#I learned about the holocaust at my family's kitchen table by being told that I looked the most jewish and that my little sibling was

[not-that-blog]

I'm lowkey trauma dumping to the internet again in the tags bc it got to me.

[weabbynormalblog]

Childhood trauma=Adult Survivor

The things we tell ourselves. Be careful for what you wish for. Its really important to stop crying over shit you can't change or control.

I know its hard. Don't do this don't do that etc. Suffering is necessary especially if your a Buddhist and certainly if your human.

The Sercret, The law of attraction, the latest buzz words, you'll catch more bees with honey, that's a fact. Act now! Try this! Find the easy way out? Is there an easy way? No decision is still a decision. Stay, go, turn in circles, pondering the all of its entirety. All vying as your solution. Yes like attracts Like. FACT Belief overules like. Thats why "This shit of attracting is all wrong!". " Hello? Belief is everything!" Its our level of personal experience that is my "now" domain. I'm the God here in my life in this body today. I believe what I believe till I believe otherwise...I say the human experience should be all-inclusive, empathetic, understanding and supportive. Most people and humanitarians would agree. That's not how nature works. Survival of the fitess. Do or die. Like attracts like and I get tackled and body slammed to the ground. Why? Am I a bad person because of "xyz"? Nope. Did I do something to someone else? No. This time it was all because I was mad, triggered and I exploded; had a verbal melt down. The neighbor was disturbed by my authentic emotions. No nukes were sent, no one is getting hurt here. Just venting and trying to work out my anger. Not to hold shit in and to stop the rings of abuse. Clearly the other person in the room was overwhelmed too. Im trying to solve some issues instead I get yelling and fuck yous. I know this is not my fault!!!??? I know the whatever happened to me. "Insert major life changing event here" I am changed there is no doubt...nothing worked out as I hopped or wished it. Even so I took all steps necessary and just the same outcome. Still void, suffering and unremarkable. Yet I am where I am. No further along or better or worst off. Cha cha cha! And I must do without and put up with injustice. Denied!!! All my emotions are tied up in a neat, tight, the most perfect, best ball of raw ugly emotions on a kitchen timer ever ...I can't talk to anyone about anything, thier shackles get up and they go on the defensive, then arguing and me walking away because again I am unable to communicate what I need and overwhelmed again by my situation. Unable to communicate what is necessary for us solve our issues to move on together or apart. Grrrrr This is so common for us with brain injury, PTSD and many other host of mental health issues. There is so much that needs to be said that it gets left unsaid. Often its too late for those in need. Its very difficult to relate and communicate effectively beyond our frustration with others. We don't have the copping tools or vocabulary to express it in times of great frustration or in dire situations specifically. Am I doing something wrong? How do I change it? I must also learn to protect myself as well. So I try to diffuse with humor. So hey dial it back a thousand buddy, calm down~ me im doing my breathing exercise "listen I got high blood pressure" in hopes they back down and talk calmly and nope. Another deep breath counting on the in to 5 hippopotamus hold 6 out 7 or 9 hippopotamus depending on my stress level at the time. Look I got a Brain injury, cant we get along? Meet half way? Can we talk later? When were not angry? No? Then just leave me alone and finally I get to walk away having dealt with someone within conflict as effective as possible. Progress for me even though nothing was resolved ~ yes theres more pain and more frustration. Live and try again tomorrow or move on. When being in a place of anger thats all you can relate to, you are not able to understand anything else? Some can some can't. Im working on my flexibility, trust, bettering my health, down to my now moment. They want some kind of resolution and they end up dragging me back under again with things that aren't helpful for me, no truth, no resolution and just more critism and blaming. Not productive. Toxic people thrive in thier emotional power. Next step then. If they can not find the same patience you need to work on "issues" then work on improving your boundaries. Refuse to discuss issues when angry, make time to talk to suit

everyone. Agree to listen and then be heard. Set a timer. Be open, be reserved to be more distant from other people emotions and be more grounded with your own. Recognize and hone in on your own emotions. Practicing mindfulness, meditation, a healthful regime, socializing that benefits you too is necessary to being a good human. Im so tired of the fucking ripples that keep all my family apart already...All of it stems from the abuse and damage to the core of my soul that left rings on my childrens' lives as well. My Maternal Grandmother was in the Holocaust that tends to mare your parenting skills and the ripples expand. 3 to 4 generations of children no longer speaking to thier mothers. Im sure thier mothers were not to blame. No one protected me either. I was given up for adoption. I was abused. It happens.Thats ok I'll work with what I got. It can end there. No need to add to a bad situation. Maybe the 1person I sent off had my back. All because I promised Daddy Warbucks to make sure my best friend got on that plane. I understand I haven't been as good a friend to myself than I have to others. I was very self sacrificing like everything was my fault. Ive turned that bus around. At the end of the day you may think nothing matters. You matter! This world is nothing without your unique personality in it. Yet here you sit alone in fears with tears streaming down into rivers...I don't know about you but Im tired of wet feet. A lifetime of abuse and suffering very often at the hand of others. I over compensated for everything. Even my language supported it. It did surprised me on the face of Oliver that day. It was painful and it revealed more of the abuse of self to me often forgotten in the past similar moments of thier upbringings. Aha! PTSD, ADHT, me with Dyslexia no doubt I suffered along with my children. 11 years later we are finally starting to do the work that should of been done back then. No one was ready. I would of made my son sit at the table during dinner. Pressured my husband to enforce our agreed rules. Took time to feel and deal with the loss of Pearl, our marriage and business ...trying to understand our feelings, deal with our mental health issues Before seemed impossible, I never gave up on my family. i gave them the space they needed. Now theres Covid restrictions and passports. This stupid ass greedy human world. And now geography is still in our way. Its a lot and still only a fraction of what some humans suffer from the hands of other humans. Very sad. Friends will come and go. I know its what needs to happen. The toxic people have to learn thier lessons too. Next step is slow down give yourself some space and peace. Deep breathing till you feel you can respond when dealing with conflict. Or make another time to work on it. Do things at your own pace, no excuse needed they will wait, they feed off of it. Practice beneficial things. Like being self sufficient, its a struggle worthy of the time and effort. Im working to overcome my issues. I now know that's not the way that love or friendship should work. I ask why me what did I do to deserve such torture? I remind myself, it's only 1 part of the journey. Everyone hurts, cries and dies. Love should bring out the best. Not the worst. They are a lousy mirror right now. Thats ok we can still move forward. I can forgive them for what they were not capable of. I love them inspite of it all. As is, as it always has been. They were only capable of showing the negative even when I worked so hard to stay positive and be a good example. If not me then who? Critisim everywhere. No solutions only problems. They beat me down at every turn...I'm still breathing. Everything's a contest and no one ever wins. If you can't do this, then how are you going to do that? Why are you judging me and why do I care so much? I care not to be in conflict and this is what is driving or rather coloring my reality. I avoid conflict like Covid. My childhood trauma that I thought I dealt with years of therapy and moved on from was rearing its ugly head yet again. How

