Rubies in the Dust

By Irene Cerklewski

Rubies in the Dust begins in Hungary before World War II and weaves a vibrant spiritual thread through the hardships of life behind the Iron Curtain. The Hungarian Revolution moves the story from Europe to the USA and from childhood to maturity. Personal experiences move from the problems of ordinary everyday problems to the realm of the divine.

Rubies in the Dust is filled with struggles and the insight gained by following the direction that the spirit dictates. The spiritual journey takes places in the material world as well as the dimension of dreams and visions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891126381

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Preface

Foundation

Sopron

My Story Begins

The Difficult Years

Joys of a Simple Life

A Small Miracle

A Lesson of Love

Aunt Kati

Helping Angel

Family Values

My Heart's Desire

Hill Top

A Special Day

A Moment Too Late

A Larger View

Education and Life

Power

Winds of Change

Austria

A New Beginning

Lincoln

Nostalgia

St. Mary's

High School

Independence

Turning Point

Love Arrives

My Father

A New Journey

Cincinnati

Milwaukee

Trial by Pain

Westward

Change of Perspective

Happy Years

Invitation

Reparation

Culmination

Epilogue

About the Author

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Rubies in the Dust

Irene Cerklewski

ISBN 979-8-89112-637-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89112-638-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2024 Irene Cerklewski

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Who can claim their life is totally their own?

Who can dismiss life's movements and the changes it creates?

To deny history's influence is impossible, for time and place connect us.

To deny the influence of those who touch our lives is disrespectful.

To say we are the only architect of our life is to state a lie of immense proportions.

We are born to others, raised by others, helped by others, and hurt by others.

This is how our lives are shaped.

Preface

Looking back upon my life I see that I have made a great journey to a place not marked on any map. While journey is the ultimate metaphor for life, for me, life itself served as the vehicle for a different journey, one that led me to an unexpected destination. That place had to be reached by traveling two different paths at the same time. There were no directions, only vague clues that I had to decipher as I went along.

Helpful advice did come my way, however, on a gray autumn day long before I knew that I would need it. I was sick with one of those childhood illnesses that required bed rest. I wasn't sick enough, though, to be quiet. My mother held a book in her hands as she sat on the bed next to me. Look, I borrowed this just to help you feel better, she said.

It was a beautiful old book bound in green cloth. Time had turned its pages the color of vanilla. There were fables about Jesus and His disciples in it illustrated by a few ink drawings. I was five years old, too young yet to read but not too young to be fascinated by words. Mother held the book with care as she explained, We have to be very careful with this because it belongs to someone else. Books have stories to tell. That makes them valuable. I think you will like this one. Then she began to read.

*****

Early one morning, the Master and His apostles set out to visit a village a day's travel away. At the start of their journey, they went to a merchant selling fruit by the roadside. The Master removed a cloth sack from His robe and took a few copper coins from His coin purse in order to buy cherries. Take them with my blessing, the merchant said, I owe you much more than this. The Master had cured the merchant's wife of a long illness.

You have shown great generosity. Your needs will always be met, the Master said and put the juicy ruby colored fruits into His sack.

They had journeyed for a while, talking pleasantly among themselves, when the apostles noticed their Master had gone some distance ahead of them. He must be in need of solitude, said John.

They continued on their way, talking about the importance of being ready to receive spiritual revelations. Suddenly, there on the sand, like rubies in the dust, lay a pair of cherries. One by one, they looked at them then passed by. They had only walked a short distance farther when they noticed another clump of beautiful ruby-red fruit lying on the sand. What is this? asked Andrew.

Perhaps the Master has a hole in his bag and doesn't know it, said John.

Maybe one of us should bring it to His attention, said James.

He is our Master! We are supposed to learn from Him, not point out mistakes, said Thomas.

They continued on their way without picking up the fruit. Time passed. The sun grew warmer. The apostles began to tire. Why do we have to walk so far? It would be much easier if the Master had the people come to Him, said Peter, and as they walked, there on the sand before them lay a handful of beautiful edible jewels.

Maybe we should pick them up, said James.

Pick them up if you wish, but I'm the Master's chief aide. I can't be seen picking things up from the ground. I'm not a scavenger, said Peter, I have my position to consider.

They all considered their positions then walked on. The sun climbed higher in the sky. The sand grew hot under their feet. The apostles became thirsty. They saw the Master patiently waiting for them by a large rock. Remembering the bag of cherries, they quickly walked toward Him, saying, Master we are thirsty. Could you share some cherries with us?

