Kari in the 1940's | 
My great-grandparents | 
My memorial for Kari |
I met my cousin Kari when I traveled to Norway to do research for my newly-released collection, Against My Dreams, poems written in my grandmother's voice. Kari's mother and my grandmother were sisters.
During the weeks I spent with her, Kari drove me all over the countryside to show me the farms where my ancestors lived and to share cultural museums and other relevant sites. She made a photo album and written history of my family for me. She fed me, listened to me, told me stories, gave me space to wander and write.
Kari died this spring while I was working on publication of this book. But I can still hear her earnest voice that day in her apartment when she pulled me into the hallway to show me a photo of my great-grandparents.
"One day before you came, I walked by this picture and I heard their voices," Kari said in her lilting English. "They told me to be good to you, because you are the one who cares, the one who will tell the story."
During the weeks I spent with her, Kari drove me all over the countryside to show me the farms where my ancestors lived and to share cultural museums and other relevant sites. She made a photo album and written history of my family for me. She fed me, listened to me, told me stories, gave me space to wander and write.
Kari died this spring while I was working on publication of this book. But I can still hear her earnest voice that day in her apartment when she pulled me into the hallway to show me a photo of my great-grandparents.
"One day before you came, I walked by this picture and I heard their voices," Kari said in her lilting English. "They told me to be good to you, because you are the one who cares, the one who will tell the story."
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