do I slay the beast for all time? My limiting behavior needed more help. So I needed to build a better foundation for myself. One built on everthing in its own time with practice, patience,acceptance, learning and more growth. So I won't have to walk away from conflict ever again. I can lean in and help us grow together as a couple or as a family or be what the other human needs positively in thier now moment. Sometimes its not about us, its about giving back with what we have learnt. I know it sucks that we have been thrown to the odds of fate to do better apart. Its not thier fault, or mine either. Yet heres me litterally paying for all of it. With my resources, energy, health and sanity. History has a way of slapping you in the face. Yes Im woke as fuck! Your opposition yes they too pay with thier blood, sweat and tears. Perhaps never on the same page or kiss or moment. At times my heart is so broken. Doubting thoughts need correcting. Like I want nothing much to do with the whole entire human race right now, I mean you no ill will. The Talliban kill with impunity, chaos and destruction in thier wake. Do they have no wants or desires but only destruction for what they can't have? Cant we teach them how to live, love and listen? Do they not want the same as others? A healthy family, a roof over ones head and food in our bellies? Are we not all from this world? I was told this duality is healthy. The human condition needs to see destruction to appreciate growth. I still don't know how this all will help that woman with the gun pointed at her head or to watch your family be slautered in front of your eyes. No human should know this. Violence has always been a part of being human. We are a human animal. I protect my life and those that I love. Life and death I choose to fight for my life and thiers. I also choose to fight for others ...when in reality we are just fighting ourselves. I appreciate everything I lost and have. So I sit in what will be my art studio and den...I know my worth and how lucky I am. I look about all the things that are still here. Stuff holds space. Illusions fade. Love can hold space for others. Did they loved me enough to say your beautiful or even I love you? Or cared enough to be by your side during your worst moments. Perhaps a we'll get through this together? Good thing I never needed any of that. I was always able alone. I did need kindness, empathy, support and understanding. It was devastating to be met with violence. Everthing was a fight in my life. But isn't that the nature of living? Personally Im tired of the abuse. They throw it back in your face every chance they get. So it seems the lesson is to look at who Iam or are. After reflection its our belief of who they are and who we are in conflict that decides the winner. Can they learn to look beyond winners and loosers? Meet us half way? Walk a mile in my shoes. I know I can. Its going to take lots of patience, proactive support and some serious housework and cleaning to shape up humanity on this world. I'm doing my work. Im not on this rock to police or please others. What about these toxic people? Where are thier lessons? They need help too, no? Society and my answer to that, is you have to go! Then the police say no. Due to Pandemic Conditions; I am in utter disbelief but I do understand. Past abuse that was not legally recorded. Yadda, Yadda shwing shwing. What about my rights and issues? Legal up Baby! Money and the boys club is still king. Harsh as it was, there are many other moments in my life that hurt me way more. I will survive this and move well beyond. I will not let others narrow mindedness change who I am. Openess, understanding, no judgements here. Yet my generousity was used against me and in the worst way by people I love like no others. Betrayed again. 》Tip off here. Recurring themes. Betrayal can be healed. At the time you could have punched me in the stomach, I wouldn't, couldn't even feel it. There was nothing but numb and delayed reactions. "Let's face it, the best is never good enough when you

have suffered abuse and neglect." Its a deep riff and or trauma that someone else may be responsible for in your psychological makeup that makes and moulds us too. It happens a lot. Unfortunatly its more common than not. Childhood trauma. I get that. As an adult I know it's my cup to fill. Unknowingly I may have inflicted it onto others, for that I apologize. I'm still a work in progress, working on myself here. I'm the one falling, stumbling and then I get back up. The damage has been done. Please walk away, I got this now. They had affected everything I did. At the sink, the powder room, the work, the garage.....mess here and there, important things left undone...here's me trying to get them all done and save the world too in one breath. No wonder its too big, too heavy and we all need to lift. The first step is admiting ill be ok, I've got my back. I'll get through this like everything else with tears, journaling and a hot beverage. I send strength and courage to those in need. You will find a way to cope, help and move on. Believe! I'll leave that guitar right there as a reminder of my shit and thiers. Along with the 7k check and your ego at the door. Let go of all expectations, broken words and promises. The stuff they said they would do...that they never did. You want something done? Do it yourself. Can't do it all then get the professional that you need.

I understand you are broken, we all are. The catch is you have to fix it and fill it. Talk to someone you trust or write it down, talk it into a recording app...whatever help you need you deal with it in a positive way 7f you can't then look that shit up. Own your shit and get on with living! You can do this! If you live in fear find a way to empower and protect yourself. Just remember we are just human here, right now. No super powers, no agents for the world or our times. Be humble, be open, heal yourselves and then help heal others. 1 person and 1 step at a time. Like the green grass that's brown in the spring, with water, care and nutrients in the fall it will be a sea of green. Small steps add up to big changes over time. Break it down. Carve out time for happiness practice. 15 minutes a day just you sitting in peace and quiet. Every step you take from here on will go in a positive, proactive solution oriented manor or not at all. It's what you choose to do《Tip. Choose better thoughts and food choices. Work on 1 thing at a time. This is what micromanagement is good for; on yourself. Yes we can be success and happy in life without anyone, that doesn't mean we should. We need to trust eachother and work together. We learn so much from conflict so don't fear it. Its what helps us grow and learn when we become stagnant.

