She found out that like her mother he had been in the camps at Dachau and was with her afterwards in the displaced persons camp, that he was a Polish air force hero and had worked on a farm where she and her sister had been born. The mystery was why this man had then abandoned them and her mother married another. It also explained why her mother had really never shown much affection to her hard-working husband after they had been placed in Denver rather than go back to war-stricken Ukraine after the war.
In a search that took decades Maria travelled all over Germany and Eastern Europe holding out against all hope that her real father had perhaps survived, and although would know be in his eighties, still be thrilled to see her. She craved knowing who he and her extended European family would be and hoped they would accept her. Would the fantasies she had carved out in her mind come to fruition when she finally found him?
Not only did her journey answer her questions but gave her frail aging mother the benefit of seeing her elder brother again after over forty years apart it helped her mother discover the truths about her own father too. A compelling story that left me both weeping, smiling but satisfied by journeys end.
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