There was no mistaking my great-uncle for a young man. That much was for sure. As far as I can remember, his skin was the color and texture of well-worn shoe leather, the wrinkles belying a natural energy, a sort of timeless restlessness. Liver spots dotted his cheeks and his pointed charcoal-white hair and brown thick-rimmed glasses passed him off as a Mediterranean Eugene Levy, although his humor was more crass and his manner far more approachable. He was a man who compared taking a large shit to really good sex, and who had a cardboard print of a family member’s buttocks on the wall in his basement. Yet he was also a serious-minded obstetrician-gynecologist who followed his oldest brother Κὠστα to a completely unfamiliar place, took his medical exams, fell in love, and raised four kids. If his life sounds like the typical rags-to-riches immigrant story, it’s because it is in many ways. I won’t belabor the point on that aspect. Laughing, loving, and dedication were his true legacy.
I don’t remember my grandfather. I’ve seen pictures of us together, right after I was born, twins with plastic tubing through our noses. I would ditch my mask a few days after I got home from the hospital. He’d keep his until his lungs breathed their last, having survived four packs a day and naphtha from the cleaners co-owned with his brother Κὠστα after he came across on the boat to Ellis Island. His given name, Βασἰλη- so stoic and beautiful in its reference to the saint Basil who ministered to the poor and the sick and spent the last of his life in prayer and in love- he changed to Bill, his last name, Γιανακὀπουλος, meaning “children of John,” was replaced by Geanon, a name, as his brother quipped, they “took from an Italian lawyer.” My great-uncle kept his first name, Δημἰτρος, (Demetrius), but his friends and family called him Jim. This desire to assimilate, to make one’s heritage more palatable to the rigid American mind, was common in the early-to-mid twentieth century, I understand that. It did not dampen their Greek spirit in any case.
Even in his advanced years, my great-uncle was the life of the party, especially at the family reunions he hosted at his house in Addison. These jocular occasions with τἠ οικογἐωωνια often featured the Greco-Italian staple of “talking with your hands” and smidges of the native tongue: Ελλἀτε να φἀτε. “Come on everyone, let’s eat, break the daily bread.” Θἐλεις ἀλλω? “Do you want more? No? Come on, you have to eat to get nice and strong.” Πως εἰστε. “How are you my brother, my friend, my cousin, the stranger that stumbled in from the street, I will take you, dress your wounds and fill you with good food and conversation. Nothing else matters in this world.”
I imagine Θἐο Jim in his doctor’s garb, greeting expectant mothers, the rose in their cheeks, the fathers calling him Dr. Geanon, asking about the health of the baby, and him putting a hand on a shoulder assuring the couple it would be all right. The mother pushes, and the father squeezes her hand, and Θἐο puts his hands inside the mother’s canal and cuts the cord. The baby cries, all wet and innocent, a lamb searching for its shepherds, reaching for its mother’s arms. Love rushes out. It’s αγἀπη in the mother tongue, a tender thing, infinitely more mellifluous than the cold, calculated English we all must learn, with its one e, and one o, and two letters for sounds where Greek only needs one, brutal and soft, wasteful yet economical, useful for screaming at your friends and your enemies, settling scores and sowing division. Yet it was the Greek tongue that raised three hundred and told the Italians ὀχι when they received the message from the mountains, no, do not come into our land, the Greek tongue which gave Archimedes a way to utter the first scientific discovery: το βρικα! the Greek tongue which will be broadcast at the end of all things by the Creator of all things. It is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
I didn’t always feel this way. As a child I found the language of my ancestors to be arbitrary and difficult to grasp. Why were there three different letters for e? Why do you have to put accents on words instead of leaving them bare? Why are there three different forms of the? Learning these rules and regulations in Greek school, practicing the language and speaking it with my mother and grandmother didn’t open my eyes to its true beauty, as much as learning about the Greeks’ struggle against the Ottoman Turks and dressing up as an evzone didn’t lead me to show huge national pride.
The only time during my youth that I was proud to be Greek was when Athens hosted the Olympics in 2004. I came to my summer class with an Athens 2004 shirt, soccer ball, and sailing hat. It was a momentous time for the diaspora, even more so when a native daughter won the 400 meter hurdles, arms outstretched. As she crossed the finish line, no-one was even close to her. She had come from nowhere to stand proudly on the world stage with the help of a little courage and determination. Fast forward fourteen years and the giant stadiums built for the world’s greatest athletes lie dormant and decaying, having plunged Greece deeper into the financial pit now synonymous with total laziness and abject failure. And that hurdler? She retired after testing positive for a banned substance in the 2008 Olympics. And yet, I don’t associate the motherland with these high-profile misfortunes. I don’t need to. The true spirit of Greeks is believing in yourself above all odds.
And it was this tongue, this heart, this spirit that was in my Θεο from the moment he was born to when he helped that child come into the world and when his children and grandchildren did so. It was with him when he embraced me for the last time. When he kissed my cheek. When he told my aunt the day before he died that he was proud of me.
It helped make him who he was. And it is a part of who I am and who I will be. That spirit is always fighting for yourself and your family, always loving everyone as a family member. It’s something that can’t be learned by waving a flag.It goes deeper than a soundbite or a slogan It is in η καρδἰα σου, and it stays with you eternally. Αμἠν.
Charles Franz is a recent college graduate seeking to understand the world through music and writing. His work has been published in the Illinois Wesleyan University publication Tributaries, and he hopes to have a collection of short stories out this year.