A Strong Connection

When my Dad was dying, I drove from Ohio to Suburban Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with him and my Mom. Dad had been ill for a long time, and the family knew he would die soon. He managed well during that holiday weekend; he was bright, lucid, and he even walked downstairs to eat the turkey meal at the dining room table.

While I was with Dad, he showed me a photo album that he'd recently created. Like the scouting album, this one preserved special memories. Into the album, Dad pasted reprints of old family photos. These were photos that Dad had restored and rephotographed over the years. There were photos from his childhood, photos relatives had sent from Lithuania, and photos Dad found especially interesting.

Dad had wanted to annotate each black-and-white print in the album. His handwriting, however, had become illegible because of his illness. So he asked me to do it for him. We sat together, at the mahogany desk in the master bedroom, as Dad identified each person in the photo, provided a date, and sometimes told a story. I recorded what Dad said in the margins of the photos, writing in pencil. I recall, however, that I found the work tedious, and I was a bit agitated about the task. It seemed like a trivial activity for such a heavy time.

As we collaborated, Dad showed particular attachment to two photos from 1936. One was a photo of his father, Vytautas, in Belgium. The other was of a street in Kaunas that had flooded during the month of March. 

I wasn't able, then, to determine why these photos had touched my Dad so deeply. Today, I looked at the back of the original photo of the flooded Kaunas street, and I made the connection. My paternal Grandfather, Vytautas, was on an extended business trip in Belgium when the Kaunas flood occurred, and my Dad had sent a photo of the flooded street to his traveling father.

Here is what my Dad wrote—in a child's penmanship—on the back of the photo:

March 17, 1936.

My Precious Daddy!

I am sending you a photograph that my cousin took. He took this photo on Maironis Street during the time of the flood. This year, there was a very big flood in Kaunas. The water had risen above the seven-meter mark. Now, the water is gradually receding, and things are beginning to dry out. It seemed like spring already was about to begin, but then it began, unbelievably, to snow again.

Wednesday I will take the examinations for the second scouting level. The exams will test knotting, thatching, and weaving. On Thursday I'll be tested on Morse Coding. I've already worked on the photography test, and I've seen the negatives. 

Lately, I've been coming home from school early because the homeroom teacher has been sick. The Lithuanian class teacher also is ill.

Goodbye, I kiss you many times.

Your little sparrow,

[Irene's Dad]

It's a potent mix: boyhood, longing for an absent Dad, exciting events at home, and … scouting.

This is the 1936 photo of my paternal Grandfather, Vytautas, traveling in Belgium: 

Here is the 1936 photo of the flooded street, Maironio Gatvė, in Kaunas:

And here is a 1957 postcard featuring a view of the Nemunas River, the cause of the flood, as it runs through Kaunas:

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UPDATE: Here is a view of the seven-meter mark, showing how high the water levels rose:

Kaunas, Lithuania, August 2011. Tourists walk by the water-level marker. Thanks to my Toronto Cousin for making this photo available to me.