[juggiesbuggie]

A little story I wrote for my history class about the prelude to the Holocaust. I don’t know if anyone is interested but feel free to read and leave a comment!

I dip my dark brush into the jar, swirling colorful water looks like fairies dancing around in the recently clear liquid.

I choose red for the pretty flower letting my brush swim in the small circular pan until I press it onto the paper drawing one abnormal petal. Looking up out the window in front of my desk I see him. Peter was watching me, noticing me, spying on me.

Does he like me?

Do I like him?

I smile and wave like my mother taught me and his face turns as red as my paint when he sees me looking. He smiles, waves and then closes the blinds.

Josef walks up our large steps only seconds later beckoning for me to come downstairs for dinner.

“Come Lucy, come. It’s time for dinner,” He says motioning to the kitchen.

Downstairs there is chicken soup waiting hot and ready at a table set for four. My father, a plump man with a large mustache sits at one of the seats listening carefully to the radio playing in the background.

I smile and pull out a chair, “Hello father. How was- “

“Shh shh shh Lucy!” He says quickly shushing me and pointing to the radio.

I should have known. Right when he gets home he sits down at the dinner table to listen to the news on the radio. He would enter through the front door, give my mother a kiss and hand her his apron for her to hang up. He would then sit at the kitchen table ready for dinner.

He always says that being a bakery owner can be one of the hardest jobs in Berlin. I would say, how hard is it really? You are just making breads and pastries.

We wouldn’t have this large house if he didn’t work at the bakery he would say, right on cue. If it wasn’t as successful as it is we could be living on the streets. We don’t want that.

My mother places a plate in front of me. Her long brown hair tickling my cheek. Josef sat down at the chair across from me. He smoothed down his tie carefully trying to flaunt it. His girlfriend got it for him as an early birthday present and he’s been wearing it ever since.

“So Josef, what do you want for your birthday?” My mother asked as she placed a bowl of chicken soup in front of him.

“I’m not sure,” Josef said dipping his spoon in his bowl of soup, “Only three years left and you’ll be fifteen too Lucy.”

I shuddered at the thought of even aging a year. Twelve was such a good age. “I don’t want to grow up Josef.”

“It’s not a choice,” My father said finally switching his attention from the radio. I nod sadly and start to dip into my soup.

The shiny silver spoon chinked against our fancy bowls. I have learned over the years to not feel bad when I pass a poor person on the street. We have so much and they have so little. But I look straight and make sure not to give them too much attention. Mother says that they only want your money so they can do bad things.

“I already know what I want for my birthday,” I say sipping the chicken soup from my spoon.

My brother rolled his eyes and said, “Lucy your birthday is months away!”

Yes, I know my birthday is far but I’ve had this on my wish list for ages. “I know, but I really want a new set of watercolors. You know I’ve always wanted to be an artist,” I say dreamingly.

Art has been a dream of mine for years and years. Ever since I got my first set of watercolors I have used them ever since. The feel of the brushes against the thick paper has always made me happy. Creating beautiful paintings out of colored water.

“Anyways Lucy, how was school?” My mother asks me, sitting down at the table and picking up her spoon. She was always doing stuff for us. Taking us to the cinema, washing our clothes, making dinner. She rarely ever sat down. Nobody ever asked about her day. And that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

“It was okay. I mean, how interesting can Berlin Public School get? But I stayed with Maria during our break,” I say setting down my spoon and sitting back in my chair. Maria was my best friend and my only friend really. She was possibly the prettiest girl in school. Her short blonde hair was always making me jealous. That and her bright blue eyes. Sometimes I wish I was a Christian with a Christian body, Christian hair and Christian eyes. But instead I have a Jewish body, Jewish hair and Jewish eyes.

I had lived in Berlin all my life and it just got more and more boring. I wanted to move a while back but my parents said no. We had worked too hard to get here and we weren’t going to throw that all away.

 A couple months later as Maria and I were walking along the street on the way to school. We started a conversation about the election.

My father had been worrying for so long about who would get elected. There was one guy who he really didn’t want but I forgot his name. It wasn’t important to me.

“My dad is really worried Maria,” I say holding my books tight to my chest. “I’m not really sure why.”

She shrugs and continues to walk. Our parents have never gotten along. Their views on Germany and the world are very different and I know Maria doesn’t always agree with them. She doesn’t want to be known as the person with bad parents and that may be where it’s going.

We walk into the courtyard straightening our cardigans and taking a hold on our books. I spot Peter across the field and blush remembering our recent encounter. I bend my head down and keep walking trying to ignore the fluttering butterflies in my stomach.

As far as I go to not run into him, it still happens. “Hello Lucy,” He says blushing and waving as he passes us.

I wave back and try to ignore the ooh’s and ah’s from Maria. “Do you like him?” She asks curiously. She proceeds to tell me how cute she thinks he is.

“No Maria, not me. But he might like me. I’m not sure,” I can’t help but feel butterflies in my stomach as I say that.

 That night as my mother set down our meals and my father turned on the radio he shushed us dramatically.

“Everyone be quiet. They’re about to announce the Hindenberg’s decision!” My father speeded over to the radio to turn the volume up listening intently. My mother stops in her tracks and also listens.

“Hello, we are here to inform you about the new chancellor of Germany. Adolf Hitler was appointed and we are very excited to see what he does with our coun-.”

My dad shuts off the radio and I hear him groan and realize Hitler must have been the person he didn’t want. I still had no idea why, but he didn’t like it. He banged his hand on the kitchen table and swore.

 It had been months and I was walking to my father’s bakery after school, I could tell something was different right away. His very popular bakery which was usually very crowded now only held a few people buying pastries and breads.

