When we first got to Novosilky, we we're necessarily expecting a lot. We were hoping to find my grandmother and my step-grandfather's families, and to see the Uniate church my great-grandfather donated the land for, but really, we didn't know for certain if anyone was still alive or in the area. We didn't know what condition the church would be in--my dad was actually quite nervous over the possibility that we would find it in disrepair. All we knew is that we would be able to get pictures of the outside of the church to bring back for my grandma in the U.S. And guys: we got so lucky. My parents met up with my grandma's younger brother in L'viv, and we all met her beautiful little sister (She and my grandmother look so much alike, it's incredible. And the mannerisms are hilariously similar). My dad also met with two of his cousins, N and J, and their children (my "little cousin" with the accordion was J's son, the lovely young woman above is J's daughter, and the tiny, adorable human in pink is N's daughter). And we all had dinner together in Novosilky, in J's living room. My mom and I did our best with the conversation (neither of us are remotely fluent, but I've found Ukrainian a lot easier to follow than Polish), and my dad translated what we didn't catch. And, after a while lot of food and as much to drink, we actually got to see the inside of the church, and I feel like I've never encountered anything like that. Clearly, my dad's fears about it falling into disrepair were misplaced, and really, the church is aesthetically stunning. But, more than that, it represented so much of why I came to CEE to study in the first place. J's daughter M took me up to the balcony, to see where my grandma sang in the choir as a girl, where the man I knew as my grandpa sat with his family in the pews on Sundays. Where family members I had never met before, family members even younger than me, family were christened and had their first communions. Young, lively kids, just like me, who play video games and sing pop songs and who are still in my grandmother's village, keeping traditions alive, too. My honors research involved a lot of, well, paperwork. There were marriage and christening certificates, DP camp IDs, maps and photographa, boat itineraries and applications for citizenship. But sometimes it felt like there weren't a lot of people, despite how all that paperwork was pretty directly about people who I know personally and love. But there are still Kuchers and Kurdiakas who call Novosilky home, and now I've met some of them, and I've seen the work our shared ancestors put into this town, and I don't know how to describe the way that that livens even the typos I pored over, looking for just one part of our story.
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