Category: remembering

memories, reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

the day that Grandpa died

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I don’t remember my Grandpa Markowski, my mother’s father, but I had heard the story, many times, of how he was with me to witness my first steps. He died a few months after I had turned one – on November 25, 1950.

I don’t know much about his life, either, but I bring to mind my own thoughts about how life was for him after he immigrated to the United States. He worked in a foundry in Milwaukee. He returned to Ukraine – which would soon be swallowed whole into what was the Soviet Union – to bring his wife, my grandmother, Feodosia, to the United States. I know that many immigrants left family in the Old Country, never to see them again, to start a new family. In his new country, Vlas Markov Srebny would lose his name, to take up a name more easily understood: Alex Markowski. When I return now to stand at the grave at the cemetery on the north side of Milwaukee where he and my grandmother – her name in the new country was Frances – are buried, only the name he acquired in his new land remains. I’m always saddened to think of this. It’s a common story, I’m sure.

These past few days, I’ve been sifting through old pictures again. I like to look at them from time to time. During the early days of COVID, I spent several days sitting in our yard, sorting through several large boxes of pictures. I got as far as grouping them into decades. I think that’s as far as I’ll go with them. I’d been looking for a particular photo of my mother and my brother Ronnie, but I didn’t find the one I was looking for.

I did find a treasure this time. I’m not sure how I missed it before. My mother had told me that the day my Grandpa Markowski died, he had come to the door of our family’s upper flat, asking for money. She had said no to his request for money – probably knowing he’d spend it on liquor – but he’d declined, and walked away. The treasure I found included more details, details I had not been told.

In my mother’s handwriting, two yellowed pieces of paper, apparently torn from a notebook, maybe a notebook intended for family history, recounted:

“Alex Markowski was born Vlas Markov Srebny on February 11, 1881. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine. In 1903, he joined the Army. Also, he married Feodosia Maksuda in 1903. Of this marriage were born Ivan ((John), George, Michael, Mary and Hannah, and Peter. Of these, only John, Michael, Mary, Hannah and Pete remain.
He came to America via Boston, Mass., and the Great Lakes to Milwaukee in June, 1910. He returned to Ukraine in the year and returned to America with his wife.
He received naturalization papers on May 25, 1943.
He taught himself to read and write. He was always alerted to the affairs of the entire world.

May he rest in peace.

On Saturday, November 25, 1950 at 8:30 Dad collapsed on North Eleventh and West Reservoir. It was a very cold day which stimulated his heart. Added to this, he climbed up and down three flights of stairs, and bucked a sharp wind up a steep hill, where he collapsed. He passed away immediately.”

*

memories, reflecting, remembering, wisdom

From I to we

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Jeff and I weren’t kids when we married. We were both over 30, well on to our adult lives, when we were married in that spring snow storm – March 21 – in Milwaukee. People in Wisconsin are not deterred by the snow; the church was full on that evening, regardless of the weather.

But like most couples (I suspect), we had to make our way slowly from being two headstrong, smart and heady individuals, to being a couple. Oh! the places we will go – and the emotions we will go through!
Or maybe it’s easier for other couples.

Both Jeff and I remember the first time we knew for sure we “two had become one.” It took awhile. Well, it took several years. We had moved into the beautiful Craftsman home in Oakland that we have called home since. We were proud of our home then, and we’re even more proud of our home now. We’d moved most of our furniture into the house, and everything was beautiful – to us. But we wanted a Craftsman style sofa to match the rest of the wood in the house – wood which (we are proud to say) no one has ever painted over. We discovered a business in Berkeley that sells Craftsman furniture exclusively, and we’d picked out the right sofa for our space. It was time to choose the fabric.

At the time, Oakland had a wonderful – wonderful – fabric store that has since closed. Many years later, folks who live in Oakland still remember Poppy Fabrics. So Jeff and I went off to Poppy Fabrics one afternoon to pick out the perfect fabric for our new sofa. We were methodical. We found the upholstery fabric and began at the left side of the aisle to look at one fabric after another. Then, we started up the aisle again.

And that’s when we knew. I stood to Jeff’s right as he moved the fabric rolls from side to side. And as he touched each fabric, and we looked at each fabric together for a few seconds, Jeff said: “Do we like it?“

“Do we like it?” That must have been a new experience, because we both noticed. I laughed when I heard him say it. Jeff looked around, surprised (but happy – he loves to make me laugh). We were a couple!

