Mourn on the 4th of July: An elegy for my American cousins and friends
For my dear, recently departed wife, Anne, travelling to Vermont, which we did quite frequently whilst in Canada, was like returning to her native region in the Carpathian foothills of Slovakia: the same green uplands folding one behind another, the same villages gathered modestly below wooded ridges, the same fields slipping toward dark forests as if time had paused to listen. For Anne, the Vermont maples burned with a New World brightness, whilst memory kept laying over them the softer Slovak hills, the hay meadows, the church towers, the dusk-blue distances; and she found herself mourning both places at once – the one before her, already passing through the car window, and the one across the ocean, returning only as an ache of resemblance.
My grandfather, Thomas McBryde, and his brother, my great uncle and namesake, Robert MacBryde, arrived from Great Britain by ship together soon after World War One, worked in a town close to where they landed, St. Albans, Vermont, then had to decide whether to remain in the U.S. or sally forth to the North American hinterland in search of fame and fortune. My grandfather finally left the United States bound for the Canadian prairies, whilst Uncle Bob eventually bought a farm and raised a sizeable brood, my second family, near the village of Enosburg Falls, Vermont.
(In Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Duddy’s grandfather, Simcha Kravitz, actually ended up in Montreal. He originally set out for the United States, which was the primary dream destination for many European immigrants at the time.
Due to an error – likely a wrong train or an administrative mix-up typical of early 20th-century immigration routes – he accidentally crossed the border into Canada and arrived in Montreal instead.)
In the early 20th century, the Canada-US border was porous and fluid, and people’s destinations and destiny were determined by chance, with repercussions reverberating through the generations.
So it was that my family tree developed a hearty American branch, and Anne discovered a second world of dreams, of unallayed nostalgia.
Today on the 4th of July, I mourn my lost love, while remembering my wonderful American family, which is depicted here:
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/july-4-1963-enosburg-falls-vermont/
Happy 4th of July to all my American friends and relatives!
Your cousin and friend,
Robert
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
If you feel like reading more about Anne’s cancer journey, I’ve chronicled it in prose and poetry here:
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/news/
