my father. His mother in Austria was also, still alive. She had remarried after she lost her husband and her little boy, my father Achillea, in the 1stBalkan War.
She had two daughters Hilda and Lina, after her own name Carollina. When we saw photos of all of them there was an unmistakable resemblance to my father. They all had blonde hair and blue eyes just like my father. Their eyes had the most beautiful shade of blue.
My yiayia’s photograph was so elegant. The Austrian yiayia was standing next to an impressive, deeply tufted dining room chair, dressed in early twentieth century fashion of velvet and brocade. Her hair was on top of her head in a large cluster of curls. She wore round eye glasses. Her face looked just like my father’s. My own father wore the same type of glasses, round eye glasses. They looked so much alike, it was startling.
When my father received this photo of yiayia he had it enlarged to 24”x 36” and framed it in black leather. Even the strap on the back we hung it from, was a coarse, very thick type of a leather cord.
We welcomed this new correspondence with our relatives in Austria. I had a classmate whose mother was from Austria and of course she spoke Austrian.
As soon as we received a letter I would take it to my friend’s mom, she would translate it and I would bring it home to my father. There, we sat at the table and we would answer it in Greek. The next day I would take it to my classmate’s mom’s house and she would rewrite it in Austrian. I was the designated letter writer.
My Austrian yiayia wanted to meet her son, my father again, before she died. So, my father started preparing for this meeting.
One day we received in the mail an envelope trimmed in black. It was very formal and inside of it, the news: our Austrian yiayia had died.
My father’s heart was broken again. It was the first time I saw my father cry. The same day the leather cord broke and the framed enlarged photo of the Austrian yiayia fell on the ceramic tile floor, in the living room. Broken glass was everywhere.
This photo now hangs on the wall of my second oldest brother Carolos, in Australia. He was named after the Austrian yiayia. I have the small, original, photos of my aunts: Hilda, Lina and yiayia.
About ten years later my father sold the family home, rentals and the land to a developer. The builder placed there a nine-story apartment house.
The homes with their beautiful, decorative black wrought iron fences around their flower gardens were no longer in vogue. Those styles were a reminder of visions of New Orleans, very European. The single homes were only twenty-five years old on this very wide street. Also at the corners of Martiou and Makedonias were some older distinguished large homes, more like villas. They were all torn down.
This Makedonias Street was created with wide and comfortable to walk on concrete sidewalks. This street was in demand and people needed more housing. So, for the next generation, apartment living was coming. My father was given two apartments on the third floor and one retail store on the ground level. My father was retired then.
Two of his sons had gone to Australia, the oldest son lived in Athens and two sons were in Thessaloniki with their own families and businesses. It was time for my poor over worked dad to rest now. So, he opened a hardware and paint store there and he was home for lunch every day. Neighbors came to him for painting advice, they would buy their supplies at his store and now they would go home and paint their own apartments. It gave him something to do, that he enjoyed.
When I went back to Greece for the very first time, it was almost an emergency. I had received a letter saying both of my parents were very sick. I was 26 years old. I had not seen my parents for 13 years.
When I arrived in Thessaloniki’s airport I was received by the whole family with bouquets of flowers, just like a celebrity.
Everybody was there, my father, my brothers, sisters and their families. My mother was at home at their apartment. She had not recovered well enough to meet me at the airport.
At the airport, I was hearing everyone, but the Greek language somehow was a little strange to me. They spoke a different dialect, it seemed to me. It took me days to get adjusted to the Greek language. We cried, we hugged and kissed again and again.
I left as a young school girl, an innocent girl of 13, and I came back after 13 years, a mother of three.
My mother saw me, and she got so happy and got well quickly. Jokingly, she asked to look at my beauty mark under my right foot.
My father had the same beauty mark in the very same place. Everyone there was happy to see me. My relatives would put me in a taxi cab and send me to the next relative’s home after paying the cab driver in advance. For two weeks I saw nothing but my relatives.
In the afternoon I would sit and talk with my dad downstairs at his store. My mother would drop a basket from the third-floor balcony with coffees, small drinks of ouzo and munchies. These were delightful little morsels of olives, feta, smoked fish, fragrant fresh lemon wedges and pieces of crunchy black bread, to accompany our drinks. It seemed a whole lifetime ago, I had left for America. I was never lost for words talking to my wonderful father.
When I was little I sat on his arm and played with his ear lobes. I was so fascinated with his ear lobes. That was truly my very first memory ever, remembering the safety of his hugging arms.
I never told my parents about my terrible sacrificing, the four years living with my aunt and uncle in America. There was no reason to upset these two wonderful parents, in their late sixties now.
Before I knew it, the two weeks were up. My life now was in America. I kissed them good bye and for my dad this was to be the very last time I would see him.
Both of my parents had diabetes after they were 65 years old. It was controlled by a pill and a diet. My dad had pains in his feet. It must have been nerve damage from the diabetes. Just a few years later he died in a hospital. If I were there, he would not have died at the hospital. He would have been living in my home.
I would have enjoyed hiscompany. He would have been well cared for, he would have been more comfortable in my hands.
When my youngest sister had gone to visit him one time at the hospital, my father told her this: I should not have sent Efrossini to America. I should have sent you, Anna. Efrossini would have taken care of me, I know, she has a good heart.
Years later this same sister got me to believe her, she was in danger. To get her away from a boyfriend that would not leave her alone or move out of her apartment she found the solution to come to America and stay with me for a while. She came here at my expense and told me what my father had said in the hospital. She came here for vengeance, at my expense. This is called mikroprepia in Greek. It translates to shabby, evil works. Who does that to their flesh and blood? Or to strangers for that matter!
Through the years I remembered my father every time I built a new home. I had owned seven homes and three were brand new custom homes. When I was preparing gardens, raising a few animals, I always thought of my wonderful father. I always imagined him being here guiding me through my building and creating.
I always wondered with more modern resources what his genius of a man would have discovered and created if he had lived here in America.
How proud he would have been to see that I had learned so much from him and followed in his footsteps with the botany and with his painting. I painted all my homes and I was a great edge trimmer. He had taught me to have the best quality brushes. I also have fig and citrus
