Family Roots in the Season of Light: The Millers
By: Amelia Miller
Family has always been the quiet heartbeat of my life. Growing up, I knew my family came from Poland, but I never understood how deeply those roots would matter to me someday. For the longest time, my dream was simple: to fall in love, get married, and build a big, warm family of my own. I thought the past didn’t need to matter as long as the future looked bright.
But somewhere along the way, I realized that the past is part of the future I want to create. I never imagined how powerful it would feel to look backwards, to the people who lived long before I was born, shaping pieces of who I am without me even knowing.
As I begin learning the stories of my family — their art, their architecture, their words, their courage — something inside me has shifted. It made me realize that my dream for the future is deeply connected to the people who built the path I’m walking. It feels like discovering the missing pages of a book I’ve been living in my whole life.
As I learn more about my family’s history, I’ve started to understand something about myself that I never had words for before. Growing up, I wanted so badly to fit into the American world around me. I spoke Polish at home, but at school I tried to blend into the “American dream” — the friendships, the culture, the ease everyone else seemed to have. Most people didn’t even know I was Polish, and I wanted it that way. I never wanted to feel different or foreign.
But now, as an adult with a wonderful husband and a life I love, something inside me has shifted. It feels almost as if my family, the Millers — and the generations before them — are quietly reminding me that my true foundation is Polish. That my culture, my language, my traditions, and my family’s story were never something to hide or soften. They were never supposed to be something I “moved on from.”
Somewhere along the way — leaving home, building a life, making American friends, marrying into an American family — I drifted from a part of myself I didn’t realize I was losing. I’m proud to be American, but I’m also finally beginning to see that being Polish isn’t something I outgrew. It’s something that has always lived inside me.
And maybe now, for the first time, I’m ready to honor that. To be rooted in my bloodline, to celebrate the heritage my parents gave me, to carry forward the traditions that shaped my ancestors, and to stop trying so hard to fit into a culture that was never meant to replace my own. Learning the stories of my family has made me feel like I’m returning to myself — to the version of me I left behind while trying to blend in. It’s a homecoming I didn’t know I needed, and one that’s bringing my past and my future together in the most unexpected, beautiful way.
For so long, I imagined my life a certain way. I always thought that by now I’d have a big family — six kids, laughter everywhere, a full house, the kind of chaos that comes with the life I dreamed of. And sometimes it surprises me that I don’t have children yet. But lately, I’ve started to wonder if maybe a higher power — God, — was protecting something I couldn’t see at the time.
Maybe I wasn’t meant to lose myself completely in the American world before I ever had the chance to understand where I came from. If I had started a family years ago, I probably would have raised an entirely American household — beautiful in its own way, but far from the traditions my parents gave me, and far from the things that shaped my soul. My children likely wouldn’t have spoken Polish the way my sister and I did. They wouldn’t have known the songs, the stories, the holiday traditions, the way our family gathered around the table. They wouldn’t have understood the magic of a Polish Christmas, or what it feels like to hear your parents speak in a language that feels like home.
And maybe that’s why things happened the way they did. Maybe I needed this time — this pause — to find myself again. To remember the little girl who grew up speaking Polish, celebrating Wigilia, reading Polish books, eating the meals my parents cooked with their whole heart. I miss those feelings more than I ever admitted. They were the purest part of my childhood.
Now, as I reconnect with my family’s roots, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time: hope. If I do have children with my husband one day, everything would be different now. They would be taught Polish from the very beginning. They would grow up knowing our traditions, our stories, our history. They would visit Poland the way I did. They would feel the warmth of the culture I hid for so long. My parents would be the most incredible grandparents — speaking Polish to them, cooking the meals I grew up with, bringing back the magic of the holidays I miss so deeply.
I didn’t understand this before. But now I know: my roots were never something I lost — I was just meant to find them again before I could pass them on. Even if I don’t have children, I’m so glad that I found myself. That I am able to spend quality time with my parents that I also wanted to flee so badly and how I’m only wanting to spend time with them, and listening to THEIR stories. I won't get lost in the blended American dream ever again. That is for certain.
Some of The Millers that came before me: My grandfather, my great-great grandfather, my great uncle.
Romuald Miller
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romuald_Miller
Architect, visionary, creator of buildings and spaces that still stand in Poland today.
Romuald Miller was a Polish architect whose work shaped parts of early 20th-century Poland. His designs were more than buildings — they were expressions of order, beauty, and the desire to build something lasting during a rapidly changing world.
Highlights from his life:
• Architect active in the early 1900s
• Designed civic buildings, residential spaces, and transportation structures
• Associated with intellectual and social organizations of the time
• Known for thoughtful, functional, long-lasting design
Book you can purchase on his work:
https://centrumarchitektury.org/produkt/w-strone-modernizmu-architekt-romuald-miller/
Jan Nepomucen Miller — The Literary Soul of the Family
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Nepomucen_Miller
Studied in Petersburg, Berlin and The Sorbonne.
Jan Nepomucen Miller was the writer in the family — a poet, critic, and thoughtful observer of the world around him. Active in Łódź and Warsaw’s cultural circles, he wrote poetry, theatre critiques, and essays that reflected a deep understanding of Polish life and art.
Where others built with stone or structure, Jan built with words. His writing carried sensitivity, intelligence, and a quiet strength — the kind that shapes culture in subtle but lasting ways.
He also represents the creative, reflective heartbeat of the Miller heritage, reminding me that family legacy isn’t only found in buildings or history books, but in the stories and ideas passed down through generations.
His books and essays can also be found online.
Krzysztof Kazimierz Miller (- 1919 to 2006) was the builder who quietly carried the family legacy forward into the modern world. Born in Łódź and educated at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology (1952), he devoted his life to shaping the spaces in which communities live, work, and connect.
As an architect and urban planner, his work includes the 1956 general and detailed plan of the industrial-port district of Żerań in Warsaw, as well as the settlement network study for the Bydgoszcz region prior to 1965.
His professional dedication earned him recognition: the Golden Cross of Merit, the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and other honors for his enduring contributions.
For me, his life is a testament: the foundations laid by those who came before helped create the home—and the journey—I walk today.