Finding My Inner Greek

This is my first Water Cooler Wednesday: A blog event hosted by Randy Elrod at Ethos. Subjects include Art and Culture. My post is about the culture of my heritage: Greece.

My father staunchly said he came to Canada to be Canadian. I am proud of what my family has contributed and achieved in this, their chosen country. But in one generation we have essentially lost most of the culture of our heritage. I don't speak the language, practice the faith, celebrate the holidays or know the customs of those who came before me.

Last week we lost another of the men who came to Canada with little and achieved much. And I was reminded of what I am missing, this rich connection to those I love. Vasilios, or Vasi as we called him was my father's first cousin but was more like a brother. As the family gathered to mourn we reminisced about the life they left and how different it was from the village. It makes what they did seem even more remarkable in my eyes.

It must have been the very definition of culture shock to land in North America in the fifties and sixties when you came from a place with no indoor plumbing and an agricultural way of life. My father learned the electronics business in this new land, translating words in the margins of the books he purchased to study. Someone told me that my father brought them the first TV he had ever seen

I understand why my father loved all the latest technology. Cameras, movie projectors, stereos; we even had a remote control TV when it first came out around 1970. I think it had 3 buttons!

I know he would be amazed by the internet. It is this part of our current culture that is helping me connect with the life they left behind. I found a wonderful Greek blog that is mainly about food and hospitality but includes references to feasts, customs, modern life and life as it was in the villages of various regions.

One day I will experience Greece for myself and take the return trip my father always wanted but never got to make. And I will go as a first generation Canadian.