Vat II changes came late to my rural childhood town/area. As a then young child, I have only vague memories of it, but it made a huge impression even then. Nothing else did seem the same since. My mother and many in my family were Byzantine or Orthodox and I remember well attending those Liturgies. These have retained the mystery and reverence, the beauty that the New Mass seemed to lack but the Latin Mass did, as I'm sure NYer and others can attest, as my mother often lamented. The Latin-is-dead crowd were always hard pressed to convince me that the language was somehow a barrier, because I didn't know a lot of church Slavonic or Latin, yet I had no difficulty 'following' along. Much like when I attended Mass in the Cathedral Marie Reine du Monde in Montreal and attended a beautiful Mass in Latin, French, and English. It was the first time in years I had the pleasure of kneeling at the altar rail to receive Holy Communion.
There is a difference between “following” and “understanding”.