return to Crespières, part 2 . . .

Ever since memory (at least in my adult life) when life crowds in on me, a voice inside echoes I want to go home!  And, ever since memory (at least in my adult life), I ask the voice inside and where is home?  I may go to my grave with that question still unanswered . . . and maybe find that answer, at last, on that other side . . .

But, every now and again this side of heaven, I sense what it must mean to be going . . . home?

August 4, 2010, was such a day.  There was the sign welcoming us to Crespières . . .  L’Eglise St. Martin with its familiar steeple, its locked door. . . The mairie with the marble plaque honoring its children, my great-grandfather among them . . .  The road—rue Moncel—beckoning me . . . home?

I walked ahead of the others.  Looking for redemption maybe?  Redemption is such a personal event, if it comes at all.

Many years ago—December 28, 1986 to be exact—I had walked this same road, this same quest for finding that elusive sense of home I so believe existed here. I had come to this moment and place in time so filled with hope, expecting . . . je ne sais quoi? . . . to be embraced as a long-lost child of that community? To recognize  . . . home?  I wasn’t.  I didn’t.

Something as trivial as struggling to explain, at the charcuterie, how my husband wanted our sandwich meat sliced . . . The young man behind the counter—how much he reminded me of my own brother—unable to contain his amusement at my broken attempt to communicate in his language . . .  I think the culinary outcome was other than what I had tried to communicate.  I think that what mattered most, though, was the breaking of my fragile spirit in that place, that moment in time. 

I stood across the street—rue du Grand Trou—that December afternoon, wondering which of two houses was the one of my not-quite-memory.  I had forgotten to bring the address.  I did not dare to ask . . .  Did not dare even to ask if my great-uncle Georges still lived in that village, if I might stop by to visit. 

At Orly, that New Year’s Day, I found his address in a telephone directory, wrote it down, wrote to him on my return.  This was his reply.

Nous aurions eu l’honneur de faire votre connaissance . . .

We would have been honored to meet you . . .

Nous esperons que votre voyage ce renouvellera . . .

We hope that this will make you want to return . . .

I did not understand the signature on the letter at that time: E. G. Ollivon.  My mother said his first name was Georges . . . and she did write to him after reading this letter . . .  It was only after visiting his grave this August—where he rests with his wife, Emilie—that I understood . . .

Georges was so very right.  I had no choice but to return . . .  home?

To be continued . . .