The fabric that proved that we had moved from “I” to “we”. Just the right colors. Photo by meb, 3/2/2026

memories, remembering

visits

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I’m not sure who the visitors have been, always, but over the years, I have received visitors – uninvited – who came to me with a message, and in their own voice.

The first time, I was sitting alone in a tiny cabin along Highway 57 in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin. I had traveled to Door County to be alone for a few days to heal from some heartbreak. Door County is one of my places on earth, the place I return to as often as possible, even now that I’ve lived in California for most of my life. I travel to Door County to honor a promise I made to myself many years ago – that no matter how far my life would take me, I would return.

I still turn to look up at the cabin each time I pass it, when I visit Door County, in silent recognition of that time. The builder placed the wood frame building just-so on a rise, a few hundred feet in front of the woods. The highway below cannot be seen from the front window, which I faced, sitting alone at the little kitchen table. Across from me was the sky hanging over Green Bay. Except for me and my relentless thoughts, I was alone. “It’s ok, Mary:” a voice spoke in the room. I turned to look over my left shoulder, in the direction of the sound. No one was there. When I turned to face the window again, I was still alone in the room.

*

A few years later, I was awakened in my dorm room at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, where I was studying for a Master of Divinity degree, on my way to being ordained in the United Methodist Church. What had wakened me? I didn’t know, didn’t understand, still don’t understand. What I did understand was that the presence of my maternal grandmother – Frances Markowski – Feodosia Machsuda Srebny – had somehow entered me, come into me, inhabited me. I was afraid, and in my fear, I cried out for Jesus. Then, nothing. No presence, no sound, no light, no other disturbance. Did I fall back to sleep? Mostly a light sleeper, I don’t remember if I was able to sleep again that night.

Over the coming months that turned into years, I was aware – always – of the presence of my maternal grandmother, who had passed when I was in college. Hers was the first funeral I attended; until her death, my parents had gone without me, my sister, or my brother, to funerals. I had not felt attached to my grandmother. She had lost her ability to speak any English in her later years, instead speaking only Ukrainian when Dad picked her up at the nursing home to spend the holidays with us. As soon as she arrived, she began to ask my mother to be taken home again.

She gave me a gift after her return during my seminary years. Jeff speaks about those visitations as a “haunting,” although I didn’t feel haunted. Instead, from time to time I sat and word by word, line by line, I crafted poems that tell the story of her life, of her leavings, of her griefs. I call the poems, “The Feodosia Poems”, and they will be included in my collection of poems, Moments, to be published this year.

Years later, a friend and I would sit on the floor of my home and together, with our intentions, free my grandmother to move on in her life. I watched as she traveled away from me, away into the past. She has not returned.

I asked my friend why she had come to me, why not to others in the family? “Who else would she go to?” my friend answered, simply.

*

In 2001, I was living in Oakland, California, in a rented duplex with Jeff. I had moved my mother to Oakland to live in a wonderful assisted living home, The Matilda Brown Home, not far from where I live now, in 1998, the year I was appointed as Pastor at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church in downtown Oakland. Mom loved her new home, where she made friends and enjoyed the simple activities, the regular meals in the beautiful dining room, her times outside in the garden, where she and I sat together on a swinging bench during our visits. She loved her little room, the smallest at the home, where she returned after breakfast every day to read the newspaper as she sat on her single bed. The one small window overlooked the school yard of Oakland Tech, and she could hear the young people playing sports as she sat in her chair.

The night before she passed, Jeff insisted that I go home to sleep in my own bed. He spent the night in the swivel chair next to her bed. Before I left her room to go home that last evening, I sat in the silence, her breathing the only sound in the room. Then, I noticed a melody, playing itself alone in my head. The words of a melancholy song from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” came into my head: how can I make you understand, why I do, what I do? Going away to a distant land, far from the home I love.”

As planned, Jeff stayed the night in the chair beside Mom’s bed. In the morning, I awoke alone in our flat, and prepared for the day. I stood at the window in the corner of our bedroom, combing my hair. “Everything is going to happen naturally from here on.” I heard a voice. I turned to look over my shoulder into the room behind our bedroom, with its windows on two sides bright with the morning. “Jesus?” I asked, into the silence.

A few minutes later, I arrived in Mom’s room. I saw immediately that her breathing had changed, and that death was not far away. Mom had been asleep now for several days, medication given by her doctor easing her discomfort. As I arrived, I turned to Mom in her bed and said: “I’m here now.” Jeff had left the room, and she and I were alone. And I stood and watched as she took her last breath.

