9/24/13: Melissa

Hello Uncle Vlad

Thank you for your message! It is so nice to chat with you. Yes,
please send an email to a simple email - I would like to receive
it! And I will share with my family. I am happy to find a way to
translate it . Internet is sometimes good , and I have a Russian friend
that can help , too. I also try to learn some
Russian . But I think I need some time!

You can send an email to my email address :

[My postal address was inserted here]

I really look forward to hearing from you! I hope that all
wonderful.

With love, [I now wonder if that is actually creepy in Russian]
Melissa

9/23/13: Vlad

Letter received. Big New Year's Eve. Be able to translate a letter for the simple mail or not. I want to write in great detail. Embrace all.

My First Reply

Note: This is Google's translation of the Russian, after it translated my English into Russian. (So it might be the way it looked to Vlad... though who can know for sure... Interesting what happened to my punctuation!) After this, I started checking the translation before sending.

Dear Uncle Vlad

I apologize for the delay in writing to you. After returning from Russia , Dan and I have been very busy with work and school ! And this week we were in Hawaii for the wedding cousin Dan . Today we went back again in New York .

Many thanks for your message . It was so wonderful to meet you. I can not tell you enough how much it means to me to find you and your family. It's a beautiful thing. Our family is connected again!

Dan and I look forward to coming and visiting you and the family in Chelyabinsk. I hope that someday soon! And anyone can visit us in New York , too. Our apartment is small , but we love visitors!

I believe you are looking for addresses our family again. Write them below. Firstly, this distribution (street ) address and the second is an email address .

I attached a picture of Dan and me in Hawaii. It was a great time. My brother Danny took all the photos when we were together in Moskva, so hopefully we can get these pictures of him soon.

In addition, I have included English version of this message below. Sometimes the Internet can not be translated, but as a person! If it is easy for you, you can send messages in English and Russian languages​​, too.

See you soon! With much love,
Melissa

First Message from Vlad

This first message came in English; Vlad had clearly tried using an online translator. Exciting, if unintelligible... 

Dear Dan and Melissa. How did you get that obratno. Nadeyus normal. I have so little talk with all the little vremeni. Vsya our meeting was as korotkiyson in which I'm afraid to believe his father's death I was trying rozyskatrodnyh but bezuspeshno. Yathought of Gavlovskih odin. Ivdrug I was so happy I got as much right as relatives could not believe it. Write to me on the internet and the best simple pochtoy. ishite detail and large pismami. Adresa send all block letters so that I could read. Allkowtow.

The Beginning of the Journey

This is my grandfather, Hilary Gawlowski. Or Dziadek, in Polish, which is how I knew him. This is his photo when he was in the Polish Home Army (the Polish resistance in World War II)-- tell me he doesn't look like Gene Kelly. You can tell me that, but I'll just tell you he's handsomer. He died when I was four, but the memories I have are strong. And his shadow in my family is stronger.

Dan, my husband, and I went to Poland on our honeymoon to connect with my-- and now Dan's-- family heritage, and deeply ingrained throughout was the connection with this amazing man who has played such a role in my life, whether or not he's physically been around.

I held a hope I might find our relatives-- Dziadek's half-siblings and their kids-- on our journey. Sadly, all contact disappeared with Dziadek's death.

What's the deal with the half-siblings? Here's the short version: my great-grandfather, being a landowner (a farmer), was banished to Siberia shortly after the Boshevik Revolution. After eight years in a labor camp, having lost his wife, unable to go home, and thinking he lost everyone else, he started a new family in Siberia.

Dziadek found out about all of this in the 1950s, after he'd already come to the U.S. with my grandmother and dad. Via relatives in Poland, they exchanged family portraits, and he learned of his brother and sister across the globe. He was never able to meet them. 

I tried to find them before we went to Poland, but no luck. No one knew how to reach our family out there, and it seemed that all was lost to time. 

Then, a month ago, I received a message through my playwriting website. A man named Timo Laakso asked if I knew Hilarj Gavlovskij. He said someone was trying to reach him, and he had further information to share. Naturally, I assumed he wanted my bank account number. But, for whatever reason, I wrote him back. He sent me a link to a Russian reality TV show called Wait for Me, where a man named Vladislav Gavlovskij had posted a photo-- of my grandparents, my dad, and my aunt. A photo I've seen before. He wrote (says Google Translate) of how he is looking for his brother, who he's never met. The story checked out. Tears ensued.

And so, long story short, Dan and I booked tickets to fly to Moscow to appear on Russian reality TV to surprise my great-uncle, who thought he was just there to announce his search and ask for clues. (I realize how surreal this sounds...) My brothers Andrew and Danny, and Danny's wife and son, all came, too. 

The experience was beyond overwhelming. My brother and I shot some photos, and the video (in Russian) has been posted by the TV show, as well. I hope someday to translate it (though some moments, of course, need no translation).

In the meantime, my new-found Uncle Vlad (technically my great-uncle, but he's only a few years older than my dad, so we'll go with "uncle") and I have begun to forge a relationship. He doesn't speak English, and I don't speak Russian (at least, not yet). But, amazingly, we are still able to talk. None of this would be possible without today's technology. Timo wouldn't have ever found me, and we wouldn't be able to communicate. With amazement, gratitude, and humility, I'll be sharing some of our exchanges here (with Uncle Vlad's blessing, of course).