Moving Deeper into the Story - Grandpa
Asking questions to create a more meaningful book.
My grandfather Joseph Holik came to me in a dream last night. We had a long walk and conversation. When I woke up, I could only remember we walked and talked. Yet I felt some urgency to start working on his story again. There was a sense of a space being opened for me. One in which I would have time, focus, clarity, and assistance, to finally get his story on paper in a way that made sense. A way that would heal countless people who read his story.
You see, for the last couple of years, I’ve been playing with his story. I have several drafts but none feel right. Joseph and his wife, my grandmother Libbie’s story are connected by numerous threads into mine. Both have been with me, spoken to me from the other side, and guided me for years. Those threads connected to my life in Europe with my late Dutch husband Johan. There are patterns, pain, trauma, and healing that had to happen before I could truly write a story worth sharing. The unfinished dreams, unprocessed trauma of my grandparents seeped into my life with Johan. Add to that his late parents’ World War II trauma and there is quite a tapestry to unweave and reweave.
That’s one thing about writing and healing the ancestral lineage. We are constantly unweaving and reweaving as we heal. We acknowledge a family pattern, belief, or behavior that we are living. This may not be the healthiest belief, behavior, or pattern so we dig into why we live it. We peel back the layers, like peeling an onion, to heal the past, heal ourselves and rewrite the future. Once woven, the threads of our life or family, do not have to remain as they always were. We are allowed to change things. To start changing, we also have to ask deeper questions.
What Do I Need to Know?
Quite often when people do military research they skim the surface. They obtain facts that help them get a general idea of what their veteran experienced. Few actually go deeper to connect with the experience and events which changed their veteran and ultimately, their family.
Knowing my grandpa served on three ships run by Merchant Mariners, as Naval Armed Guard, I had a general idea of his experiences. I’ve done enough Navy and Merchant Marine research to understand the dangers these men faced during the war. However, to write a story that really helps a reader (and probably myself) understand, see, sense, and feel the danger, and ultimately, heal, I had to ask deeper questions. Here are a few.
What was it like living on board a ship that was under constant threat of being hit or sunk? How might that have felt to grandpa?
What kind of mental strain would that have put on my grandfather? A man who was 37, 38, 39, with a wife and three boys at home? A man who was older than most of the mariners or Navy sailors on the ship? A man who may also have seen these young men as his “sons”? Did he worry more about his sons growing up without a father?
How did being a Navy sailor differ from being a civilian Merchant Marine? How did this impact my grandfather while on those ships? Was there a sense of division or isolation because the Merchant Marines weren’t officially a military branch?
How much loss did my grandfather experience or feel? While his ships were never attacked, he would have witnessed ships being attacked and sunk while in harbor or convoy.
How might the months at sea impacted him emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically? How did he handle the lack of food, extreme weather, his body being on high alert, exhaustion?
Would have have developed a survival mindset? Would have have shoved his experiences and trauma deep inside? How might that have impacted his mental state?
A question I will never have an answer to: What event led to his breakdown and the schizophrenia emerging for a diagnosis?
Was this evident prior to his service in ways the family didn’t “see” or “understand”? Was it a surprise to my grandmother?
Answering the Questions. Finding Answers.
I will never have full answers to most of those questions, at least not as they relate to grandpa’s personal experience. The records that exist do not provide enough detail to help me. Yet, I can read what happened on other ships to get a better idea of the strain he was under.
I can learn in general what sailors and mariners experienced. This can help me explore the family patterns, secrets, stories, and behaviors so I can release some of what holds me back. These answers may also explain things about how my family members behaved while they were alive…if I’m willing to put the puzzle pieces together.
As we do this work we must remember to view the information through the historical lens. Remove judgment. Be the observer. Then go within to do our own healing work. It also does us good to remember, there was more than one person impacted by the thing we are exploring. In this case, the war. My grandmother would have suffered her own things, which I know were passed down to me. But that is a story for another day.
Are you asking deeper questions or just skimming the surface? What have you discovered as you went deeper?