I opened the door and heard the bell clang like the church bells did that one time I went with Maria. Except our bell was much quieter and definitely not as beautiful.

“Father, why is the bakery so empty today?” I ask voicing my question aloud.

He sighed and walked around the counter to give a big soppy wet kiss on my temple. “Hitler has this strange grudge against the Jews and ever since he was elected people don’t really want to buy from Jews anymore.”

Oh. So this is Hitler’s fault. Did he have something against us? I didn’t want to anger father by asking. It seemed a sore subject for him.

He walked me back behind the counter and sat me down on my stool, taking my books out of my hands and setting them on the ground next to me. He opened one of the shiny glass cases and let me smell the delights inside. Pointing to a blueberry scone he asked, “Do you want to have a scone Lucy?”

I nod and he picks up a clean plate placing the warm freshly baked scone on it and handing it to me. I start to eat just as the bell on the door jingles once more.

And in walks Peter. I shrink behind the counter hoping he won’t see me but it’s too late.

“Hi Lucy! I didn’t know that your family worked here,” He said with such enthusiasm it made my dad jump. I had to remind myself that this was the same boy I saw out my window blushing and too nervous to even wave back.

“Hello Peter,” I say in a shy voice. My father smiles at the ground noticing how red my face was. I was so embarrassed.

My father cleared his throat and said, “So, what do you need boy?”

Peter turned his eyes away from mine and said to my father pointing at a loaf of bread, “Only a loaf of bread sir.”

My father opened the glass case once more and slid out the thick loaf slipping it into a brown paper bag. Peter handed over some coins and took the bag waving at me. And left letting the door close slowly so the small silver bell could sway in the wind making the sound last twice as long.

           A large yellow star. A symbol supposed to mean hope or peace. But when it’s painted on the window of a popular Jewish bakery, it means hate. It means that people are turning on them. It means a boycott for my father’s bakery. It means we might lose all of our money. It means that Germans don’t like Jews anymore. It means we’re going to live a life of sadness.

 Later that month as my dad drank his alcohol and we were trying to find ways to gain more money now that our used to be popular bakery is going downhill. My mother has been trying to get him to go to the city council to discuss the boycotting but my father barely even gets off the couch anymore. I have to go and turn his radio on every night when he gets home. When he does go to work he comes back with a frown and empty pockets. It’s hard for me to see him like this. I think that maybe work was the only source of his happiness and now it’s basically gone.

 One day I hear a knock on the door. Although I’ve been told to not answer the door on my own I didn’t think my dad would be fit for it. And my mother was out shopping at the market. So I take a chance and I open the door. A young man with a bundle of books by his side stands on the threshold.

He straightens his back and says to me, “Hi, I am here because we are doing the book burning near here. I put together this list, do you think you could hand over any books you see here?”

A book burning? Why do we need to burn books? I tilt my head to the side confused.

“We’re burning any books that the students at my university don’t see fit to have,” He said explaining to me what exactly a book burning is.

I shake my head slowly my stomach doing flips. Was this why my father didn’t want Hitler to be elected? He didn’t seem like a very good man. What did the Jews do? I didn’t steal anyone’s money? I say bye and close the door ready to go and tell my parents about this.

 At school almost a year later the teachers talk about the usual boring subjects. And then the usual boring subjects become less boring. One day as I sat in the front of the class Maria sitting next to me, a teacher suddenly tapped my shoulder.

“Yes ma’am,” I say reaching my eyes up to hers.

“Lucy, I have to ask you to sit in the back of the room.”

I have to sit in the back of the room? Why? “But why?” I ask confused. Maria’s eyes looked worried. Was this another one of Hitler’s rules? All Jews have to sit at the back of the room? What I was told was much worse.

“We’re starting a unit and I don’t think you’re going to be comfortable sitting in the front,” She says placing a hand on my back.

Oh. A unit? What kind of unit? I drag my bag and my books to the back of the room as my teacher stands up by the front wall and starts to talk about what terrible things Jews have done to Germany.

 After class that day I hurriedly walk out the door. How am I supposed to show my face here again? Miriam catches up to me running across the grass.

“Lucy! Lucy! Wait for me!” She yells, I keep walking.

But then I am stopped. A tall boy with blonde hair stands in front of me. I lift my head and see him. Peter. I expect to hear him say hi or you look nice today. But instead he stands silently with his arms crossed.

“Hello Peter,” I say quietly. He stays silent. “How are you?” I say hoping for an answer.

He gives me an answer. But not an answer I wanted. “You don’t belong in Germany.”

I feel the tears coming but I try to keep them handled. “What do you mean?” I ask very confused, “I’m a citizen.”

He shakes his head. A few people walking out of school notice us and I can hear Miriam’s breathing behind me.

“No, you’re a subject,” He says uncrossing his arms. I can’t seem to hold the tears any longer and I let them loose.

“Filthy Jew,” He says slapping the books out of my grip. Gasps echoed around me along with a couple cheers. Maria tries to say something but it’s too late. I was already running home. Tears streaking my face.

 A couple months later, in class as I sit at the back of the room, Peter turns his head around to see me.  I look down at my desk pretending I wasn’t looking. The teacher asks a question I know the answer to. Nobody raises their hand. I sigh and lift up my hand so the teacher could see.

“Nobody knows the answer?” She asks looking around the room.

I skootch up in my seat and stretch my hand above everyone else’s heads, waving it around. A few people giggle and Peter rolls his eyes.

“Well I guess I’ll just have to tell you the answer,” She says with a sigh turning around to write the answer on the chalkboard. What is going on? She used to love me.

I get up out of my seat and head for the toilets. Maria gives me sad eyes on my way out. What did I do wrong?

 I dip my brush into the water letting the left over paint float around in my cup. I look out the window and see Peter staring back out at me. I stand and close my blinds quickly. I didn’t want to see his face. I didn’t want him to know that I am not okay. But just as the curtains were about to close I heard a scream.

