THIS IS US

“If You Have an Education, You’ll Always Have It With You”

Finding the truth in my parents’ words, one reading at a time

My grandfather used to say it all the time — actually, my mother used to say, all the time, that this was what my grandfather said: If you have an education, you’ll always have it with you. It’s a familiar saying to the children of immigrants — we’ve all heard it a million times. Which is why, of course, we never listen.

My grandfather spoke Polish, German, English, and French, but he didn’t say much anymore at all, by the time I came along. He’d never shaken off his sense of displacement from the war — let alone the other trauma it had caused. He and my grandmother made their last home in a tiny village in Lorraine, where they weren’t always made to feel welcome. Some contrite villagers occasionally would drop off boxes of garden vegetables on my grandparents’ doorstep in the middle of the night, which would trigger huge family fights. My grandfather was too proud to accept the gifts of cowards; my grandmother could not bear to waste food.

This was a lot of drama for us, the privileged grandkids who’d grown up in a peaceful Europe. And asking questions was not a good idea — if we poked my mother, or her siblings, about our grandparents’ experiences…