“Jack, check this out!” I call from across the shop.  We’re in the store attached to the main cathedral in the old city in Wrocław, Poland. This is not a tourist destination - no, this is where Roman Catholics come to get books and other religious items. Mooching around the back aisles, I have found the most bizarre items: chickens made from white and golden crocheted cotton formed over real hens’ eggs and stiffened to hold their shape. Just a little dash of red for their combs, and blackened eyes.  So cute. So weird.  I hold up the last two.  “How the heck would I transport them home without breaking the eggshells?”

It’s Easter weekend, 2017. Jack’s been itching to see his mother, sister, and eldest son. We missed the annual trip last year because of his cancer treatment and none of his people have seen us since we made if official by eloping. So we’ve come this year. 

Jack left his home country 30 years ago in his mid-30s. Facebook and WhatsApp now allow him regular contact with his circle and keep him current on Poland’s politics but being here in person lets him recharge his Polish battery. 

Our first trip gave everyone the chance to check out this third and hopefully final partner. I don’t speak Polish which complicated the mental poking and prodding I experienced . All my responses were interpreted through Jack. For most this would be ideal: to have someone filter your answers to your in-laws would surely mean you wouldn’t screw up and say the wrong thing. Problem is of course, it is Jack, not me, who is more likely to say something wholly inappropriate - one of his great charms but risky in this circumstance.  Seems they liked me so he must have done OK. On that trip, we travelled to different parts of the country so I could be introduced around but I missed seeing the sites. On subsequent trips, I’ve organized side trips to other places either before or after Poland so that we could be tourists and have a proper holiday - England a few times, Ireland, Iceland, and Scandinavia. It’s to tough to grab those moments of private fun in Poland.

Jack’s nearly a year out of treatment now but if he gets sick again, it might be sudden. I’m nervous about being his health advocate in the Polish health care system. We will have no health insurance either since cancer is a pre-existing condition. I'm also scared if we have our usual pre- or post- holiday we’d have yet another health care system to navigate. At least if we are in Poland and he gets sick, we’ll have his family and his own language skills to rely on.  

A big issue for me on these trips is the accommodation. Jack’s mother has a very small apartment and in our previous trips, we’ve stayed with her, sometimes sharing a single bed for a week. Despite a significant health decline since our last visit two years ago, she’ s still in her apartment but is bedridden. She now lives with a full-time caregiver so staying there is no longer an option for me. I’m English to the core including my need for privacy. Jack is pretty sure his family is horrified but I booked us a condo in Poland’s tallest building, “SkyTower,” across the street from Jack’s mom’s. SkyTower is a North American style building with a shopping mall at ground level, complete with sushi place and an upscale grocery store.  It gives me a sense of holiday I’ve missed in past visits. This way too, Jack has a place where he can have some downtime. Although everyone else knows about the cancer, his mother does not.*  She hasn’t noticed our wedding photos shows a hairless Jack or that his post-chemo hair is three shades darker than it’s been in a decade. Or she’s choosing to ignore it, it being too painful too contemplate.  She’s thrilled Jack pops over to see her for a bit every few hours, and me too a couple of times a day.  Between visits, Jack rests or we go out to explore the city as we’ve done today. 

We set out slowly hand in hand. We feel old Europe underfoot as the uneven cobble stones push through our leather soled boots. It’s a cool April day. I’m wearing the cosy wrap I’ve purchased from Jack’s clothing designer niece. Compared to the Sikorski women, I’m enormous, but these coats are cut big. I’ve picked a burnt orange bouclé one and I’m loving the chance to wear it. Jack’s in good form today. He doesn’t stop to passionately embrace the statue of a peasant woman or to cuddle with one of the many gnomes that distinguish this city from other centres in Poland, as he he did the first time he toured me through these streets. But he’s in that kind of mood. After last year, it’s fun just to have fun. 

It was not an aimless walk here though - we’ve needed to end up in this store.  Why would an atheist with Protestant cultural roots and a Catholic who renounced his religion years ago need to make a trip to the cathedral store? Well, Jack’s Canadian daughter, Alexa, has two little girls and the second is about to be christened. As she did to mark the baptism of the elder one, Alexa wants to give each attendee a religious take-away. Hence our task today. 

Jack got us to the old town through a maze of beautiful streets lined with an architectural mix of pre-war, Soviet-style blocks, and some very modern buildings (think SkyTower.) Jack regales me with history as we walk - his own, and the politics of Wrocław which, while Polish since 1945, was German before that (known as Breslau), and bounced between countries for centuries. No-one is prouder of Wrocław than Jack, despite his lengthy time in Canada. 

As we closed in on the Cathedral square, I remembered the geography from our previous trip. 

“Jack, the store is this way,” gently guiding him left as he tried to turn right.    

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” I grinned.  Even in Jack’s home town, my sense of direction is more reliable than his, a source of great shame for him and mild amusement for me. 

A moment later, we entered the store receiving a glare for interrupting the coffee klatch of three middle aged Polish ladies behind the counter. 

“They’re likely nuns,” he said loudly to me in English as he strode towards them. He correctly predicted they wouldn’t understand.  One day I’m sure we won’t be so lucky. 

Jack was undaunted by the dirty look. He skillfully wins over any pani in his path.  In Toronto, the women at his Polish deli compete to serve their “Pan Jacek,” feeding him pieces of kabanosy and letting him steal Krówki out of the bulk bin.   

He drew these saleswomen in too, by his accent, watered down by three decades away, and by his considerable charms.  I gather he’s explained we’re in the market for rosaries. I listen but the Polish is rapid and I’m lost.  Jack shoots me a few English words for me to understand the debate is between wooden or metal, with or without coloured beads. My opinion was sought and offered, although it’s questionable what value I can add on this subject, this being only the second time I’ve touched a rosary.  They were deep into it so I began to explore the store, only to find these bizarre chickens.  

“Buy them!” Jack calls back across the store.  It’s his standard response to anything I say I like.  “We’ll figure out the transport.” 

We leave the store a few minutes later, two chickens carefully wrapped in a hard box and 100 wooden rosaries in my backpack, another successful shopping trip in Wroclaw’s Cathedral store.  We meander back to SkyTower, stopping to drink in the smells of daffodils in garden boxes and admire the windows-full of blue pottery. 

***

It’s only five years since that last trip to Poland, but it seems like a lifetime go. I pulled those chickens out to accompany me in my Easter weekend meals.  So campy. So nostalgic. However many things I sell on Facebook this year, these stay.  You can’t put a price on those memories. 

Happy Easter to those who celebrate. 

* My mother-in-law died three months after Jack’s death, never knowing of his illness or that he’d died.