*

I expect life holds many mysteries, many things I will not ever understand. I expect that your life holds many mysteries, too.

reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

At year’s end

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Together, Jeff and I share several traditions. Many years ago – before we were married, I worked as a Camp Counselor at a camp led by the Rev. Lincoln Hartford, who had been my pastor at Kenwood United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. At the end of the week at camp together, Lincoln invited the young people at share a memory – good or bad – of their week together. He asked that each one of the campers share the memory by saying, “I remember,” and then sharing a memory of the time we’d all been together. Whatever the memory – good or bad, happy, sad, confused, upsetting – the response to the memory by all who were gathered was: “and God was with you.” Since then, Jeff and I begin our meal times with the “I remember” prayer, as we invite any guests to participate. I always go first, to demonstrate (!).

This past year, Jeff and started a new tradition. Each night, before we go to sleep, we share with one another something we appreciated about the other one that day. Over the months, Jeff has reminded me – sometimes – that my appreciation was about a meal he’d prepared. (I’m trying to do better when I offer my appreciation each day!)

As long as we’ve been married, another tradition has been part of our ritual as a couple. At year’s end, we name the experiences that stand out to each one of us in the past year. I think Jeff prepares more carefully than I do for the time we sit together in front of the Christmas tree, after Christmas has passed, and share with one another our list of the past year’s events. It’s a good practice, as we recall moments – some good, some not so good – that the last year has held, and as we recall moments that have stayed in memory to be mentioned.

Sometimes the memories are times of travel, and sometimes of particular places we’ve seen. Sometimes the memories are memories of tiny moments that might be unnoticed by the other.

And this year, I want to be more prepared than I sometimes have been, to come to the sharing time in front of the tree, still lit with the lights of Christmas, as the year comes to a close. I’ll have to start early. I’ll use my trusty hand-written calendar, set aside a special page, and make my list. There’s a touch of sadness in me as I think about the closing of this year, as I remember that so many years have passed, so many loved ones have been gone from us for a long time, and as I remember that some things are changing and some things never change – not even as the calendar moves along into another year.

Happy New Year!

Even the neighborhood trees seem to know it’s the end of the year… photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025

memories, nostalgia, remembering

Magic

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I suppose that what I miss most during the holiday season – besides all of those before me who have passed – is the magic. And I suppose the magic has been gone now, for a long, long – long – time.

There was a certain magic to bringing Christmas to the people of a congregation when I was an active Pastor. I loved the liturgical seasons, and I loved to hold onto Advent for as long as I could – a feat that was impossible to the folks who came to church: they wanted Christmas season to begin – they wanted to sing all the old carols we all know by heart – as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes had been cleared away.

“But there’s Advent” – I’d try to win them over – “a liturgical season of its own, and a season that is longer than the Christmas season itself” – to no avail. But I did love the music, the old, old music we love so well. I tried to hold off on the congregation singing the Christmas carols until the four Sundays of Advent had been honored. But no. It didn’t work – not even once.

To me, even the season of waiting – of the Coming of the Child – is as rich as Christmas – call it the Arrival of the Child – itself. The Coming is filled with something: hope, expectation, longing – all tangible, all filled in themselves with a reality that we have all lived at some time in our lives.

The magic captivated – captivates me.

I have a memory of my childhood that is still a mystery to me. It was Christmas Eve, and I was in bed, in the narrow room I shared with my little sister, Suzie. Maybe she was already asleep. My bed was pushed up against the wall with the window. I could hear Mom and Dad in the living room, only a few feet away, shuffling around, making things happen. Like tradition in the Old Country, they were decorating the Christmas tree which Suzie and I would only see in all its glory for the first time on Christmas morning. There was always a layer of ice on the second story window, the cold of Milwaukee’s winter coming through the storm window Daddy had carefully hung in autumn. And on that Christmas Eve, I heard the bells – outside my window. I heard the bells of Christmas! I raised my head from the pillow, looked out into the cold, dark winter night. The only sound I heard then was the rustling of my parents in the next room.

The magic was gone. As quickly as it had arrived – gone.

And I fell asleep then in anticipation of Christmas morning, when, in the old European way, we would open our gifts around the decorated tree, the gifts that had arrived – mysteriously – sometime in the night.

Magic! photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025, View Place