This year's visit to Beaver Falls brought some surprises. Grandpa Bob gave us photos of his wife, my grandmother, from what we guess are her high school days – she looks young in them. It's hard to say when they're from. There are no dates on the photos and we have so few photos of her for comparison.
She and I never met. I didn't really even know her name, Constance, until this year. I didn't know what she looked like and that makes these images a revelation to me.
Grandma Constance looks just like my dad. Or my dad looks just like her. Uncle Dave really looks a lot like her. And I see myself, the shape of my head, the shape of my eyes, in those images too. I get the impression that she might have been my height, if not taller, from looking at the one photo I've seen of her and Grandpa Bob, who's substantially taller than I am, together. Some genes pass on, others don't, I guess.
I know so much of – and so many people on – my mom's side of the family. The history and stories from my dad's were just never discussed. It's that side of the family from whom I was given this very particular last name.
I spend so much time trying to explain how to pronounce Boguszewski. It's such a part of my personal identity. But I can't trace it back in a family history in a tale of immigration. It's not anchored by lore. It feels almost arbitrary, unnecessarily complicated, and suggestive of ethnic and cultural characteristics I don't really feel I have. I've been wandering around for 31 years with this perception of my identity. Now I have this new, strange feeling of connection to the past from seeing an images of a woman I resemble but never knew.