Not many people know that I have Polish roots – due to my great-grandfather. And since I didn’t grow up with any of its Slavic traditions, I felt far from Polish. But after my late great-grandma had revealed herself once, my great-grandfather might have sent some of his regards to me as well.

Poland

I knew his daughter – my beloved grandmother – and she bore her maiden name with proud. Because of her mother, who was Moluccan (part of Indonesia), she didn’t look like a typical Polish woman. And as a child I just looked at her as my grandma. But I still remember how she once told me that her maiden name originated from Poland. I just took it for granted, it didn’t really affect me. I just realized that hers was so much different from any Indonesian, or even Dutch, name.

Late Great-Grandma

When I grew up, I didn’t pay too much attention to my (many kinds of) roots. But my brother had always been – and still is to some degree – very interested in our family tree. So he would share pictures of my ancestors every now and then. And even though I knew this black and white picture of my grandmother with her parents and two of her younger siblings, I only started paying attention to it, once my late great-grandma had appeared in my life (which is another story).

Thrilled

My grandma was like a real grandmother to me – even though she had like dozens of grandchildren. She would stay over every once and a while, and I can still recall some of her great presents she had bought for me, when I was a kid: a mini pool table, and a pop-up book about ‘Puss in Boots’. I remember I was thrilled by the art of it. I just loved it.

Close to her

So I had this experience with my great-grandma (you can read about it in my blog ‘When she loves you dearly’). And when I did, as mentioned before, I started paying attention to this picture of hers, where she posed with her husband – my Polish great-grandfather – and some of her children, like my grandmother. At some point I even started to realize how much my great-grandfather must have meant to my own grandmother. Suddenly he didn’t seem like ‘some stranger’, a far away relative, but someone really close to my grandmother. I mean, it was her own dad, so you can imagine how close he must have been to her.

Huge Role

And this is were my great-grandfather comes in. One day I was looking for a new chair, and like a week before or so, I had thought of this picture of my grandma’s. I had looked at it, and I basically told myself that I would acknowledge my great-grandfather as my great-grandfather, as someone who had played a huge role in my family tree, as someone who meant something to my family and myself – even though my own dad didn’t even know him, because his granddad had passed away at a young age; I mean, young for a granddad.

So in order to find this new chair of mine, I looked for a great one on some website for second-hand stuff. Since I like velvet as material, I looked for such a chair. And once I found one – and a really affordable one – I contacted the owner of it. She turned out to live not far from my apartment, and I was welcome to pick up the chair the next day, or the following one. So I went to her flat, which was across this well-known horse riding school in the centre of Amsterdam (for people in Amsterdam: at the Overtoom). And because of the fact that her doorbell wasn’t working well, she told me that I should send her a message through the website, once I had arrived.

Little Name Tag

I got to this building with a very outstanding main door, almost like a wooden gate – with a bow – from the Middle Ages, but of course more modern. And even though I knew her doorbell wasn’t working, and I had to send her a message through the website, I decided to check the names on the wooden door, just to make sure her name was on it. To my own surprise this little name tag – different from the girl’s name – caught the attention of my eyes: it was the surname of my Polish great-grandfather, and even the initial was the same as his. Of course I was astonished – especially because it was such a rare name. So it felt as if my acknowledgement of my great-granddad had put me in front of this door; his heavenly door. And I clearly had knocked on it.