The Greek Family Stories That Surface When the Music Plays
Greek family stories from Crete have a way of surfacing when the music plays. Last night, I went to a Cretan dinner dance with my family. It was held at St. John Greek Orthodox Church Hall in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and hosted by the Detroit Cretan Club Pseloritis.
There were local traditional dancers and others who came from Canada. We enjoyed live Cretan music, and I watched my dad stand up and start moving to it. For him, those familiar sounds and rhythms don’t just entertain, they awaken something.
My dad was in heaven.
And I’ve learned something over the years: when he’s surrounded by “his people,” the Greek family stories come out.
Not the polished ones that I have heard a dozen times. New ones, ones I’ve never heard before. I was grateful to have my sister with me to hear too.
Sometimes that extra set of ears is important because I didn’t come prepared with a journal to take notes. Lesson learned on that for the next time!
While we were at the dance, I was introduced to a gentleman named Hercules, whom I’d never heard of in my dad’s stories. Another friend who had helped hide my dad from INS after he “jumped the boat,” as they both casually said. As if that sentence didn’t deserve its own pause.
I know it was more common in that time for things like that to happen, but for me, it seems so unimaginable. My dad, hiding from the government and fighting to have a better life than the one he ran from in Greece. Friends that were really more like acquaintances, willing to risk going to jail for someone from their home country because their passion for helping someone who was similar to them ran so deep.
And then came another detail. Almost an aside.“Oh — and my uncle was in the Greek secret service. I tried to get him to help me but there was nothing he could do.”
Mic drop.
Excuse me… what?
After asking a few more clarifying questions over the loud bazouki playing in the background, I was able to piece together that this was my great-uncle, my grandfather’s brother. It would have been in the 1940s or early 1950s. I don’t even know what the Greek equivalent of “secret service” was back then. However, I do know this was brand-new information to my sister and me. The kind of information that makes your ears perk up and your imagination quietly spin.
Every time my dad is in spaces like this, immersed in music, memory, and belonging, new layers of his story surface. And every time, my curiosity grows.
Because these aren’t just his stories.
They’re part of our family’s story.
Part of how one life intersects with history in ways we never fully understand at the time.
And who knows… maybe somewhere in all of this is another story waiting to be told.
Maybe even another book.
Possibly about a long-lost great uncle who was a spy in the war. One that I never knew existed.
Funny how that happens…you show up for a dance, and you leave with a whole new thread of history tugging at you.
This is exactly why I wrote Hope Is My Anchor, a novel inspired by my father’s true story as a Greek immigrant from Crete to Detroit. Each time I think I know the whole story, another layer appears.
If you love Greek family stories rooted in real history, I think you’ll enjoy my book and my free 7-day devotional inspired by it.
Leave a Reply