The Master smiled at them. Didn't you notice? In anticipation of your need, I have been giving them to you as you walked along.

The apostles quietly turned away to hide their red faces, then they retraced their steps to correct their mistakes.

*****

Why did Jesus drop the cherries? Why didn't He just give them to the apostles? I asked Mother.

Maybe He wanted the apostles to find them for themselves, Mother answered as she gave me the book.

I studied the pictures carefully. The last picture showed the apostles dancing with cherries draped over their ears. I knew that happy feeling because I did the same thing when Mr. Broz, our neighbor, gave me a bag of cherries. Then I looked at the picture at the beginning. Jesus was walking ahead of the apostles with a bag in His left hand. His right hand was open as it hung at his side. A cherry was halfway between his hand and the ground. Behind Him lay a clump of cherries in the sand.

I asked Mother to read this story to me over and over again. I tried to memorize it. I wanted to figure out why the Lord would drop things on the ground, things that He knew would be needed later? Why didn't He just divide the fruit at the beginning, and what if the apostles died of thirst?

I wanted Mother to solve the riddle for me, but she just reminded me of the happiness I felt when I found something pretty or interesting as I played in the woods. Maybe he wanted them to have the pleasure, she said as she went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

I puzzled over these questions while I was sick, then the book had to be returned. There were other things to occupy my time, but the story had become a part of me. It surfaced from time to time, leading me to think about its message.

When my mother read the story to me, I didn't realize yet how complicated life could be. No one told me that there are many kinds of journeys within one life. I didn't know that my path would lead me to unexpected places. If I had known what lay waiting for me, I would have lacked the courage to begin. The little fable did inform me, however, that while what I needed was placed before me, I had to recognize it, bend, and pick it up.

Foundation

My journey in the world began between the end of World War II and the beginning of the cold war in Sopron, Hungary, a city founded in the twelfth century near the Austrian border. But no life begins without a connection. We do not enter into a world created for us alone; we enter into the lives of others. Their past becomes our foundation.

My parents, Erzsebet Muzsik and Lajos Farkas, provided the foundation for my life with the resources available to them. Both my mother and father lost their mothers at a very early age. My maternal grandmother's name was Maria Virag, which means Maria Flower in Hungarian. According to family legend, she was delivered to my great-grandparents' house wrapped in beautifully embroidered baby clothes by a young woman who asked if she could leave the baby in their care for a short time. They agreed, but the young woman never returned, and the baby was raised as their own. There is no way to verify this, but it's one of the stories that my mother cherished as she grew up and then passed down to me.

Grandmother gave birth to her twelfth child, my mother, on September 29, 1915, in Budapest and died a year and a half later of pneumonia. She quietly passed away while sitting in a chair, watching her toddler, my mother, play peekaboo. Eventually, a stepmother came along, but she was a short-tempered woman who didn't have motherly feelings. She was not able to fill the void.

Mother felt a great need for nurturing, but it was not met. She did, however, build close relationships with the three sisters closest to her in age, Gizzi, Ilonka, and Iren. An older sister, Terez, committed suicide over a love affair by jumping into the Danube when Mother was nine. At age eleven, she lost another sister who died of a broken heart resulting from an abusive marriage and the death of her baby. These losses made Mother realize how fragile her family connections were.

Then, at the age of twelve, her eldest brother took her home with him. She was happy until one evening, she overheard her brother talking to his wife. What if she doesn't want to go? What are you going to do then? the wife asked.

She has to go. Tell her she will be given nice clothes there. Then she'll go, the brother replied.

Mother realized that they had made arrangements to hire her out as a servant. She cried herself to sleep.

When the time came she went into the home of strangers to be a servant girl. There were no pretty clothes. She was miserable and mistreated. Her only breaks were brief periods when she was able to go home and see her father. Sometimes she visited with her sisters. Her best times were spent with Iren, who brushed her hair into different styles while they shared their dreams of better days to come. Iren was a mother substitute even though she was only two years older.

Iren is the sister I was named for. Mother always talked about her with a faraway look as though she could still see her through the mist in her eyes. Iren was a kind, cheerful girl who loved to sing. She died at the age of eighteen from complications of thyroid surgery. When she lay in her hospital bed, a priest asked if she would like to make her last confession. I haven't lived long enough to have done any sinning, she replied.

According to my mother, when Iren died, a black bird flew into the hospital room, circled around her bed, then flew out the window. Her death left a big empty place in her sister's heart that time did not diminish.

