By John Žakelj
Today
we mourn a loss, but more important, we celebrate the life of Anton Žakelj – 98
years of dedication to family and community, many years of suffering and labor,
many years of love and accomplishment.
My
brothers Tony and Joe and sister Mary and I called our parents Mama and
Ata. To each other, they were Tone and
Cilka, to us they were always Mama and Ata.
It’s interesting how different they were. Ata was always the pessimist, expecting the worst. Mama was the optimist, always confident that
things would work out somehow.
If
you go to the cemetery today, take a good look at the gravestone. The design is based on my sister Mary’s idea
when Mama died. Two flowers cross in
the middle, a carnation and a rose. The stem of the carnation begins on my
mother’s side and the stem of the rose begins on my father’s side. Mama loved carnations, soft and lovely. Ata loved roses, tough and beautiful. In many ways, they were themselves like
those flowers. Mama was always soft and
gentle. And those of you that knew Ata
well know that he could sometimes be difficult and thorny. But they were both beautiful in their own
way.
Another
difference between Mama and Ata is that Mama never cared much about history.
What mattered to her was her family and her immediate friends. Ata cared about that, too, but he put
everything in a bigger context. He had
a near photographic memory of all the key events in his life and how they fit
in with bigger events in the world.
Sometimes he seemed to be like a record player, telling the same stories
over and over again, especially about the war.
I got to know the stories so well I
started making the same comments every time he retold a story, and he
didn’t seem to mind. But what really
amazed me was that he would sometimes tell a new story that I had never heard
before, even this past year, after his 98th birthday. What a memory!
One
more comment about Ata being a pessimist:
Soon after he retired over 30 years ago, I remember being with him at a
MetroPark visitor center. We noticed an
announcement about a class in identifying mushrooms. He commented that he would be really interested in that. So I said, well you should go! But then he noticed that it cost $5 and he
said, “I’m not going to live much longer, what if I never use what I
learn? I’ll have wasted $5.” Thirty years later, he was still making
comments like that, so I would often remind him about that mushroom class. But my comments never really sank in until
Ata heard the same point from Father Božnar.
This was after Mama died and Ata was trying to decide whether to move
into the Village. Everybody was telling
Ata how much better it would be, but Ata’s frequent response was, “I’m only
going to live a few more days. It’s not
worth the trouble.” So I told Father
Božnar about that and Ata and I had a meeting with Father. Father pointed out that Ata had been
predicting his imminent death for over 30 years and maybe, just maybe, he was a
little too pessimistic. You know,
Father has such a wonderful way of gently pointing out the truth. Well, that finally seemed to make an
impression on Ata and he agreed that perhaps he would live long enough to make
it worthwhile to move to the Village.
We’re
very thankful to Father Božnar for everything he did for Ata, including
convincing him to move to the Village.
Ata had some good months there.
I could see his spirit and life come back as a result of the
companionship he received at the Village.
Our thanks to Rudy and to all the good people who live at the Village.
Allow
me to say a few more things about Ata’s life.
As you know, Ata and Mama had to leave their home after WWII. During the war, they did not cooperate with
the communists – they did what they believed was best for their country and
their church and for that, they feared they would be put in prison or
persecuted in other ways. Imagine if
you had to leave your home, your country and everything you had not because you
did anything wrong, but because you did what you believed was right. And in comparison to others, Ata and Mama
were lucky. Many of you here today have
family members who lost their lives.
Although
Ata was always telling us stories about the war and the refugee camps while we
were growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, I didn’t have much sense of the
significance of all that until the 1990’s.
Around 1991, when Slovenia became an independent country, a magazine
editor in Slovenia asked Ata to write his side of what happened during the war. For many years, this was something that was
strictly forbidden. The communists had
an official version of history and people were put in prison if they disagreed
or tried to present another side. This was part of how the communists thought
they could control the country. But by
1991, most Slovenians had enough of that and they wanted freedom. When Ata was asked to present his side, he
was suspicious at first, but he agreed
to do it, and he asked me to help him with the typing. The piece that he
submitted described 4 months of his life from 1943. When the article was published, I was impressed by the way it was
presented. In his introduction to Ata’s
memoir, the magazine editor talked about how long the Slovenian people had been
told what to think, even what to celebrate.
He talked about how Slovenians longed for freedom, and he quoted a
passage from the bible: “The truth
shall set you free.” He pointed to
Ata’s clear, direct and honest retelling of his side of the story. Slovenians were beginning to realize that
they could never be truly free as long as they lived in a lie. They needed memories like Ata’s to know the
truth about themselves and their country.
