“Like clouds we travelers meet and part with members of our cohort, our fellows in the panting caravans of those who are alive while we are.”
– Annie Dillard
There’s a note waiting for my mother and me when we arrive at our hotel in Uherský Brod. Among other things, it reads:
We would like to invite you for a dinner tonight, and we would love to take you to the local observatory for stargazing.
Uherský Brod is a town of some 17,000 people in the southeastern corner of the Czech Republic. It also happens to be where my maternal great-grandparents were born at the turn of the 20th century, and where they immigrated to the US from as young children.
The author of the note, Ondřej, is my sixth cousin – although we won’t figure this out until our last night in town, just as we’ll finally figure out that Ondřej’s father, Zbyněk, is my mother’s fifth cousin.
No, all we know when meeting Zbyněk and Ondřej for dinner is that through a man named Josef Kaisler, who was born in 1782, we are related.
We are “family,” although it doesn’t yet feel natural to say so.
We learn a lot about our European side of the family that first night, feasting on roasted pork knees and zesty pickles, but what most intrigues me is that they are astronomy aficionados. Zbyněk’s father, Vladimir, helped construct the town’s observatory fifty years ago, and Zbyněk himself now leads the team of amateur astronomers who volunteer there.
After dinner, we walk twenty minutes out of town, past the glow of the last streetlight, to the observatory, and spend the next hour looking through various telescopes – at one point, even at a nebula they tell us is three million light years away. It is a surreal, magnificent sight.
When we ask Zbyněk what he loves so much about astronomy, Ondřej translates for him:
“He says it is like loving a girl. You can’t say why you love her; you just do.”
I return to the observatory on our last full day in Uherský Brod, after nearly a week of getting to know Zbyněk, Ondřej, the rest of their immediate family, and even more extended family I hadn’t expected to meet.
I want to leave them a sketch before we go, and the observatory feels like a fitting subject. It’s less magical during the day, without a spectacularly starry sky dancing above us, but still I think about the real magic that has been at play all week.
By sharing their love for astronomy with us, our new-old family gave us the perfect metaphor for our time in Uherský Brod. A telescope is defined as “an optical instrument designed to make distant objects appear nearer,” and indeed, that’s exactly what this trip was meant to be for my mother and me – we had come to lose the distance, to seek connections between this side of the family tree and our own.
Just as we were able to view a star cluster three million light years away, so will we leave the Czech Republic calling strangers family.
Yet again, what was distant has been made near.
Thank you for capturing our time at the observatory with such insight and wisdom.
It was a magnificent evening that did help the distant come into focus.
Thanks so much, Mother dearest! It was incredible to share Uhersky Brod with you this time – can’t wait to go back again one day 🙂
What a beautiful story – I love this so much! What a magical experience to share with your family, a time to treasure forever.
Thanks so much, lovely – our time in Uhersky Brod absolutely was magical. And if I’m not mistaken, I think you’re back in the UK now with your own family? Hope the reunions have been wonderful!!
The world works in mysterious ways!
Indeed it does, Michelle! I’ll be in touch soon to get your address for the postcard 🙂 Thanks for reading!
What an interesting way to connect with family. I can imagine how surreal it must have been. I’m a genealogy buff and love hearing stories like this. Thank you for sharing!
Hello from one genealogy buff to another, Gayle 🙂 I’ve been obsessed with our family history since I was around 11 or 12, but it’s always been this particular part of my genealogy that has most interested me, as we can trace it back to such a specific village (my dad’s side of the family tree is more nebulous…). Whereabouts does your family originate from? Have you had a chance to trace your roots? I’d love to hear about it!
It must have been incredible to connect with someone you share a tiny bit of genes with and to travel to the places that saw your great-grandparents as children, before moving to the US.
It definitely was incredible, Katherina – while I’d briefly spent a few hours in Uhersky Brod in 2008, it was such a different experience this time, getting to actually meet some of the distant relatives we still have there. Great to hear from you!
What a fantastic story. Have you met that side of your family before? I find it so interesting meeting distant and not so distant family that is far away. You have this connection even if you are in some ways strangers as well.
We’d actually never met, Anwar! Although I knew they still lived in Uhersky Brod, I didn’t have time to get in touch with them when I briefly passed through the town in 2008. Now I can’t wait to go back and visit them again one day 🙂 Hope you’re doing well!
That is awesome that you did get to meet them 🙂 I really hope you manage to get back and visit them again. it just reminds me of a recent trip; I was staying at one family members house (who I supposedly met 19 yrs prior) and someone showed up at the door and said. “Hi Anwar I’m your cousin, please come with me.” I was like well, he knows my name so it is probably true.
Haha, I love it 🙂 And yep, that pretty much sounds like how our week in Uhersky Brod went. Each day, a different person would show up to our hotel and say, “Today, we are going here…” It definitely was a bit of an adventure!
I. too have toured and sketched in Vienna and eastern Europe, so I’m enjoying all your sketches! Vienna is really an ART city! Have you been to the Secession Museum with the Beethoven Klimt in the round? The Hundertwasser buildings are also fun and colorful! …And the Belvedere, with the Klimts….!!!!
Also were in Petra, but was so overwhelmed taking photos that I never painted, so I’m ready to see what you do!!
GREAT TRIP<and essays and paintings!!!
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the sketches, Arlene, and that they remind you of your own time in Vienna! Unfortunately there’s been a slight change of plans and I won’t be making it to Petra on this trip, but I hope you’ll keep following along and enjoy updates from Bosnia, Ireland, and Turkey 🙂 Thank you for reading!
Really lovely story, Candace. I am so anxious to get to the Czech Republic myself…
Thank you, my friend! Will you guys have time to explore the Czech Republic on this current trip? I can’t remember if your plans include Europe or not 🙂