didn’t make any damn sense to her.
The EKG kept beeping, softly, steadily. Letycja lifted her eyes from his face and stared at the monitor.
It was getting slower. The beeps just a little farther apart.
She shivered and shut her eyes for a second, then opened them and looked down.
“I remember the song you taught me when I was little. What you sang when I cried.” She took a ragged breath and leaned forward a little more. “Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła, Kiedy my żyjemy, Co nam obca przemoc wzięła, Szablą odbierzemy.”
Memories rose up into her mind’s eye. The two of them fishing in the little green pond by his house, or else on Neuman Creek just up the road. They’d gone fishing the day after her parents were buried at Holy Sepulchre. That was when he’d taught her the song, the anthem, really, but to her it was just The Song.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski, Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem.”
A white dress, a lacy veil, new shoes, flowers, the altar rail of Our Lady of Exile, the Eucharist for the first time, looking back and seeing him there in his old uniform, all the colorful badges and bars, the five gold stripes on his shoulders, standing at attention with the biggest smile in the world on his face.
“Przejdziem Wisłę, przejdziem Wartę, Będziem Polakami, Dał nam przykład Bonaparte, Jak zwyciężać mamy.”
Graduations. Ellicott Road Middle School, Orchard Park Central High, Basic Training, the Buffalo Police Academy. No matter what, he was there, either in the uniform he loved to wear (especially at an Army ceremony) or the suit he hated to wear.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem.”
Baking pierogi together, either in the little old house on Dartmouth Avenue in the city or else the house by the pond later on. The time she remembered best had been just after Zofia’s funeral. They’d been married forty years, since even before he came to America, and Letycja came into the kitchen and saw him just standing there, looking so lost. And crying. The only time she’d ever seen him cry.
“Jak Czarniecki do Poznania... Po szwedzkim zaborze... Dla ojczyzny ratowania... Wrócim się przez morze.”
Going to Bombers games at the old Gioia Stadium downtown. When she was a kid, all the way through high school, it was the same every Sunday. Mass, then either heading into the city to watch the home games or back home for the away games. Three months ago had been the last time. The Bombers played the Bears and squeezed out a win in overtime. He’d fallen asleep in the third quarter and woke up afterwards, mistaking her for someone who’d been dead for twenty years. She’d cried most of the way home from the nursing home.
The beeping of the EKG was slower still now.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem.”
All the stories he told. Stories about his days in the Marines – boot camp, being stationed in the south of England, two tours in Burma. Stories about his boxing days – the time he met Sonny Liston, the time he knocked out Malik Wilder in the eighth round, the time he went twelve rounds with Golden Joe Kavanaugh.
“Już tam ojciec do swej Basi, Mówi zapłakany – Słuchaj jeno, pono nasi, Biją w tarabany.”
All the stories he didn’t tell. The family, the old country, the war, the camp, sneaking across 2000 miles of Nazi-occupied Europe, the sister he’d lost along the way (a great-aunt that Letycja didn’t even know she had until six years ago). Stories he didn’t tell, stories she’d never asked about, and now never could. Little pieces of Poland lost forever.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem...”
The beeping stopped.
* * *
WISNIEWSKI – Gunnery Sergeant Zdzisław, USMC (ret)
Of Orchard Park, NY on January 15, 2018. 91 years old. Born in Labiszyn, Poland. Devoted husband of the late Zofia Wisniewski. Loving father of the late Antek Wisniewski and late Marta Wojcik (nee Wisniewski). Adored grandfather of Letycja Wojcik. Friends will be received 4-8 PM, Friday, at AMARANTE FUNERAL HOME, 6404 West Quaker Street, Orchard Park, NY, 716-555-9320. A Requiem Mass will be held on Saturday, 9:30 AM at Our Lady of Exile Church, Orchard Park. Please assemble at church. Memorials may be made to the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon –” she choked up for a second “soonasIcan.”
She hung up and hurried out into the black morning. The sky was a sheet of angry grey clouds, typical for this time of year.
