Please?

"Please, what?" they would say when I first moved to a new city. In Cincinnati, where I was raised, the German immigrants had contributed a bit of the Motherland to the English language. Please meant excuse me, I didn't hear you, or if you live where I live now, WHAT??? But in Cincinnati, everyone said please as a polite way of asking someone to repeat what they just said. Transplanted to a new environment, no one knew what I meant and I was forced to drop a little part of my German heritage, a small line to my German grandfather, Karl (pictured left).

On my desk sits a photo of my great-grandmother, Teresa, mother of Karl. She is very old in the photo, toothless and wrinkled. When I look at the photo, I wonder what she was like, and how she could stand that her son lived an ocean away in another world. In those days, moving to America meant likely she'd not see him again. How could she have let go, stood such a loss? What did she think when he became an American soldier, fighting against Germany?

Now, our world is much different. People blend, move, travel with ease. Teresa sits in a wicker chair, waiting likely for a letter carried for weeks by boat. We can communicate instantly in a myriad of ways. Still, small messages come from our past in how we simply ask "Please?"