Saturday, November 4, 2023
As we "celebrate" our ancestors these days, At the End of the 20th Century, my last trip to Poland. While Working in Warsaw, I remember going with Ziggys wife to visit my uncle in the large Polish cemetery in Warsaw on November 2nd, "Zaduszki" (All Souls Day) to put a lighted candle on his 'Grob 'my aunt who was unfortunely going blind, so we could not find his (grave) and she having survived the woman's concentration camp Ravensbruck, and 40 years occupation by Russian (Soviet) mentality. The custom in Catholic Poland is to find an uncovered grave to occupy it with my uncle's holy candle on All Souls Day.
On this Day, November 2nd, I am thinking about my youngest Borowy Family Nephew John, who has rejoined my Polish ancestors, my mother & father and his mother & father, and his grandmother's oldest brother Ziggy and his wife. He was the son, I never had and I enjoyed his company in Connecticut, many times visiting at the Borowy Family Home in Trumbull, and at the Bartelbys Coffee Shop in Mystic, where he joining our Trivia Gang at the Irish Bar next door, helping us win first place. (Free drinks at the Bar) Also our trips to my Villa in Daytona Beach, joining me at the Golf Club in Daytona Beach for a good value breakfast, at the Ultimate Omelet for lunch and some nights at the European Restaurant for supper. Borsht Soup with Kropke, Duck Polish Style and Czech Pilsen Beer to wash down the rich in calorie Central European Diet Food. Our Comradery, He indeed, was the Son I never had.
And also, I remember his brother Bob, closer in age more like a younger brother, I never had. I remember fondly shooting the video of his wedding with John on Camera One and I on Camera Two, taking the raw footage and in the video cutting room mixing and matching and enhancing the music with mix of the King of Denmark March and Contemporary Dance Music to freeze frame end.
I would like to thank the surviving Borowy Brother Tom and his wife, Wendy for caring for John the last 2 years and their help after the loss of elder brother, Bobby, my sister, their mother Lillian, and her husband Hank these past few years of the 21st century past.
I hope that in the near future be able, if God lets me live long enough to produce a memorial that I discussed with John Borowy of a ‘tree of life’ planting of a Baltic White Birch in memory of our joint Polish/American Ancestors in a proper setting and location and to set in place a living 'candle' dedicated in the future on another November 2nd, All Souls Day.
John Richard Nowak-Kanewski, November 2nd 2023 Miami Beach, Florida
