Joseph Sabino Mistick: Seeing the beauty, keeping the faith in tough times

Out the window of my second-floor home office I can see the magnolia tree at the bottom of the drive, in full bloom now. It is a feathery mass of bright pink flowers, nestled where the trunk meets the ground by a bed of blue star-shaped Siberian squill.

Some years, when the tree blooms before the last hard frost, the blossoms drop too quickly. But when the beauty lingers, every day starts with an appreciative sigh because the blossoms are still there, a daily reminder of spring and new life.

This year, with the tree in full bloom for days now, and all of us quarantined, the message is not so clear. Maybe the tree has no idea what’s going on all around it, all the loss and despair. Or maybe it knows that we need its message this year more than ever. It’s really all about faith.

We all know somebody of great faith, and my adopted Slovak grandmother was that person for me. Baba and I met when I was 6, the little Italian stepson of her youngest son. And from that first day, she loved me and treated me as her own.

Baba lived in a rowhouse on a half-lot on Talbot Avenue in Braddock, close enough to the Edgar Thomson Works mill gate to feel the heat when they dumped the ladle. She raised her family there, most of the time as a widow, after her husband was hit by a crane hook in the mill and carried home to die.

When Andy was alive, he sometimes got tired of the back-breaking work and the union busters, and he would tell Baba that they should pack up and head back to the Old Country. That always passed, because America had become their real home, the home of their family.

Every Saturday, Baba would make pierogi with lekvar just for me, tossing the sweet prune dumplings in warm butter. And, in the summer, all the grandchildren played in the brick courtyard in the back, where the outhouses stood before indoor plumbing.

The big holiday of the year was Easter. Baba suffered through the Stations of the Cross and mourned the death of Christ on Good Friday. On Saturday morning, she packed a wicker basket with small portions of the traditional food she had spent weeks preparing and walked three blocks to the Slovak church to have it blessed. At noon, we broke the Lenten fast, finally getting a taste of the ham, kolbassi, hard-boiled eggs and nut roll.

And on Easter morning, year after year, Baba glowed. Some years had been more of a struggle than others, some winters were colder and seemed darker, but Baba’s faith was strong. She knew that every Easter brought new life, a new beginning. That was the promise of Easter.

And in these times, we can find that promise, too. It might be as simple as the tiniest daffodils or crocuses to peek out of the dirt, those earliest signs of spring. I find it in the blooming magnolia at the bottom of the drive.