“Hi, I’m your distant cousin. Do you want to see where your ancestors lived?”
Ummmm. Yes.
I got the email just in time. I was scheduled to leave Lithuania the following week, but I still had a day or two left of free time. I promptly replied.
Next thing I know, I’m spending my last day as a 27 year-old traveling to see family I’ve never met at the home I’ve never been to.
The rain was pouring the entire bus ride. I couldn’t be disappointed anymore. After all, “Lietuva” translates to “land of rain”, so what could I really expect?
I stepped off the bus and hurried into the bus station away from the rain. I look around and begin to wonder whether my cousin and I would even be able to recognize each other. After a bit of searching, a woman starts walking in a beeline right at me.
“Aura?”
She smiles. “Ir tu Vytas?”
“And you’re Vytas?”
That’s me!
We step outside into the rain back to her car, both making commentary about the weather. We agreed though, the rain didn’t scare either of us and we still wanted to do some sightseeing of the ancestral home.
As families do, we caught up about each other’s families, learned the basics, and made sure everyone is doing okay. She showed me the closest city to our ancestral home, Alytus, and we did a tour of a local museum that highlighted the history of Alytus.
As cousins do at the museum, we dressed up and played “cop & knygnešys“. I was the cop. As knygnešys (book smuggler), she was smuggling Lithuanian books, which was very illegal during the Tzar‘s occupation of Lithuania.
Then we took a walk, and the rain was staying away. Time to go to the ancestral home then.
We drove past the rolling hills, passing by quiet farms and cows grazing not far from the country road. It‘s both of our first times going this close to the land of the ancestors, and I wonder if maybe some of the older trees were seen by our great grandparents.
Aura got information about a church in a town that would have been the same church our shared great great grandfather was baptized. A few years after the baptism, the church burned down, so the church we had in front of us was a newer church.
Who would‘ve guessed it, there was a cool history to the church too.
We walked down the dirt road, and were quickly enveloped by forest. Down one path was an old Franciscan summer home. For you non-Catholics, Franciscans are an order of priest who take oaths of poverty and wear simple robes with ropes as belts.
In that summer home, the head of the Lithuanian anti-Soviet partisan resistance, Vanagas, gave oaths to 120 partisans. It was in the woods around us, around our ancestral home, where Vanagas began his partisan fighting.
The woods began to hold significance. This forest that carried the spirit of a distant family and home carried the spirit of a bloody resistance. Who knew what secrets were kept by the trees around us?
We already felt like we were visitors to a place untraveled. In fact the church we visited had no priest — one had to be brought from another town to hold service. But we weren‘t at the ancestral home yet.
We left the small town we were in, and began really going off the map down a dirt road. On both our ends, we could distantly peer through the pine forest unobstructed by leaves. This must have been the same road our ancestors took by horse-drawn carriage to church.
Past the road we reach a village, and all that Google told us was in this village was a giant rock. Let‘s go see a rock!
We drove past a few homes, alive with gardens and farm animals. Google took us to an intersection, and told us to keep going straight.
Thing is, there were two paths in front of us and either could have been considered straight. We looked around, an old post marked an arrow to visit the rock.
A chicken and her chicks greeted us on the dirt road as the car reached a dead end. A walking path went into the woods. This must be the way to the rock.
We step out of the car, and the sun is there to greet us. The path is muddy, but Aura and I already agreed we‘re not scared of the rain. Stepping around mud like the city-dwellers we are, we make our way back into the forest.
Decently sized rocks line the path, and who knows how long those rocks were there. We come to a clearing, and whoah what a rock.
I mean, it‘s literally just a rock. But like, there is no doubt that our ancestors worshipped around this rock.
There‘s a sign in front of the rock that gives a mythological origin story to the rock about how two giants dropped the rock here.
Or maybe it was the devil trying to throw the rock at the church morning bells because the devil wanted to keep sleeping.
