Over thanksgiving weekend, I spent a lot of my time with family visiting from Poland, often hearing news that I didn’t particularly agree with or support in that matter. There were debates about the current President-elect of the United States, the raising of children in today’s technological world, as well as the cultural differences that are distinct between the lives of American and Polish young adults. Yet, the thing that stood out to me the most was my aunt’s story about her life as an orphan during the communist period in Poland. Now, we often hear fictional stories about orphans and how their lives are hard, but during this break I got to hear it from a 45 year old woman who spent her entire childhood in an orphanage. It’s crazy how she could recollect every important memory from her childhood, from every day encounters with her friends at the orphanage to the time when she realized she was still a normal person even though she was an orphan. Today, she lives a happy life with a faithful husband and four children who are slowly growing up to be inspirational people as well. But that wasn’t always the case.
Catherine was basically born into the orphan life. Her mother gave birth to her and gave her up due to the fact that she found out she had cancer in addition to a miniscule amount of money to spend on the child. In communist times, a single woman with a child could barely afford to take care of a child, even more so if she was sick; thus Catherine was left to fend life off on her own at the mere age of 2 months. From there, she grew up to be a feisty child, often refusing to be put up for adoption, stating that she was where she was meant to be. In her case, maybe it was true; she proved to be one of the most inspirational children in the orphanage. To start off this story, let me state that her childhood was spent under the control of a communist orphanage director and the six nuns that occasionally stopped by to help. As she grew older, her love for the inspirational stories told by the nuns pushed her to be a strong believer in the Catholic faith. As a young child in a communist orphanage, she was expected to abandon her faith and push to believe in the communist beliefs placed before her. Yet, Catherine was a rebel and didn’t want that. She spent years sneaking off to lectures conducted by the nuns about faith and praying that she would one day have a normal life, so eventually she came to believe that her faith was the only thing in her life that was there for her. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to instill any kind of religious message into this article, I am simply trying to show how a child’s faith gave her the strength to get where she is today. On one occasion, when half of the children at the orphanage begged the nuns to give them their holy communion, she pushed to have the same given to her. When asked if she had received the holy baptism, she replied, “yes, of course my mother had me baptized as a child”. Yet, as it turned out, none of the girls asking to be given the holy communion were baptized as they had all been taken away from their parents at an extremely young age. These girls simply assumed that their parents had baptized them before they were given up to the orphanage because they thought that it was the norm, but that wasn’t the case. After this incident, one of the children purposefully ratted out the ten girls to the communist director, who automatically questioned whether the girls truly asked the nuns to give them the holy communion. Nine of the girls quickly replied no, but Catherine held on to her faith, knowing it was the only thing keeping her going, and admitted that she had asked for just that. The entire occurrence ended with Catherine being beaten several times with a belt in the director’s office; after all, the rules told every orphan to stay away from faith and everything religious, as communism was the only acceptable belief at the time. It’s honestly crazy that a ten year old child would stand up for her religion like that, but even today she recalls the event and smiles because she’s proud of what she did. Keep in mind, Catherine is 45 years old today, and still holds on to the same beliefs she did at the time she was 10. The main point to take out of this is that a child so passionate about something will hold on to it forever, especially when it is the one thing that matters to them at that point in their lives.
Catherine stayed at the orphanage until her 18th birthday, strong and steady until she reached a point in her life when she could leave. Throughout those years she developed a love for her religion and the people around her, as she had nothing else to love. She hoped for the best and prayed that she could one day meet the mom who constantly wrote letters to her and the dad who was never a part of her life. Yet, the story didn’t end up being a fairytale, as her mom died of stomach cancer when she was barely a teenager and her dad turned out to be a complete asshole. Although her life was hard and she didn’t have anyone to tell her it would be okay, she still pushed through and tried everything to make her life okay in the hope of one day being “normal”. Now, think about it this way, isn’t it sad that a child should ever have to think about being normal? Shouldn’t that be a given? In most of our lives we have never had that issue. We often complain about simple things, like not getting the new phone we’d wished we got for Christmas or not studying enough for that one exam you thought you could ace easily. We are already normal and we don’t have to complain about things like not having someone to love as a child or pushing to be just like the people we see on the street on our walk back home. In addition to her thoughts about being left behind by her parents, as she grew older she eventually found out her father wanted to murder her mom when she was pregnant with her, as abortion was not an option during a communist regime. Can you imagine what it feels like? Being abandoned by your parents and then finding out you were not wanted even before you were born? Her experiences in life were focused on achieving a family and finding a person who she knew truly cared for her at some point. Can you imagine what it’s like knowing that there isn’t one person in the world who you know truly loves you? With a dead mom and a dad who is nowhere to be found, is there really anyone who you would expect to care for you?
It’s really crazy, because today I can count out more than ten family members who I know would do anything for me. They are a support system, but I haven’t ever realized it because I have never had to think about love they way an orphan does; it has simply been given to me throughout my life. So please, the next time you are stressing out over an exam, crying about a break-up, or simply debating where you are in life, think about how many people in your life truly love you. They don’t need a reason to love you, they just do, and unfortunately some people don’t have that. They have to supplement religion, the arts, and academia to fill a void we have never had to think about.