“You’re listening to WVAR and now here’s the Top of the Morning News,” the woman on the radio declared in a far too eager voice. “In Washington, Congressional hearings continue for Supreme Court nominee –”
Letycja grunted, switched the radio off and drove down the dark streets in silence. After a few minutes, she pulled onto the highway. The only people other than her out at this hour were the snow plows. Letycja fell in behind one and then gritted her teeth and passed it, despite the slush and ice on the highway.
On and on went Federal 44, out of Orchard Park, past the new Buffalo Airport, past the sprawling Curtiss-Wright factory complex straddling the OP/West Seneca line, past the stadium, and finally into Lackawanna. She left the highway, passed a cemetery, a seminary, and a preschool, probably some kind of metaphor there, and then hung a right onto a side street. There was the hospital. OLV - Our Lady of Victory.
Every time she came there, every time she read the name, Letycja wondered if it hurt the local Poles – the ones born there, the ones who remembered. There was no victory for them, no miracle of Lepanto, no miracle of the Vistula, only defeat, exile and, one by one, death in foreign lands.
Letycja parked across the street and then jogged over to the big red-brick building.
The woman working the front desk recognized both Letycja and the look on her face. “Go on up, hon,” she said. “I’ll sign you in.”
Letycja murmured her thanks as she hurried to the elevator. She stabbed the button for the sixth floor and shifted from one foot to the other as the elevator slowly climbed up.
A soft chime pinged and each number flashed a little as the floors went by.
Letycja shut her eyes for a second. She remembered the time he’d seen her off to Camp Barlow for Basic Training, wondered how he felt, wondered if he somehow hoped things would go wrong and she’d end up shooting Germans. Probably not. But...
Jesus, what’s wrong with me?
Letycja exhaled, opened her eyes, as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open.
605 was two left turns and then eight doors down a long hallway from the elevator.
She pushed her way into the room and took it all in.
A nurse she sort of knew, a doctor she definitely knew and liked and hated at the same time, and the hospital chaplain, a young Nigerian-American priest.
And on the bed, silent and asleep, her grandfather Zdzisław Wisniewski, her dear old dziadzia. He was dying, had been dying for two years, and now this was it.
“Good morning, detective,” Dr. Makowski murmured.
Letycja nodded at him, at the nurse and at the priest, all at once, then looked at the little man on the hospital bed. How did you get so small, dziadzia? she asked herself. In her memories, in her mind’s eye, he was still the big ex-boxer, the former Marine who carried her around on his shoulders.
She balled her fists, clenched them tight, nails digging into her palms. It turned out she’d only thought she’d gotten used to, accepted, the thing that was eating him up from the inside, making the big man a little thing beneath a thin, starchy sheet, a little person surrounded by machines and tubes.
“Morning,” Letycja mumbled.
“It will not be very long now,” Father Usanga said in a low voice.
Letycja nodded. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. “Is he... has he woken up at all since last night?”
That had been rough. Just her and him, and Father Usanga administering the Last Rites.
She wondered if dziadzia even knew what was going on. He’d spoken, but softly, in broken peasant Polish that Letycja couldn’t quite understand. Did he know? Did it hurt?
“I’m sorry, he hasn’t,” Dr. Makowski said.
Letycja heaved a sigh and rubbed her eyes for a minute. “Yeah. Okay.” She sighed again. “I want to sit with him. Alone.”
“Of course. We’ll be right out in the hallway.”
Letycja nodded and turned her back to the door as the three left as quietly as they could.
She lifted up the plastic and faux-leather chair and pulled it closer to the bed, then sat down.
“Hello, dziadzia. It’s me, it’s – hnh – it’s Little Letty,” she said as she leaned closer to him. There was no movement except the painfully shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed with the help of the machines. His eyes were closed, his lips open only enough to let in a tube. “I’m here. It’s morning now, you know? Looks like it’s gonna snow again.”
The EKG next to the bed beeped softly every couple seconds.
Letycja gently laid her hand atop his small, liver-spotted one.
