To Dida with Love; Thank You for Helping Me, Find Me
I was at a play date with a family down the block and Dida was babysitting us. We were in their large beige living room with high ceilings and a rough carpet. I was sitting on the couch playing with a puzzle, trying to solve it with the other kids. The couch was soft and warm and I could see the winter cold air drifting by on the other side of the clear sliding glass door. Dida was in the kitchen; it was one of those kitchens where there is a hole in the wall above the counter so that adults preparing food and chatting can watch over their playing children as they cook. Dida was snapping away at a little snack for us. I could hear bowls being taken down from the oak cupboards and the clatter of our snacks being carefully pored and distributed. Dida then came out from the kitchen and handed us each a multi colored plastic bowl filled with pistachios that she had hand-shelled for us. There must have been at least fifty pistachios in all that she one by one picked up and cracked for us so that we could have a more convenient snack. We ate them up, each spouting our own quiet ‘thank you’ before returning to our games. The kid’ parents then came home and we left their house, Dida and I, and took the five-minute walk home. I remember my mom was astonished when she heard that Dida had cracked our pistachios for us, “Dida you didn’t have to do that” she protested, “that’ so much work! You are just so sweet.” I skipped off to my room and Dida to hers, her room was right next to mine and I loved it.
Dida lived with us for 6 months out of the year for 7 years. From my birth until age 7 Dida was there with me. She was my family, my grandma, even if we weren’t actually related. She was the aunt to the mom of a friend of mine from down the street. Dida is from Romania, she won the ‘lottery’ as she calls it, which allowed her to come to the U.S. to try and get a citizenship. Part of the process of citizenship is staying in the US for 6 months out of every year for a certain length of time. That’ where we come in. My friend’ house was too crowded for them to house their aunt, Dida, so she came to live with us. That’ at least how my little kid brain remembers it. When I was learning to walk, Dida was there. She would put my little feet on hers and she would hold my arms and walk up and down the hallway over and over giving me praise and tips until we were both so tired we collapsed on the couch giggling and hugging with snacks and chatter. She would cook her famous ciorba de pui soup, warm and soft. She would spend all day with me until my parents got home from work. She loved Elvis Presley and her dog back in Romania, Max.
We didn’t visit Dida at her house in Bucharest Romania until I was 12 or 13, years after her last year with us in the States. Her home is an apartment in an old communist building. It’ small and cozy and smells like Didas warm cooking. It was always bizarre to me that Dida, her family, and I weren’t actually blood related. They felt like such a part of my life and such a part of my identity. When we visited her for the first time I was astonished by how much everyone there on the streets looked like me. We went into the old town district of Bucharest; which was made up of cobble stone streets and outdoor cafes and restaurants. I looked around and saw my features, my hair and my eyes. How could I not be Romanian? Every other person I saw had a face that I found familiar, I no longer felt my big long nose and facial topography stuck out in the crowd, I felt myself put on this identity that didn’t belong to me. An identity that I couldn’t take, that I didn’t have a desire to ‘steal’, but one that I related to. I talked to my parents about it; I asked them where our ancestors are from, because I wanted to know how I could feel so Romanian when I know I am not. My parents told me I am predominantly Russian Jewish. I told myself that it makes scene that I have these Eastern European features, that I feel so connected. But I still feel it was something more, maybe it is my connection with Dida and her family that makes me feel this deep sense of belonging, a belonging that has to do with more than looks and superficial appearance, a belonging that says; I feel that I am related to you on a scale bigger than blood.
This summer, the summer before my first year at UCSC and College Ten, my parents and I went back to Bucharest to visit Dida. Weeks before we left we got a message from her daughter Mihaela; ‘Dida is sick, it is cancer, we still want you to come, but she will be undergoing chemo and might not be able to join us as much as we first thought.’ I was completely overwhelmed. I began to research her strain of cancer, meticulously on unreliable sources of WebMD and MayoClinic; I worked myself into a full panic of fuss and worry and heartache before we even had all of the details. ‘How could this happen?’ ‘Dida is invincible.’ ‘What is going on?’ We were all worried but still hopeful, Dida is strong, and this doesn’t mean anything. Seeing Dida last summer feels like a dream, I saw Dida, I saw flashes of my childhood, I saw the joy of us all together again, I saw love and felt my love for Dida grow and well up spouting from my eyes, ears and mouth. Every ‘I love you’ was real, genuine, and sincere. I want people to know this story about me because it represents how I came to understand the diversity of love and how it can cross borders and cultures, how it helped me to realize my own identity, and how it is such a crucial, essential part of social justice.