The Lathe of Oppression

I don't remember much about my Maternal Grandmother, but the politics of twentieth-century Russia shaped her and her generation. They lived through the collapse of Tsarist Russia, the rise of the Soviet Union, and both World Wars. Forty-two members of my family were victims of the holocaust. When the Soviet Union started to break up, it was my turn to respond to the lathe of oppression.

In the late 1980’s, I was one of over a million refugees who escaped the Soviet Union after Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews. I brought my aging war hero mother and my brave preteen daughter to the United States with me. One generation later, we were US citizens and my daughter had two children of her own. They lived within a few miles of me, then within a couple blocks. The kids called me Yaya.

Now, I am a maternal grandmother, at least on our family tree. G. came first, early enough for my mother to meet her great-granddaughter. I have a photo of the two of them together. As a grandparent, I encouraged interest in figure skating, guitar, and other topics. Her brother B. was born years later and I was mostly a chauffeur for him.

In 2015, my family moved out of the neighborhood and out of the state to Stillwater, Oklahoma. Strangely, I was estranged even further on the few occasions they returned to Ohio. These brief visits were stressful for everyone. Eventually, the trips stopped and the silence from Stillwater grew intolerable.

I made a trip there, hoping to clear the air and reconnect. This backfired spectacularly, alarming the very people I was trying to connect with. Instead of communicating more, I was left with only scraps of information I could find on the internet. I learned after the fact that things were not going well.

I found a notice of divorce between my daughter and Chad Malone. They had met in Columbus and moved to Stillwater when he was offered a teaching job at Oklahoma State. In the court divorce settlement, B’s care was assigned to Chad, his adoptive father. For a while, I lost all contact with them.

Years went by. My toddler grandson grew up without me. I found them again in Colorado. I wrote Chad the letter I am sharing below and got no response. The letter is almost a year old. Brandon is now a teenager.

Hello Chad,

For quite some time I was planning to write you. You and I did not have a lot of time to interact, and we do not know each other. We just could make conclusions based on what we heard and what we observed translating it in our own way.

I came a difficult way to United States to give my daughter a better way of living and save her and my mom from deprivations and a war. My family has a long history of survival and the family roots should be protected and cherished.

Instead, something unexpected happened, and the family was destroyed. More than that, I lost connection with them by unknown to me reasons.

I am writing my memoirs of our immigration in greater detail. This means that I am writing about my daughter and grandkids in whom runs my blood, the blood of my parents and grandparents who also survived war and hunger. I want to finish my story with a good ending.

I want to be able to have contact with my grandson. How and when can we arrange a conversation?

Let’s talk about it.

Wishing you best. Hope you’ll convey my love to my grandson from Yaya.

This website and this letter to Chad are my attempt to reconnect with my grandchildren. Too many Americans I know have no idea where their family traces back to. If I had not moved to another city on another continent, I imagine with dread what their lives would be like. I won't forget my family roots, but they see “my Russian culture doesn’t fit into their American”.

I want my grandchildren to know how I brought their mother to America, how their great-grandmother struggled through World War II, and how prior generations lived and died without the freedom they now take for granted. Mostly, though, I want them to know that their Yaya thinks of them and misses them every day. They have the power to make my day and my life, with a simple call or hello.