“Your turkeys were out again last night. I saw them down by the creek.” She took a deep breath, held it, exhaled. “And the deer, too. Tracks all over the side of the driveway.” Dziadzia and his deer. Up until six or seven years ago, when his knees got bad, he went hunting up in the Adirondacks. But the deer that lived in the woods around his house, those were practically his pets. It didn’t make any damn sense to her.
The EKG kept beeping, softly, steadily. Letycja lifted her eyes from his face and stared at the monitor.
It was getting slower. The beeps just a little farther apart.
She shivered and shut her eyes for a second, then opened them and looked down.
“I remember the song you taught me when I was little. What you sang when I cried.” She took a ragged breath and leaned forward a little more. “Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła, Kiedy my żyjemy, Co nam obca przemoc wzięła, Szablą odbierzemy.”
Memories rose up into her mind’s eye. The two of them fishing in the little green pond by his house, or else on Neuman Creek just up the road. They’d gone fishing the day after her parents were buried at Holy Sepulchre. That was when he’d taught her the song, the anthem, really, but to her it was just The Song.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski, Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem.”
A white dress, a lacy veil, new shoes, flowers, the altar rail of Our Lady of Exile, the Eucharist for the first time, looking back and seeing him there in his old uniform, all the colorful badges and bars, the five gold stripes on his shoulders, standing at attention with the biggest smile in the world on his face.
“Przejdziem Wisłę, przejdziem Wartę, Będziem Polakami, Dał nam przykład Bonaparte, Jak zwyciężać mamy.”
Graduations. Ellicott Road Middle School, Orchard Park Central High, Basic Training, the Buffalo Police Academy. No matter what, he was there, either in the uniform he loved to wear (especially at an Army ceremony) or the suit he hated to wear.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem.”
Baking pierogi together, either in the little old house on Dartmouth Avenue in the city or else the house by the pond later on. The time she remembered best had been just after Zofia’s funeral. They’d been married forty years, since even before he came to America, and Letycja came into the kitchen and saw him just standing there, looking so lost. And crying. The only time she’d ever seen him cry.
“Jak Czarniecki do Poznania... Po szwedzkim zaborze... Dla ojczyzny ratowania... Wrócim się przez morze.”
Going to Bombers games at the old Gioia Stadium downtown. When she was a kid, all the way through high school, it was the same every Sunday. Mass, then either heading into the city to watch the home games or back home for the away games. Three months ago had been the last time. The Bombers played the Bears and squeezed out a win in overtime. He’d fallen asleep in the third quarter and woke up afterwards, mistaking her for someone who’d been dead for twenty years. She’d cried most of the way home from the nursing home.
The beeping of the EKG was slower still now.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem.”
All the stories he told. Stories about his days in the Marines – boot camp, being stationed in the south of England, two tours in Burma. Stories about his boxing days – the time he met Sonny Liston, the time he knocked out Malik Wilder in the eighth round, the time he went twelve rounds with Golden Joe Kavanaugh.
“Już tam ojciec do swej Basi, Mówi zapłakany – Słuchaj jeno, pono nasi, Biją w tarabany.”
All the stories he didn’t tell. The family, the old country, the war, the camp, sneaking across 2000 miles of Nazi-occupied Europe, the sister he’d lost along the way (a great-aunt that Letycja didn’t even know she had until six years ago). Stories he didn’t tell, stories she’d never asked about, and now never could. Little pieces of Poland lost forever.
“Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski, Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski. Za twoim przewodem, Złączym się z narodem...”
The beeping stopped.
* * *
WISNIEWSKI – Gunnery Sergeant Zdzisław, USMC (ret)
Of Orchard Park, NY on January 15, 2018. 91 years old. Born in Labiszyn, Poland. Devoted husband of the late Zofia Wisniewski. Loving father of the late Antek Wisniewski and late Marta Wojcik (nee Wisniewski). Adored grandfather of Letycja Wojcik. Friends will be received 4-8 PM, Friday, at AMARANTE FUNERAL HOME, 6404 West Quaker Street, Orchard Park, NY, 716-555-9320. A Requiem Mass will be held on Saturday, 9:30 AM at Our Lady of Exile Church, Orchard Park. Please assemble at church. Memorials may be made to the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America.
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