Regret

by GEORGE GAVRILIS • JUNE 2024

Maybe she knew she was near the end when she started reminiscing on the balcony on that hot summer day.  “Today women have the legal sector wrapped up in their hands,” she explained, “but back then it was different.”  My grandmother looked up at the sky and continued sharing a story I had never heard.

“I loved law school, but I didn’t always go to class.  There were other things to do.”  Classic understatement from a woman who was one of the first to attend law school in Greece.  This was no small feat in a country ravaged by war and one where women wielded their power at home.

Then my grandmother cracked a sly smile.  “But back then, if you were from the provinces, you were allowed to miss class.  When the professor asked why I wasn’t coming to his class, I told him it was hard to come and go from my country village. He had no idea I lived just ten minutes away.  Ha! Ha!” she laughed with raspy delight. 

I grabbed my phone and turned on the voice recorder as my grandmother continued to share stories about meeting the love of her life, leaving law school for him, losing her youngest brother to the civil war, and raising my mother and aunt in unfamiliar places when my grandfather’s postings took him from province to province, including remote mountain towns in northern Greece where she fell in love with snow. 

One short hour later, my grandmother got up from her chair on the balcony and went to the kitchen to make coffee. I hit stop.  That recording is the most precious one in my collection.  But it represents a huge regret. There were so many stories I never captured, so much I didn’t get to ask her. How could I—an oral historian who helped others document their lives—not do this for my beloved grandmother?   I still struggle to answer this question as I look at scores of faded photos of my grandmother and piece together her stories from mine and my mother’s memories.