I looked down the street and saw a small group of people smashing the windows of Jewish stores. I look back up at Peter and see the fear in his eyes. I close my blinds for good this time and rush down our large staircase.

“Father! Mother! There is a fight down the street!” I yell on my way down.

My father rushes out of his office and knocks wildly on my brother’s door.

“Joseph! Come on, we have to go!” He says and the door opens almost immediately. Josef comes out looking confused followed by my mother, a laundry basket in her hands.

“Walter, what is this about?” She asks setting the basket down on the ground and walking over to my father.

“Hitler has something against the Jews. It’s a riot. I thought since we lived in a German neighborhood we would be fine but I think they’re here,” He explains and my stomach does flips.

We rush downstairs and my father rushes us into the corner of our dark musty basement. And then we wait. Hearing the screams and the smashes of our windows above us. But we continue to wait.

 My mother looks out the window the next day. We were lucky. Only one of our windows had gotten smashed, we weren’t sure about the bakery though. My father said it was probably ruined from the riots.

The shards of broken glass lay scattered on the floor, my mother being too sad to even get off the seat by the window. I had never seen her like this. She seemed so… so helpless. I didn’t know what to do or say, so instead, I went up to my room to finish my painting from the day before.

 My mother sews the yellow star on my jacket with careful stiches. Her hands were pale and shaky. I was worried for her. Ever since the riots she has been so… paranoid. Even though it had been so long, it still seemed to affect her.

“Why do I have to wear this mother?” I ask watching my mother thread another needle.

“Because we are no longer citizens. We are subjects Lucy,” She says not taking her eyes off the yellow patch.

Peter’s words echoed in my head. But that was so long ago. I should be over it. Sometimes I do wish that he would smile at me when we make eye contact outside of my window. But he would never. Apparently once it’s known that you’re a Jew people start to lose interest in you.

My mother hands me my coat with the finished patch on the dark fabric. “Hier sind Sie Lucy,” She says with a smile. I give her my best fake smile back and head to my room, the coat in my hands. All I really wanted to do right now was to paint. But I couldn’t stand looking out my window. It was all too much.

  February 25th 1946

Here lies Lucille Goldstein

1920- 1940

 Tears rolled down her face wetting her cheeks. “My baby. That’s my little girl,” she says stroking the gravestone with two of her shaking fingers.

She died too young. Much too young. They couldn’t find Josef and they couldn’t find Walter. Anna thought Lucy would be the only one left. But they found her body in the forest, a gunshot in her heart.

That young girl was gone. The little girl who sat at her bedroom window painting little bright flowers. The little girl that kissed her father on the cheek before bed. The little girl who hugged her brother when he got home from school each day. She was gone.

Maria walked up behind her and placed a hand on her aging shoulders. “I am so sorry Ms. Goldstein,” She said, a tear rolling down her cheek. Even though it had been years since she and Lucy had even talked, she missed her so much.

“May she rest in peace,” they said together tears falling down their faces. Anna just missed them all. She wanted her family back. But they were in a better place now. Their suffering had ended. It was all done. It was all over.

[thoughtaftermind-blog]

Zaida

The first time I thought Mendel Glick, my elter-zaida, would pass away was in the seminary elevator. Mum’s text message was brief: what started as a typical check-up for a ninety-two-year old man turned into a cancer screening. His stomach, hardened from decades of owning a bakery and twice-daily bottles of whisky, was growing a stage four tumor.

He almost-died tens of times before I knew him. That’s what happens when you live through the Holocaust—tales of starvation, gas chambers, frost-biting winters run alongside conversations about challah recipes, pig farmers, and the footie scores.

Everyone rushed to be at the third-floor hospital room, catching lifts, riding the tram, hopping on a bike. Zaida’s room was crowded with his children: my grandfather, the Lubavitcher; Susie, the caterer; Nachama, the phycologist; Miriam, the Gerrer; Nutchy, Zaida’s right hand—even Leslie, the top-order lawyer, had left his offices, still cloaked in the long black robes, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his bald head.

Bubba sat near the bed. She was easy to miss, the only quiet and still one in the room. The loose-knit shawl was falling off her shoulders and the edge was shredding where she kept picking at the yarn. As the siblings spoke and argued and laughed and cried, her fingers twiddled and her eyes locked on Zaida, her partner of sixty years.

They’d met and married in Germany just after the camps were liberated. When Americans freed seventeen-year-old Mendel from the camps, he walked straight out of the iron gates, the shadows of “arbet macht frei” shrinking behind him.

On the streets he passed, smoke rose from piles of rubble. People, lone and alone, backs stooped from the weight of work and death, picked through the pieces. Their blackened faces welcomed sympathy and scared off those who may have some to give.

Each day of the war came with its own easy way to die. Gutt must love me if He let me live, Mendel reminded himself as he wandered. He had nowhere to go. His family gone...their house on the edge of town a smashed pile of tar and hay. It had been a small home, a poor one, filled with hungry children and happy songs. The kids filled their days with games they could play with the muddy sticks and stones from the road. When Shabbos came around, they skipped to the stream to clean their hair and scrub behind their ears. Every time his mammeh was due to birth again, Mendel shifted the rubbish piles for a shoe box to use as a cradle. There wasn’t enough money for cheder, so he learned from the simple stories his father repeated. When the chores were done and Tatteh wasn’t tired, Mendel would sit on the dirt floor near the slatted chair and ask his father to tell the story of Eliezer and Rivkah. It was his favorite one.

The meager life prepared Zaida for the camps. There was no food to be had in Bergen-Belsen; survival meant ignoring the emptiness. On the day that he was liberated, Zaida’s stomach still rumbled. Maybe a kind soul in that building at the corner had a hunk of bread to share. If someone offers me a drink, I’ll offer to marry them, he thought, drawing on Eliezer’s search for Rivkah. His strength the past three years had been imagining the life he would build after the war. He was desperate to create a family so large and so Jewish that the Germans’ failure would be paraded.

