Mom mentioned a few times that it would have been nice to have Polish names, but then she got more involved with just loving her grandchildren for who they were, not how they were labelled.
Manil's parents have been another story. Yes, they love Manil and their grandchildren (me, I'm not so sure of!) but they really like to try and run things. It was a major battle to live in a different part of Calgary from them. Manil is an Economic Planner at the university. (Not a professor - he works for the administration on long term planning.) I'm in software and work near downtown. Neither of us wanted to drive to work so when we were able to afford a house, we looked for something that would let us both use the train for going to work. The ideal location was between downtown and the university, but Manil's parents live further out in the suburbs, where everyone drives everywhere. Anyways, even though they offered to buy us a house in their neighbourhood, we finally got our way and bought a house in the area we wanted. After we'd managed to assert ourselves, my in-laws backed off a bit and, as long as we bring our kids to see them regularly, they mostly leave us in peace.
Something that Manil and I have both had trouble with is that neither child knows more than a couple of words of Polish or Tamil. Manil's parents and my mom really wanted the kids to learn to speak their language. My feeling is that it's better to look ahead to the future than back to the past. It's an English-speaking country where we live, it's increasingly an English-speaking world, so mastery of English is the top priority. Dad got that totally. He was initially hampered by his lack of English, and I know he felt guilty that he held a blue-collar job instead of a white-collar job, even though in Poland he was well-educated. He shouldn't feel bad. He was never laid off or out of work, had a solid job with benefits, and worked for the city for thirty-two years. He was able to retire with a nice pension. In any case, the chance to speak Tamil or Polish in Calgary really just rests with a few old relatives.
One great thing about Mom and Dad is that they immediately accepted Manil as the man I had chosen and never once said anything about him not being of Polish background. I felt their overriding love when I realised all they wanted was for me to be happy.
It's been tough going through Dad's things. Mom's cancer took a real toll on him and he was never the same after she died. For years he would mutter that the fumes from the beauty parlour where she worked gave her cancer. However, he did manage to end his days in the house they bought in 1980. The garden still looks great.
