English version by Anca Șovagău
Original version in Romanian by Natalia Luncaș Ionel, available here: Bunica Florica
Photographer: Vlad Bodarev
“They must know their country, but first I wish that they will respect their family”.
Grandmother Florica calls me “The good fairy”. To get to meet her in person I had to travel by car 250 km, to Cork, but by then I already discovered her soul on the phone. We cried together, we laughed, and we hugged. Grandmother Florica is exactly like that friend that you would love to go to dance with, but also to philosophy lessons in college. This woman, through her passport, proves that you must doubt everything in this life if you want to find out the truth. Adopted at 2 years, fooled at 15 years, first-time mother at 16 years and … a beautiful woman who today has 4 children and 11 grandchildren.
Florica Ichim is originally from Podul Iloaiei, Co Iasi, Romania. According to her documents, she should be 56 years old, but in reality, she is 58. During all this time she had lived a great abyss of unhappiness: it all started when she was 15, when she met her first love and it all finished when she was 37 and became grandmother for the first time. She was beaten, humiliated, and cut again and again. Cut with the knife. Cut to her bones. Each time her mother saved her. The same woman who brought her happiness at 2 years old and adopted her.
What you will read next it’s a prove that, yes, life has a lot of challenges, but only with a smile on our face and trust in our strength we will succeed. Grandmother Florica, thank you for your trust.
“To protect me”
“Up to 15 years old I knew what a storied childhood meant, but after that, I fell madly in love with a boy, and I ran away from home. That’s where my disgrace started”, remembers grandmother Florica. She put her soul on a tray and started to cry as if she had all that pain locked inside for too long. Neither I nor Vlad expected to spill tears from the first moments of the interview and the only thing we could do was to sit quietly and to listen.
“I was raised in a very rich family. My parents had it all but children. My biological mother worked as a housemaid but having 5 young children that she couldn’t handle in any way, she decided to give me away. My parents never hid from me that I was adopted, I could keep in touch with my biological siblings and for all the kindness of my adoptive mother I will be always grateful. I was in 7th class in the spring holiday when I met a boy. I was waiting impatiently to go back to school to collect my prices for having good grades but… in 2 days this boy took my mind. Not even today do I know what happened to me back then and I will regret that step all my life, I did not realise”.
The boy, coming from a large family with 11 siblings at home, had been convicted of rape and, to save his reputation, he thought that bringing home a 15-year-old young girl will save him from prison. Florica had no idea of all these plans and, blindly in love, she married him religiously, even though to do this she had to run away from home. When she found out about the background story it was too late: she was already carrying under her heart Sorin, who was 4 months pregnant.
“I was 15 years old. I went back home very ashamed, but I knew that only my mother could save me. I tried to have an abortion, and my mother took me, but the pregnancy was too advanced. Silly me, I still pitied him and with my big belly, I visited him in prison. The sad eyes my mother would have any time she would hear where I was going”.
Sorin, his mother’s sunshine, is the one who also brought Grandmother Florica to Ireland. He has been here for more than 22 years, from the time that it was illegal to come and with the Integration into the European Union he brought his mother as well. “To protect me”.
Note: Romania became a state member of the European Union on the 1st of January 2007, and this status offered Romanian citizens free movement throughout the territory of the EU.
“Excuse me for crying”
Once she gave birth, she never went back to school because the costs of raising a child were too high. After 2 years, she met another young man: fair-haired, with brown eyes and a lovely smile. The young man had a child from another marriage from which he had just left, and this gave her hope that maybe, finally, she would be able to build her own family. She was 17. “He tricked me as well. One day I left a note to my mom saying that I was leaving, because, after the disgrace that happened to me, she wasn’t allowing me to go anywhere, so I escaped. Out of my mind, in not even one week, I was married again. When I came back my mother raised her hands to her head, but she still forgave me”.
First 5 months of marriage with her new husband they lived in Podul Iloaiei to be close to Sorin. Florica’s mother, wouldn’t accept by any means to give her the child because, as Florica now believes, she would have sensed that something was wrong. “Mothers know everything, mothers feel when their children are not ok”. After 5 months she still had to leave. Her husband was from a Roma family who once every few months would move their house into a new town.
