Happiness is a pussy willow branch

    Photo: My good friend Diane Woloszyn

I always remember the weather as being cold but sunny. The sun is streaming through the bare tree branches, reaching inside the woods. Here and there in shady areas, there are still small pockets of snow. Birds are chirping among the branches. Our boots crunch over the thin film of ice covering the fallen leaves on the woodland floor. We cross over rivulets of water, the overflow from the  small stream running through this section of the woods.  My brothers and I know these woods on the outskirts of town. It's one of our favorite places to go when we want to "explore." In the summer, we search around here for blackberries. We also play at " hobo" here, making camp fires, roasting potatoes and eating them hard and blackened right from the fire. I can still feel the crunch.

Today we are here on a mission. We are looking for pussy willows. We know they grow here somewhere along the stream. It's not the first time we have been sent here to bring some home.

As a child I never really understood the depth of how much my mother must miss Poland, the place of her birth and growing up years. I can see now that the longing was right there all the time for me to see: the way she looked out for the mailman every day in the hopes of a letter postmarked POLSKA;  the stories she told me of the pine forests of Poland and the mushrooms and blueberries that could be found there; the walks along wooded paths that led from one small village to another; the women heading to the fields singing Kiedy ranne wstają zorze(In the morning when day breaks); the pilgrimage to the monastery in Leżajsk during lilac time; and the pussy willows that grew in abundance along the banks of the River San. She was still there, still missed it all.

We were just kids caught up in an adventure when she sent us out looking for pussy willows each year.  We just didn't know how important it was for her to experience part of her old life in something as simple as a  pussy willow branch, to see and feel the softness of a catkin. But we could tell she was pleased when we walked into the kitchen with armfuls of them. She immediately dropped what she was doing and took them from us and looked at them with happiness. For her it meant Poland and springtime and Holy Week tradition when pussy willow branches were taken to church to be blessed on Palm Sunday, something the people of Poland had been doing since the blessing of palms was introduced into the Catholic liturgy in the 11th century. Unable to bring the palms indigenous to Jerusalem, the Poles brought branches of the first plant to green up, to bud after the long days of winter. The blessed palms were brought home and tucked behind holy pictures believing that it would protect the home against lightening, fire and bad people. A few sprigs tied together and dipped in holy water was used to sprinkle a blessing on a new home or on a couple about to be married.  It signified centuries of faith and tradition, something bred into the marrow of her bones. We couldn't give her the Poland that she once knew but we could bring her a pussy willow branch.

So for me, the celebration of the Easter season has to contain a pussy willow branch. It connects me with my mother, with the walkabouts in the woods with my brothers those many years ago, and with the faith and the traditions of my Polish ancestors. I haven't outgrown the love of going out looking for them. Then there was the day Diane and Steve Woloszyn invited me to Uncle Ziggy's farm. It was sunny but cold. There were still patches of snow on the ground. The birds were twittering in the trees and I thought to myself "Uncle Ziggy must have wanted a little part of Poland with him, too, when he planted these pussy willows."