The brass handle on the door of the building was covered in soot. Mendel wiped it with his black-and-white striped shirt before turning. The carpet inside withered in dust. The large glass windows were covered in boards that blocked the sunlight; darkness clung to every corner. The flame of a short wax candle flickered and danced on the bottom step of the stairwell, casting a glow on the small area around it. It was the only sign that someone had been through the house recently.

“Anyone there?” Mendel called out, glancing front and back.

A dark-haired girl, our Bubba, stepped down the stairwell. She stopped halfway and leaned over the railing to talk to Zaida. “You look terrible, boy—can I get you a drink?”

Bubba and Zaida married a month after they met in the lobby of the girls’ orphanage. Their first home: a DP camp. Their first child: born in its barracks. Less than a year after the war ended, they were already a family of three. When they crossed to Australia, they were four. In the hospital room years later, they were nine. Grandkids and their babies walked in and out, coming with food, leaving with updates for those overseas. Mum and her siblings called a travel agent to book flights for them to gather around their father in Australia.

“Go home,” the doctors told Zaida when they came for afternoon rounds. “You’ve lived long enough to die quietly.” Their professional opinion was to forgo chemotherapy and live out the time left.

Zaida thought the doctors were right—he should go home. Since the first day of his new life in Australia, he hadn’t missed a day of work—even a child’s wedding didn’t mean he couldn’t work a sunrise shift. First was his job as a delivery man for the bakery, then a cashier, a baker. When he saved enough, he opened his own bakery, the first kosher one in the gold coast. Being ninety-two meant that work slowed, but it hadn’t stopped; it was time to get back to the shop.

I told Basya about Zaida’s diagnosis after I read about it in the elevator up to our tenth-floor dorm room. Israel was just as far from Australia as America was, but in the hills of Tzfat, no one else knew my great-grandfather. It was a pain I couldn’t pass on.

Months later, Basya and I sat at the checkered table in the cheder ochel, picking at piles of soggy vegetables and discussing Shabbat Chafshah plans. “How’s your grandfather, by the way?” The answer—that he was fine and dandy, still working and teasing and catching every minyan—felt like a betrayal of what I’d told her in the jolty elevator. Back then, we thought he was about to go. Apparently he hadn’t been in the mood. Each scan astounded the doctors—this old man had a monster in his belly, and was thriving as though he didn’t. When doctors said two months, Zaida took two years. Gutt must love me if He let me live. He survived hunger and SS guards and forced labor. Cancer wasn’t going to be what killed him.

The next time Zaida almost-died, I didn’t think he would pass away. We’d already run down that path and come back for air. The stoke would just be a day off work. Tomorrow he’d be cracking eggs in the kitchen or bagging someone’s challah. This time we already knew that he was invincible, so Mum didn’t even look at tickets to Australia.

On the second day, Binyamin got off the trolley one stop early so that he could whisper the entire Tehillim in the white room and lay tefillin on Zaida, who hadn't missed a day of either since 1950.

On the third day, someone dipped a cotton ball in whisky and prodded it between Zaida’s lips. No one talked about the alcohol, how he covered his pain in bad, teasing jokes. On his white bed, Zaida became a hurting man, one who reminded himself each day that “Gutt loves me” because if he didn’t, the harrow of his early years would run through him.

On the fourth day, Bubba came to visit. Dementia had clouded her memories and each day she relived a nightmare. Zaida wouldn’t know that his wife didn’t come to his hospital room, and she would be heartbroken to be there. Nechama didn’t agree, “If that were me and Barry, I would want my kids to bring me.” She would forget the hospital visit afterward anyway, she argued. Her daughter Chevy picked Bubba up an hour later.

No one told Bubba why she was there. She sat in her wheelchair near the hospital bed. Her last time with him was the quiet second when she lifted his limp wrist and kissed it. With the gentle silence of a life spent together, she put his hand back on his bed, straightened the blankets to cover him better, and looked to the floor, away from her husband. Chevy paused at the door on their way out, in case Bubba wanted more time, but Bubba had already said her goodbyes. She looked ahead and spoke for the first time during the visit, “please take me home.”

On the fifth day, the teenaged grandkids pulled into the hospital parking lot with a trunk full of sleeping bags, chicken soup, and wine. They were going to spend Shabbos with Zaida at the hospital. Each had their own story to share, the time Zaidy called them his ugly monkey, the days when they worked in his shop after school, how they tried switching his whisky out for water.

On the sixth day, Motzei Shabbos, Nechama was the only one with him. The week ahead would be long; the rest had gone home to clean up from Shabbos and prepare.

“BDE,” she posted on the family chat. No one wrote back.

Mum and I watched the the live hookup of the levaya from her bed. For us in America, it was still Motzei Shabbos, just minutes after we turned on our phones and realized he was gone.

Nutchy’s white knuckles gripped the podium when he quoted on of the few things Zaida ever said: “A man has two names—the one he is given and the one he makes for himself.”

On the ship’s manifesto, Zaida’s young family is listed as Mendel, Sarah, Avraham, and Suzie Unglick, the unlucky ones. When he walked off the ramp with a brown suitcase in hand, he introduced himself to the port staff as “Mr. Glick.”

Zaida made the choice to live the life of Mr. Glick every day—when he shivered on his wooden bunk at the camps, when he walked the blackened streets looking for a wife, when he left the hospital with cancer cells attacking his body, when he fought the terrorized dreams of the war with his glass of whisky each morning.

His life floated through the sunlight in that white hospital room—G-d, his wife, sons and daughters, tefillah, talks of the Mr. Glick’s Bake Shoppe, and the whisky that gave him permission to create a unpained reality. Gutt most love me if He let me live. His soul moved higher on the breaths of his name and what it took to create it continued on.

[notesonfatherhood]

The Truth About the Tattoo

Five years ago, I visited my then 86-year-old grandfather in Queens for the first time by myself and wrote a story about my experience. I never got around to posting it, and sadly, he passed away six months ago. In honor of Father’s Day and in remembrance of him, I’m posting it today. Happy Father’s Day to my dad, grandfather, and all the dads out there. You are loved and appreciated.