It
was then that I began to realize the significance of Ata’s stories. If they were that important back in
Slovenia, maybe they would be worth translating and publishing here in
America. So I started with that first 4
month section of Ata’s life and submitted that to the Ameriška Domovina. I was very pleased when Jim Debevec agreed
to publish that first section. Many of
you here today gave me encouragement, so I continued to work with Ata to
translate more of his memoirs, and Jim and Madeline Debevec continued to
publish those memoirs for the next 10 years.
We are so thankful to you, Jim and Madeline. You provided Ata with so
much purpose and satisfaction during the last 10 years of his life. He wanted so much for people to know his
story, and you provided him with a way to tell it.
When
we came to America 56 years ago, Ata found many people who wouldn’t listen or
couldn’t understand his side of the story.
The Yugoslav government had spread lies about how the refugees had
collaborated with the Nazis. They
called us traitors to our country, and many Americans believed those lies. This hurt Ata deeply. It’s hard to express how important it was
for Ata to set the record straight, but it wasn’t until Ata’s articles were
published in the Domovina and in Slovenia 40 years later that he felt some
balance had been restored.
The
Domovina recently printed some articles about Korotan's trip this past
summer to Slovenia to commemorate the 60th anniversary of refugees like my
father. Many of you in the choir were part of those concerts. The
significance of your return was not lost on the Slovenian public. Here
were the children of refugees who had been dishonored and banished from their
home country, now returning proud and strong. Ata received comfort in
knowing that all the hardships he endured from refusing to sacrifice his
ideals had not been in vain.
Our
first 10 years in America were especially hard for Ata. He arrived full of energy and hope for a
better life for himself and his family.
Instead, he often found prejudice and exploitation. He worried about his brothers and sisters in
Slovenia, many of whom were in prison.
And he worried about his sick mother, who died in 1954 with everyone in
the family at her bedside except for Ata.
He wrote in his diary about his depression, not sure that he could
continue living like that. But he had
his faith in God, he had Mama, who provided him with unconditional love and
support, he had many friends who helped him, and he had a tremendous sense of
responsibility for his children. And
despite the occasional prejudice, America did provide him with work and freedom
and the ability to provide for his family and even prosper.
In
four years, Ata saved enough money to buy our own home. The property on Carry Ave. also had enough
land for a decent garden. For the first
20 years, the garden was almost entirely for practical and economic
reasons. We all worked hard to grow as
much of our own food as we could. But gradually, Mama began to plant carnations
and other flowers, and Ata planted roses and fruit trees. In their retirement, the garden became a
major source of satisfaction for them.
They were proud of the garden prizes they received from the St Clair
Association.
I
mentioned earlier that Ata didn’t want to spend $5 on a class for himself. But he was very generous when it came to
education for his children and grandchildren.
He did everything he could to make sure we had the best education both
academically and spiritually. And that
brings me to a major area in which Ata and Mama were fully in agreement. This was where the rose and the carnation
came together. They believed that we,
their children and grandchildren, could make this world a better place, a place
where each person is treated with respect, where people are not punished for
doing what they believe is right, where each person has opportunities and
responsibilities to grow and to make their own contribution to society. Ata, we will always remember you. We will do our best to make your ideals a
reality.
We
are thankful to God for Ata, and we are thankful to each of you who were
friends to Ata and Mama and who provided them with so much help and
support. After the Mass, you are
invited to join us at the cemetery and a dinner afterwards.
Danes
žalujemo, in praznujemo, življenje našega Ata.
Hvaležni smo Bogu za tako dolgo, dobro življenje. In hvaležni smo vsem
Vam, ki ste bili Atu in Mami prijatelji in ki ste jim toliko pomagali. Po maši Vas vabimo na pokopališče in
potem na kosilo.
V
zaključek Vam hočem prebrati lepo pesem, ki sem jo prejel včeraj
po elektronski pošti od bratranca Jožeta Žaklja v Sloveniji:
Rekvijem
Tonetu Žakelj
13.01.
06 z mirom je prišel čas,
ko
se od očeta Toneta poslavljamo
in
prepričani lahko ugotavljamo:
bil
je res dober človeški za nas.
V
Oče naš molimo:
…blagoslovljen
je Jezus Sad tvojega telesa,
ki
naj sprejme Toneta Žakelj v nebesa.
Čast
bodi Bogu za dobroto, se zahvaljujmo.