With her second husband has 3 children: 2 boys and one girl. Her children are the light of her eyes and her husband – the darkness of her pain. “10 years I lived with him. All those 10 years he never stopped beating me and I never stopped trying to run away. I left many times, but he always found me and when he would bring me back, he would beat me harder. Often, he would take the knife and stab me with it. Last time I left we were in Hungary. With all the shame I had towards my mother I called her and asked her to help me. When she came and saw the state my children were in, they were dirty and hungry, she took us all home to Podul Iloaiei, and this was my salvation. Since then, my peace has begun”.
Her nails are painted, her earrings shiny but her eyes- are full of pain. Grandmother Florica talks and cries. She has such a peaceful voice that, from so much crying, when she was speaking, she sounded like whispering:” Excuse me for crying”.
“I live for them”
“From Sorin – 2, from Florin Auras – 3, from Julieta – 2 and Nicu Romeo – 4. It hurts that I don’t have all my grandchildren together because this is my only dream and I pray that I will live that day”. Two of her sons and three grandchildren live in Holand. In Ireland, she minds her youngest ones from her daughter. Maria Julieta worked as an interpreter in the Law Court in Cork, and her 9-year-old daughter needs a little bit more attention. “Cristi is already 14 years old, he is an independent boy already, but Alexandra needs a little bit more time to get organised, to do her things so that’s why I come to them every day. The doctors say that Alexandra has autism, but I simply believe that she is just a special girl. I love her no matter what”.
–You have 11 Romanian grandchildren, and all were raised outside Romania. What would you like them to know about their country?
– “It’s important that they get to know their country, but firstly I wish that they will respect their family. To fight for their happiness, to be dedicated to them and not to let anyone bother them. Certainly, I would like them to know about our traditions, like Christmas carolling from house to house and of course our traditional dishes. My daughter works as a chef in a very popular hotel in Cork and knows all their menus. There is no Irish food that can compete with our culinary variety in our country”.
– “How is your life in Ireland? You have already 16 years living here. Where do you see yourself in the future”?
– “I would love to be in Romania if I had my children there, but they don’t even think to go back, so I will surely stay here beside them. I am happy here, quiet and fulfilled. Of course, I am sorry I don’t have all my grandchildren here, but I split between them the way I can”. We sat down at the table. Alexandra was hungry so Grandmother Florica took advantage of the break to serve us “sarmale” (traditional Romanian cabbage mince rolls) freshly taken out of the oven. On the table appeared some strands of sunshine that they had invited themselves to eat because of how delicious everything smelled. “Don’t even think about leaving without tasting the pie. I baked it especially for you since early morning. Would you like some watermelon as well”? We couldn’t escape and ate everything.
– “What a life! And what a past! And what a smile you have today. What is the best thing that happened to you”?
– My children. I had the blessing of having children that love and accept me the way I am. They sometimes joke, telling me how lucky they are that I had them so young, that now I have the strength to take care of my grandchildren. They just joke or are serious, I don’t know, but at the same time, I feel myself, I am happy, I am healthy, and I have the patience to raise them. Maybe better than I raised my own.
Alexandra was full of smiles and when she got her purple dress for the sake of the photo session with Vlad, we didn’t dare to rush anywhere. Grandmother Florica spends so much time with her, they draw and build Lego together and this photo certainly will be in their photo album for many years. Last year, Grandmother Florica dedicated herself only to Alexandra because she knew that she needed her grandmother the most.
” There are a lot of things that I even told the priest like I just told you. Thank you for listening to me. I never thought that I would ever find a person that would do something for me. Selfishly like you and Vlad made through this project.”, grandmother Florica told me while we were saying goodbye. And I know that our discussion was more than a cure for the soul, and we must meet again, us the Moldavian from the two sides of Prut (river).
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This interview is part of the longing campaign “Like Grandparents in Fairytales” – a project initiated by Natalia Luncas Ionel in partnership with the photographer Vlad Bodarev, the Embassy of Romania in Ireland, and the non-governmental organization Romanian Community in Ireland. The purpose of this campaign is to honour all the grandparents from the diaspora, not only the 10 ones participating in our interviews and at the same time thank them for the huge impact they have on the identity of their grandchildren living in the diaspora. Being as present as possible, our grandparents reconfirm the roots of our entire nation. On the cover of this magazine, you will be able to see where the 10 grandparents we discovered this year, started their journeys and where they are today. The next objective is to “spread” on our grandparent’s map as many stories as possible.
All copyrights belong to Natalia Luncas Ionel.
