On Dziady, more than ever, we want to hear the voices of those who are no longer with us.
Sometimes you cook something using your grandmother’s recipe and remember her bustling around the kitchen. Or you hear a familiar expression and smile: that’s just how grandpa used to say it. They may no longer be here, but so much of them remains in our lives — even in the way we welcome guests or call the children to dinner.
On Dziady, we gather to remember them. Our grandparents, parents, friends, the neighbor who knew us from childhood and always had a treat for us. We remember what they were like, what they loved, how they knew how to comfort us. Sometimes we cry; sometimes we laugh at a story we have heard so many times before. And we are glad that someone else around the table remembers it, too.
I very much want our children to be part of these conversations. To be able to ask questions, look through family albums with us, and discover whose smile or character they have inherited. So that people they may never have met can become close to them, too.
Our elders once passed down their memories, songs, and family traditions to us in the same way. So much of what makes us Belarusian has survived across generations thanks to this love and care. And now it is our turn to pass it on.
Not everyone can visit their loved ones’ graves or gather at their family home today. But we can create our own evening of remembrance wherever we are. Cook something that reminds us of childhood, light a candle, invite loved ones over. Start with something simple: ‘Do you remember…?’ Or share a story no one else at the table has heard before.
Every family has its own names and stories. And across Belarus and far beyond its borders, people will be remembering their loved ones on these evenings. That makes me feel especially warm: we may be in different places, but so much brings us together.
Let’s preserve this tradition, so that many years from now, our grandchildren will invite their loved ones over and say: “Come. Today is Dziady.”
