Weekend

I had one of those weekends of running errands, a chance encounter and lovely visit with an old friend, sharing dim sum with a new friend, puttering in the garden, and going on long walks with my handsome guy. My husband and I watched And When They Shall Ask, a docudrama about the Russian Mennonite experience of war, famine, and escaping Russia in the early 1920s. I needed to watch it for research purposes. The story is personal because it is an account shared by my grandparents and great-grandparents. And When They Shall Ask and the online documentary Through the Red Gate are parallel historical accounts of what the Mennonites suffered. Both were difficult to watch. This weekend I also attended the funeral visitation of my great-uncle (a remarkable man), my oldest and last living relative who remembered Russia and escaping with his parents and five siblings by the skin of their teeth. T'was a weekend of memories both old and new. Balance is everything.