Sometimes Mother looked at me with tenderness and said, Iren used to wear her hair that way, or Iren's hair had the same golden highlights as your hair, but a shadow of sadness always clouded her eyes when she mentioned Iren.

My father was born in Sopron on the fifteenth of March 1913, the fourth of five children. His mother died when he was three years old. His father married a widow and showered his attention on his new wife's children, leaving his own to fend for themselves.

As a teenager, Father was trained to be a shoemaker, then he was on his own. He went to Budapest to stay with his sister Fani. He met my mother when he took a temporary job helping her father with gardening. It wasn't long before the two lonely young people realized the similarity of their lives and decided to make a family of their own.

They married on the eleventh of February 1934. Mother often told me about it, the light of love still shining in her dark brown eyes. It was the day that marks the anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes. We had unusually mild weather, warm enough for us to go to the church in an open horse-drawn carriage. Your father picked a small bouquet of violets that were blooming beside the road. That was my wedding bouquet. I wore a sky-blue dress borrowed from Fani, your father's sister. We had a simple ceremony in the Heart of Jesus Church in Budapest, then we were married.

Each time my mother talked of her wedding day, I could picture her petite body sitting erect in the open carriage, the sun shining on her black hair as she slides her arm through Father's arm. I could imagine her brown eyes gazing into Father's hazel eyes as they made their vows to each other, a simple beginning to a life that turned out to be anything but simple. The economy was heading toward a depression, and political unrest was starting to work its way around the globe.

Both my parents were able to obtain work at the textile mill. Although my father was laid off that September, they made the best of their situation, and on the sixteenth of December, their first child, my sister named Erzsebet—after Mother and called Erzsi—was born. They were happy to be a real family.

With Father's earnings from temporary jobs and the meager maternity benefit that Mother received, they managed to get by, living a humble life in a rental with only one room and a kitchen in a working-class neighborhood in Budapest.

Since it was very difficult to find work in Hungary during the '30s, Father worked at all sorts of temporary jobs. In the winter, he shoveled snow; in the spring and summer, he worked as a gardener. Between jobs, he repaired wash tubs for people. Father always managed to find some way to support his little family.

The years that followed were fairly happy, though economically insecure. Their fluctuating financial situation was hard on Mother, who longed for a stable, happy home. Their lives were lived one day at a time with hope for a better future.

Perhaps because Mother had a great desire for safety during these early years of their marriage, she developed an interest in psychic abilities. Through her sister Ilonka, she learned to read the cards. She also began to pay serious attention to her dreams. One night, she dreamed she went to draw water from the well. As she looked down into the open well, she saw a goldfish swimming in the water. She knew, while she was dreaming, it meant she was pregnant. My brother Lajos, named for Father, and called Lala, was born on the twenty-fifth of May 1943.

By now, the conflicting forces of World War II were in full force in some parts of Europe, but so far, there was little destruction in Hungary. Mother announced one day, Great political changes are coming. The political structure will collapse. There will be a turnover. She interpreted it to mean that the Russians would invade the country. It's in the cards, she said.

Father did not approve of mother's card reading and told her it was a lot of nonsense. Mother did have psychic abilities, though, and it was not long before her predictions proved accurate. The Russians were making their way into Hungary.

Then almost as a signal to a turning point in their way of life, Mother's father died from a stroke on January 31, 1944. Father lovingly cleaned and shaved him for the last time. He was buried on February 3. That night mother dreamed that she was in church. A voice said, Go and pray before the crucifix. She went to the life-size crucifix to pray. She knew she was to remain standing.

As she started to pray, she began to rise above the crucifix, and yet in a way that can only happen in a dream, she needed to look up to see Christ. Is my father at peace? she asked.

The crucified Christ nodded yes.

Will we be killed due to bombing? she asked. If yes, keep your eyes closed. If not, open them.

Christ opened His eyes. They were the most beautiful blue eyes Mother had ever seen.

Bombs were not falling on Hungary at this point, but within a few months, the bombing raids began. Many nights, the sky over Budapest was as bright as day. Sirens and explosions were common as one by one the routes out of the city were destroyed. Some nights, there was no time to run for shelter. Erzsi watched the bright lights of burning buildings from under her bed. By December, the Germans were retreating, and Mother's predictions were coming true.

December 24, Christmas Eve, the baby Jesus arrived early at my family's house with a tree and two dolls for ten-year-old Erzsi. The candles were lit on the tree,