Why I Wrote Gracianna
by Trini Amador
Gracianna was my great-grandmother and when I was a child she used to talk a lot about being thankful. “Grateful?” Who talks to a four year old about that concept? Later in life I began linking shreds of stories I had been told with my own my beliefs to a jolting incident of being found walking around her house at four years old with a loaded German Luger. Suddenly, fifty years had gone by and it was time to tell the story about how that Luger came to be in my boy-hand. As a brand marketing executive that owns his own business I travel a lot. In the last few years I have put in over 750,000 miles worldwide and took advantage of that flying time by writing.
I live in Sonoma County, California where my family owns the lauded Gracianna Winery in the Russian River Valley but nearly all of my marketing work is outside the US. I wrote Gracianna in over thirteen countries. Gracianna took eight months to write but nearly two years in editing with the talented Hillel Black, who has edited over 20 New York Times best sellers, and who gave Gracianna its wonderful tempo and grace notes.
This is an excerpt from the Author Afterword:
After
reflecting on the legacy of powerful values and a powerful woman, we arrive
here.
This is the
story I have pieced together from bits I've picked up from my family, some of
my own memories, and memories of memories, and well -known family stories and
interviews.
The rest is
how I imagined my great-grandmother would have acted, based on my observations
of her worried mind; controlling tendency; and pensive inward-looking gaze; and
also of my perceptions of her joy, sadness, and beliefs.
When
recalling memories from your youth, sometimes pieces come to you over the
years. They get woven together, re-woven and woven again until something starts
“to be.” These are my recollections, facts, and beliefs, starting with my
childhood, converted into my what-I-came-to-believe story. It took nearly fifty
years for me to understand it myself.
Until
recently, I never fully understood how much World War II, Hitler, the
Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, or French freedom resistance had impacted my
family and me.
The Basque
have a saying, “Aldi luzeak, guztia ahaztu [With the passing of time, all
things are forgotten].”
But this
will not be forgotten. Gracianna’s sister miraculously did live through
Birkenau, where it is estimated that between 700,000 and 1 million people were
gassed, hanged, or shot.
I needed to
tell the story about my lifelong belief of how that gun had gotten into my
grandmother’s nightstand.
I wanted to
convey my understanding of her values and what they meant to her, and what they
took from her and what she gave us. I believe these values were always on her
mind, never far from her always-moist, pursed lips and French-accented
thoughts. I wanted to understand her values and convictions and compare them to
now-values, and I wondered, “What might this generation believe in so strongly
that it would cause them to act so desperately .... What is it that is so
important that each of us would act upon it, based on our values, beliefs, and
attitudes today?”
I wonder how
distant we are from acting meaningfully.
I attended
Cardinal Newman High School in California, on the kindness of friends or
hardship scholarships. I was unable to go to college. But I was left with a
powerful, persistent, and an ever-seeking curiosity. Unfortunately my spiritual
side was one-dimensional. For example, I did not know what a “Jew” was until I
was eighteen. As a kid, I had never heard of Islam, met few blacks, and lived
mostly in financial and emotional distress.
But
gratitude stuck with me throughout the years, from “Grandma Lasaga.” I did not
understand what gratitude was until I was in my forties. When I was young, she
used the word “thankful” in a powerful way.
She spoke to
me as an adult, I think, hoping that this message would stay with me; maybe
reasserting itself when I was able to understand. And it did.
So, I needed
to bring Gracianna and her values to life, while revealing their meaning in
mine.
All these
years later, my family, the Amadors of Sonoma County, started Gracianna Winery
as a way to express the hand-me-down gratitude of Gracianna. And now folks from
all over the world share our Sonoma County wine with their friends and family.
The analogy to winemaking is not lost on my
family and me.
Sheepherding
families, like winemakers, know it all starts outside, in the field. A shepherd
would "trail" his flock of one- to- two thousand sheep, where he
would feed and water the herd in the summer. His job was to manage a huge
number of lives in an enormous space, just like a vineyard. Shepherds loved
these animals and knew each by sight. The shepherd had responsibility for the
herd year-round, during the busy and active spring and summer, preparing for
the slaughter—, but also through the dreary and lonely winter and rains.
A single
herder and dog could manage thousands of animals. It was a thankless existence.
This is reminiscent of the modern day vineyard manager, “herding” thousands of
vines filled with life through unbearable heat and driving rain. But whether it
is the vineyard manger or the herder, however, each knows it is all in the
journey to grow and foster the very best you can.
Gracianna, the sheepherder’s
wife, would prepare simple but gracious meals that included wine, a food staple
as necessary as lamb. Her meal presentations, filled with thanks, were drawn
from the heritage of thousands of years of satisfying hungry herders and
families with sustenance. This effort was delivered with grace, and that is
what today's descendants aim to keep alive.
Money was
tight for John and Gracianna when they were running sheep in the lush hills
above Santa Barbara, especially in the months before slaughter. As practiced
for centuries by European sheepherders, the Lasaga’s would offer
"chits" in the form of coins, good for a certain number of sheep as
an IOU, (abbreviated from the phrase
"I owe you") to pay for goods and mercantile, to hold them over until
the herd was sold off again the next season. “Good for 50 sheep” was on one
side of the coin, establishing the value. “J. Lazaga,” probably misspelled, was
on the other, establishing the debtor.
My family
cherishes the single remaining coin of the five hundred minted that our
great-grandparents used.
My wish is
for much grace, graciousness, and gratitude in your life—from Gracianna, my
great-grandmother, to you.
If you have any questions or want to know more inside stories about the book just contact me—I would enjoy hearing from you. Trini.Amador3@Gracianna.net
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Thank you very much Trini for this lovley post. Your love and admiration for your Grandmother shines through.
Readers, please stop back tomorrow for my review of Gracianna, as part of the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour.
© Jenny Girl - 2013 "All Rights Reserved"
