dedicated to my great-grandmother, Anna Stráňavská (1908 – 1990)
My paternal great-grandmother died when I was two years old, but I still remember her funeral. I was deeply affected by the smell of incense and the singing in the church. As a small child, I did not perceive the sorrowful dimension of this event at all. Now I often think of my great-grandmother. It is difficult to imagine a person with a greater share of inner freedom, courage and, above all, the enormous vitality that she instilled in the DNA of all her descendants by her example.
Grandma is a businesswoman.
During the First Republic, our grandmother was a business owner. She had a farm in Kysuce and what she grew, she would go by train (!) to sell to Ostrava and Frýdek-Místek. Her great-grandfather, her husband, went to Germany to earn money as a tinker. He was in Germany for 15 years and grandma knew nothing about him. She had to take care of the children, the farm and the house alone. When grandpa finally returned home with empty pockets, she took care of him too. She bought a small Tatra tractor, and now she went to farmers' markets to sell not only her own but also the crops of people from Laz. After World War II and the establishment of communism, grandma and grandpa's Tatra tractor was nationalized, the sewing machine was miraculously saved and remained in their personal possession. Grandpa got a job at the JRD in Zákopčí. He worked as a truck driver on what had once been his own Tatra tractor.
Anna Stráňavská in a medical uniform.
A midwife on a motorbike.
When I was stopping by our former shop on Grosslingová Street in Bratislava one day, an elderly lady, a voice teacher who lived a street away, stopped by. We talked about all sorts of things until we came to the conclusion that we both have roots in Kysuce. After a while, she asks me: “And wasn’t your great-grandmother’s name Stráňavská? She gave birth to me, and I still have the baby she gave my mother when she gave birth!” My great-grandmother had to adapt her business to the new regime. There was a shortage of doctors in the Kysuce lazi. And when her business had to end due to communist laws, she took a medical course in Martin in her 40s. My grandmother had respect for living things, once she saved an injured crow and taught it a few words at home. In order to be able to get to the births quickly in the difficult terrain of Kysuce, she got a motorbike. When my father and cousin were on vacation with her, she left them alone, only occasionally supervised by neighbors. The boys were 5 and 7 years old at the time. If the birth was difficult, they had to cope with a few days alone in the Kysuce meadows.
There is no dying in America.
The little cousin grew up and emigrated from communist Czechoslovakia to America. Great-grandmother was sad that their contact had become so complicated. Although she had strong roots, when she felt that she was old and her end was near, she decided that she had to see her beloved grandson one last time. She secretly sold her apartment and all her possessions, told no one anything, and bought a plane ticket to New York. After landing in the USA, she started asking people at the airport if they knew where her grandson Lacko lived. Luckily, the police were following a woman who wanted to rob grandmother. She tricked her into thinking that she knew where her grandson lived. In the end, the New York police helped grandmother find her grandson. They found her uncle and called him: “Mr. Stráňavský, you have grandma here, come and get her.” To her surprise, grandmother did not die on the plane or in New York. After 3 months, when her visa expired, she returned to communist Czechoslovakia. After returning from the USA, my great-grandmother was taken care of by my aunt and her granddaughter, Júlia Sýkorová. She rented an apartment for my great-grandmother in Žilina. Almost a year after the Gentle Revolution, she died of a brain hemorrhage after eye surgery. And so, on August 24, 1990, we buried this extraordinary woman.
Freedom must be defended and nurtured daily.
My great-grandmother experienced different political systems, but she never lost her inner freedom. And whoever respects freedom will not allow it to be restricted and taken away from others. Freedom is not the result of a political system. If we do not respect it, we can call the political system we live in anything. In 1989, our political system changed, but people remained the same. Without the revolution in 1989, I would not be writing this article, my father would not be working with oils. Who knows what else would have been different. However, in 30 years, we could have convinced ourselves that it is not enough to rename the system. Maybe we have more products, we can travel, we can legally leave this country if for various reasons we do not agree with what is happening in it. What we have neglected, however, is education for inner freedom. Our threshold of moral pain is very high, and since we are surrounded by immoral and unethical behavior to such a high degree, it is starting to become the norm for us.
Which is normal.
In this age, it is normal to be sick, it is normal for politicians to abuse their power… But we all know that it is not right. We have made it 'normal' because it is the general standard. But it could be different. When we do not take care of our health, we are getting closer to losing it every day. And the same is true of freedom. We must take care of that every day. We must start with prevention and, of course, with ourselves. It is important to commemorate the anniversary of the Gentle Revolution mainly because freedom is not a given. And let us judge for ourselves how much of it we really still have left.