I walked around the rock, trying to conjure up old connections to the rock. Come on ancestors, where are you? I don‘t know, it‘s cool — but I‘m not feeling anything.
We walk back away from the rock, and we take one more chance to find our ancestors. Aura had a lead on the site of a grave, and maybe we could see the name on the grave.
We park our a car in a driveway, figuring we could easily explain ourselves to the locals if they cared. Google says there‘s a grave marker here, but we‘re not seeing anything.
We walk up a hill and see two gentlemen sitting in their backyard. We say hello, and explain we‘re looking for a grave around here.
One of them points to an overgrown spot of land. There was once a cross here, but now it‘s just a wooden pole. We were invited to take a look, if we really wanted.
Aura and I stepped into the wild grasses and paid our respect to the wooden pole.
Looking at our two hosts, Aura asked me, „Manai kad čia mūsų šeimos nariai?“
“You think they’re family?”
I have no doubt. I climb back out of the grasses, and the gentlemen ask us about our little trip to the tall grasses.
Aura leads the conversation. „Mūsų šeima Jasoniai. Gal pažystate?“
“Our family is the Jasonis family. Maybe you’ve heard the name?”
One of the gentlemen flashes a bright smile across his face. He steps up from his chair.
„Aš Jasonis! Visi aplink mus Jasoniai!”
“I’m a Jasonis! Everyone around us is a Jasonis!”
The other gentleman speaks up too. “O mano mama Jasonytė.“
“And my mom is a Jasonis.”
It’s a family reunion!
Aura leads the conversation, explaining how the two of us met, how I’m from America, and all that jazz. The one gentleman tells us not to go anywhere, and in a rush he goes back to his woodshed.
He comes out carrying a large container of blueberries, then invites us to sit at the table outside. I’m elated.
Memories come back of my own grandmother feeding me blueberries in my childhood. She believed in eating and living healthy, so blueberries were at the top of the list of things to eat. Something about antioxidants, fiber, or I don’t remember what.
We chat, and Aura the investigator begins piecing it together exactly how we’re all related. We couldn’t find the common relative, but the gentleman host now had his mission set to find his grandparents and great-grandparents’ names.
I believe we’re family already, and I’ve got a more pressing question.
“Tai kokia istorija su akmeny? Čia velnis numetė?” I ask.
“So what’s the story with the rock? The devil throw it?”
The one gentleman waves his hand. “Čia tik legenda, pasaka. Čia turbūt nuo ledynmečio buvo atneštas.”
“This is just a legend, a tale. This was probably brought here from the ice age.”
Silly Vytautas, falling for old legends.
The other gentleman chimes in. We’re not just in the presence of each other, but we are hosted by the hospitality of the surrounding hills, each with a different name.
Aura takes a picture of me with one gentleman, my cousin, and we carry on our way.
The drive back is quiet. I don’t feel like talking.
I finally felt that pull. It was there. Like my great grandfather before me, I was leaving this town unsure if I would ever be back.
Can you feel nostalgic for a time and place you’ve never been before?
The silence was interrupted. The rain came back.
Quick note to my friends and family. I was going to write this post about what my first name means to me, but I thought a more intriguing story would be about a name that is part of me, even if you don’t see it. That of my paternal grandmother.
I’m still Vytukas, V, Vytas, or any of the other names. How you know me is what I am to you.
This post is the second in a series called “10 Thoughts from Vilnius” by Vytautas Aukštuolis. Posts released Tuesday mornings. Please subscribe to my channels on Medium, Twitter, Facebook, and Baltivist.com. I’m now on Instagram too!
Thought #1: A Journey Hosted by the Dead
Thought #2: Hi, I’m your distant cousin. Do you want to see where your ancestors lived?
Thought #3: A Poem Offering Peace
Thought #4: Front Lines of Belarusian Protests
Thought #5: The Difficult Question Facing the Belarusian Freedom Movement
Thought #6: Discovering Jewish Life of Vilnius