Growing up, I was afraid of my grandfather. A Russian Jew from Ukraine, he came of age during WWII and later was an officer in the Soviet army. I didn’t see him much, but when I did, I found him stern and cold, a forbidding figure who rarely cracked a smile. On top of his chilly exterior, he had a tattoo on the back of his right hand that terrified me. The faded black lettering was impossible to read, and I was too scared to ask anyone what it meant. 

My grandfather, Semyon Libershteyn, in the late 1940s.

When I got to middle school, we learned about WWII one day in class. I had heard about the Holocaust but didn’t really understand it or know if my family, being Jewish and living in the Soviet Union at the time, had fallen victim to the Nazis. We learned about how some of the Jews at Auschwitz had numbers tattooed to their forearms so that the Nazis could identify them. As soon as the teacher said this, a light bulb went off in my head. That explains the strange markings are on grandfather’s hand, I thought. 

I didn’t bother confirming this assumption with my parents (for fear of bringing up bad memories), but my 11-year-old mind was certain. Given our family’s background, the theory made perfect sense to me. Plus, it explained my grandfather’s steely demeanor. I could only imagine what he’d been through. 

As the years went on, I still saw my grandfather rarely. He and my dad had a distant relationship, particularly after my grandmother died when my father was 20. Shortly after her death, my grandfather started seeing another woman and married her a few years later. He moved out of their tiny apartment, leaving my dad with his 14-year-old brother, Roman, and his aging grandmother. 

My grandfather, grandmother, father, and uncle in the late 1960s. 

A few years after that, my father wed my mother, immigrated to the United States and became busy raising his own family. They settled in upstate New York, a five-hour drive from Queens, where my grandfather had moved with his new wife, Gina. 

When I moved to New York City after college seven years ago, I didn’t even think about visiting my grandfather. I knew he lived in Queens, but the borough seemed a faraway place, and he a phantom-like figure. “You should visit your grandfather,” my mother would say. I wanted to, knew I should, but I was still scared of him.  

I no longer falsely believed he was a Holocaust survivor (I think I realized this sometime between high school and college) but I was worried that it would be awkward, that we’d have nothing to say to each other, especially since his English had declined over the years, and I don’t speak Russian. I usually saw him once a year at family events but I’d never spent time with him one-on-one—and I’d had no desire to—until recently. 

Over the last few years, I’ve taken more interest in my family’s history and have become curious about my grandfather, who recently turned 87. So last year, on the day after Father’s Day, I went to visit him in Queens. I was to have dinner with him and Gina and my uncle Roman. It would be my first time making the trek out there alone, without my parents or sister. 

I left my apartment in Brooklyn with plenty of time to reach their place. An hour and a half later, I exited the subway and took a few wrong turns. I showed up about 20 minutes late, but when I arrived, my grandfather was waiting for me as I stepped off the elevator, his arms outstretched for a hug. He seemed smaller than I remembered and showed unexpected warmth. His wispy white hair was neatly combed back and his slippers shuffled across the floor as we walked down the hall to his apartment. I realized that I hadn’t seen him since my sister’s wedding more than a year ago. 

He ushered me inside and hugged me again, which took me by surprise. I didn’t remember getting hugs in the past. Gina said a quick hello before heading back to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner; Roman hadn’t arrived yet. 

“How are you?” my grandfather asked several times, patting my shoulder, as we made our way to the living room. We sat down and looked at each other. The room, which usually had two couches and a coffee table, was empty except for a few dining room chairs. Gina later explained that they recently ordered new furniture and were waiting for it to arrive. 

Sitting close to my grandfather, I noticed he had the same musty smell as my father. He sat with his hands resting in his lap, the same hands as my dad’s, pale and with neat, square nail beds. 

“How are you?” my grandfather asked again. 

“Good!” I replied enthusiastically, attempting to cover up my nervousness. 

Silence. 

My chest tightened as I realized I didn’t know what to say next. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s awkward silences in conversation, so I racked my brain for a question. I remembered that he and Gina were going on vacation soon so I asked where they were headed. 

“Shtow?!” my grandfather exclaimed. I never learned Russian but I knew enough to understand that he was asking me “What?” 

Before I could repeat myself louder, Gina shouted from the kitchen, “She vants to know about ze trip!” She came out shaking her head and drying her hands on a towel. “He can’t hear anything,” she explained with frustration. “I told him he needs a hearing aid but he von’t listen!” 

I looked at my grandfather. He had mischief in his eyes and his lips were upturned in a smirk. His bemused expression made me question his “hearing problem,” and I smiled at him conspiratorially. 

For the next 15 minutes, my grandfather and I attempted conversation, taking turns asking questions and pausing as Gina interjected from the kitchen. When my uncle Roman arrived, I was a little more than relieved. He and my grandfather started talking about house repairs in Russian and a few minutes later Gina summoned us to the table for dinner. 

I sat next to Roman, hoping he would be my translator for the evening. All my life, I have been rendered deaf and mute at family gatherings since I don’t know Russian. By the time I was born, my parents had stopped speaking it around the house, so I never learned. We lived in a small town in upstate New York and were the only Russian family in the area. The local paper even wrote a story about my parents when they arrived with the inventive headline: Russian Family. 

My parents and sister, Anna, in the winter of 1980.

My parents were determined to assimilate, to learn English and to raise my sister and me as Americans. They certainly succeeded—and I’m eternally grateful that they immigrated to the States—but I’ve always been a little resentful that I never learned Russian. Although my immediate family speaks English fluently, most of my other relatives do not. Their English is broken at best, and I wish I could communicate better with them. 

Dinner was a combination of prepared foods from the local Russian supermarket and homemade salads. I immediately reached for the potato salad—my favorite Russian dish—laden with mayonnaise and finely chopped eggs, carrots, pickles and peas. For dessert, we sipped tea and nibbled on Russian chocolates. Most of the conversation took place in Russian and was between my uncle and Gina. My grandfather pushed the food around on his plate, and I sat silently, just like I had when I was a little girl. 

