Greece - A long way home

All my life I heard about the country my dad loved. I heard about the sea, the land and the people.  I knew that it was a huge part of him thus making it a part of me.  I knew he would have loved to take me there himself… and I knew that even after he died, I absolutely had to go. 

The moment I arrived I felt like I was home.  From the busy streets of Athens and Kalamata to the quiet shores of Avia, I found my dad everywhere.  I saw his peculiarity in the mopeds that flew past us with giant cooler chests strapped to the back seats.  I saw his high-spirits in my cousin who kept time to the music by swinging his arm outside of the window and slapping the top of the car.  I saw my dad’s signature handiwork in the land he once tended to and the house he once built. But mostly I saw him in the hearts of the people there, the other ones that he left behind.  People whom I had never met, who loved him.  People who would open their hearts and homes and give the very best they had for one of “Telly’s little girls.”   If I had to pick only two characteristics about my dad that impacted me the most they would be his ability to give and his value of family.  Over the past week I saw that this legacy had been written on more hearts than just his.  I never got to meet his parents; my Papoo and Yaya.  But I feel like I know them in a small way because of the trends I have seen in their children and grandchildren.  I am so incredibly grateful to at least know this much.

I went to the mountain village where he grew up.  I saw his old school and the olive orchards he worked in as a young boy.  I heard stories for the first time about what he was like before he moved to Canada.  I got to know my dad in a entirely new way and my perspective on his life has been drastically changed.  For a number of years I have secretly wondered why he didn’t take more chances or try to break out of a small-minded mentality.  To me it always seemed he didn’t believe that his dreams could actually come true.  But in the small village of Agia Anna, as I walked through the house he grew up in I realized that he did dream big and he made all of his dreams come true.  One of those dreams would have been to have a nice house in a safe neighbourhood for his family.  Another would have been to give us a pool and a tree house and a big yard to play in.  Another still would have been to have his own garden and vineyard to give us good produce.  And finally he would have wanted me to have dreams that were bigger than his.  All of which came true.  It wasn’t until I saw his beginning that I truly recognized all that he accomplished in the end.  And for that in a new way he has become my hero again.

This trip has so far been everything I had hoped it would be and even more.  The islands were breath-taking and our historical value unlike anything I have seen before.  I know my dad would have been so happy to see me falling in love with his country.  But probably more than anything else that I love here, I love the family that I have met.  I knew that I would love them.  I knew that even if I didn’t understand them or the differences that defined us, I would love them.  And when we said our good-byes a little piece of my heart stayed there with them.  I think it has always belonged there.