news&views Spring 2022 | Page 31

2021 Writing Contest

TRAVEL VIGNETTE : FIRST PLACE

A Trip Home

Darlene Eisner
The sun was beginning to set on a surreal moment in time . I was walking on the same road that my mother and her family would have walked on before they emigrated from the tiny Mennonite village in Ukraine . Having hired a private guide to tour me around the colony of Molotschna , I had finally arrived at the one village I had really wanted to see . My mother ’ s family had left the village in 1929 on the second-last train allowed to leave the area before the Communists shut the doors . I had arrived hoping to see some remnants of my mother ’ s past : a wall , a porch , the school building that had been across the street from where my mother lived . My guide assured me that nothing was left of anything the Mennonites had built and what appeared to be a school had been constructed in the Communist years . Any Mennonite house or barn , even gravestones , had been torn down and the materials used to construct the much smaller dwellings that were the only houses allowed by the Communists . Each one was painted the traditional white with blue trim that I had seen all over Ukraine .
I was deeply disappointed that nothing seemed to be there that would have pointed to my mother ’ s life as a young girl of twelve . Or was there ? While my guide chatted to some of the elders sitting on rickety stools outside their front doors , I strolled up that same street that would have been there in 1929 . Time stood still and I was able to see the village through my mother ’ s eyes . In a back garden stood a wooden wheelbarrow , filled with small , round watermelons , exactly as my mother used to describe them . Her mother had made syrups and soups from watermelons grown in their garden . Bordering the village on all sides were fields of ripening sunflowers , still the favoured crop of the area since the days of my ancestors . All her life , my mother grew sunflowers in our garden .
As I continued my walk into my mother ’ s past , I saw a brown calf tied to a stake , munching grass . My guide had told me those were descendants of hardy cattle introduced by the Mennonites . In my mind ’ s eye , I saw my mother lead that young calf out to pasture and then home to the barn at night .
Then I saw the mulberry trees ! As another way to earn money , my grandfather kept silkworms in the attic of the house . It was my mother ’ s job to pick the leaves of the mulberry trees to feed them , as that is their only food . Her memory of doing this was so vivid , it became my memory too . Purple berries were hanging from the branches . I plucked some and ate them . I clipped off some leaves to press and take home to show my mother . The sun disappeared as we drove away , but disappointment had turned to awe and wonder . My mother was everywhere in this village .
news & views SPRING 2022 | 31