My uncle Roman, grandfather, and Gina.

After dinner, Roman had to make a phone call and Gina was back in the kitchen, so my grandfather and I were left alone again. I was standing awkwardly in the living room with him, searching for something to say, when he asked, “Do you have ze friend?” 

“A friend?” I replied. Of course, I have many friends, I thought but didn’t say.

“Ze boyfriend!” Gina shouted from the kitchen. She came out shaking her head again. “He vants to know if you have ze boyfriend.” 

“Oh!” I said, laughing. “No, not right now.” 

“Gold!” my grandfather shouted. I looked at Gina for help. 

“He means you’re vaiting for gold,” she said. I looked at my grandfather and he just laughed and patted my shoulder. 

I couldn’t believe my stern grandfather was giving me dating advice. Instead of getting annoyed like I usually do when family members question my love life, I was touched. It was nice to get a glimpse of the softer side of the man I once thought was so tough. 

Before leaving, I couldn’t resist asking my grandfather the question I’d always wanted to know. “What does the tattoo on your hand mean?” I asked. My grandfather only shook his head and smiled, rubbing the faded lettering on his skin. My mind raced as I waited for him to answer. Was it the name of an ex-lover? Or a secret Soviet symbol from his years in the army? 

My thoughts were interrupted by Gina, who answered for him. 

“It says his name,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You know, in case he forgets.”

My grandfather and me during our visit in 2013.

[killingthebuddha]

Instead of sitting by her side, helping her gently pass into the afterlife, when my grandma died, I was standing on a street corner in Thessaloniki, Greece, eating a cheese pie.

Since she was old and had complicated health, her death was an inevitability for which I tried to prepare myself. But never, when I imagined that fateful day, would I have guessed that on the bright morning my grandma, in her words, “flew away,” I’d be staring at the Greek sun, while halfway across the world, a Canadian one hadn’t yet broken.

I went to Greece to report on religion. While 95 percent of Greeks identify as Greek Orthodox, the refugee crisis has brought an influx of Muslims into the country. Combined with the economic depression, this makes room for many interesting stories.

My grandma—Baba, is what I called her—was the most religious person I knew. When I’d sleep over she’d dutifully help me say my prayers, tuck me into bed, and then retire to her kitchen table, where a small light illuminated her Bible. She underlined it while listening to a radio preacher.

My Baba had to quit high school to work on the farm, and always told me that she read slowly because of it. But somehow she managed to plow through piles of religious literature, studying about “that good old way.” When I was older, some nights she’d let me sit across the table in the dark and watch her.  It filled me with such emotion that I’d get shivers. I’d borrow all her tracts and study them on my own to learn what she knew.

In Greece, I was going to visit Mars Hill, where Paul first spread the good news to the Greeks, and also to Thessaloniki, where he first preached after his conversion on the road to Damascus.  I was going to write about how religion was affecting Greeks in the wake of the economic depression and the refugee crisis, and I was planning to come back home and tell Baba all about it.

On my way to the airport, before the trip, I phoned her to say goodbye. But when I called the phone rang, and rang.

“I hate leaving this city,” I said to my friend beside me. “Every time I do, I get anxious about what’s going to happen here when I’m gone.”

We both knew the last time I was overseas the man I had been seeing—who I thought was the love of my life—broke up with me in a text message.

“I want to cut his balls off,” Baba had said when I called her, crying, from Scotland. Age made her direct.

The experience scarred me and I was superstitious about going away. Soon I learned that superstition was not unfounded. This time my mom texted me: Baba was in the hospital. She needed surgery. They told my mom to summon the family.

Should I cancel the trip to Greece? I wondered. I had serious doubts about whether Baba’s frail body could survive surgery of any kind. She was a strong woman—a pioneer on the Canadian prairies who used to humor my romantic sensibilities by telling me stories of riding in a horse-drawn sleigh over the snowy fields to school. She could drive a tractor, pickle beets, and sew her own clothes. But hard work had taken its toll on her already-troubled body, and two years earlier she had been half-paralyzed by a stroke. She wasn’t her fighting self, to say the least.

Baba got on the phone, her words obscured by morphine. “Go to Greece and do good work,” she said. So I did.

My first stop in Greece was the capital, Athens, of the Acropolis and Olympic fame. Here I visited a makeshift refugee camp at an abandoned airport. Technically it’s not an official camp, but the government knows about it, and it’s serviced by NGOs from other nations, so it is more official than a squat, unsanctioned communities of refugees living together in abandoned structures, many of which have also appeared in Athens.

I’d never been inside a refugee camp before. The terminal, once a bustling hub of people leaving the country and coming back again, was converted into housing. The irony of being stuck in a building previously used to get people out of Greece must have felt like a slap in the face for the people living there.

The adults there were wary of journalists. It took a while before they warmed to us—only accomplished when their children circled us wanting to play. Our interpreter, who met us after prayer at an underground mosque, told us boredom is a refugee’s greatest enemy. He was a refugee too.

“I thought many times maybe I should…” he trailed off not knowing the words for “slit my wrists,” but showing me the action. He was 19 years old and graying.

A migrant child living at a makeshift camp inside the an abandoned Athenian airport looks cautiously at the camera.

I earmarked this story for Baba. It didn’t really fold into anything I was specifically reporting on, but I thought I would tell her about the children and the interpreter, and she would pray for them. Baba seemed to be doing alright during the first few days I was in Athens. She had made it through surgery and was awake, making everyone laugh with her enthusiasm for drugs.

So I kept reporting, thinking of her, and trying to learn as much as I could about religion in Greece. I wore a Lois Lane jacket. I carried a notebook and a pen. I chased down stories. I took a cab into the Athenian suburbs in the rain to interview a Greek shipping magnate’s son about the Orthodox Church. I met with an evangelical missionary about her work to convert refugees with clean laundry, hot showers, and Bible study.

I obtained a map to all the anarchist squats in Athens. I promptly followed it right to City Plaza Hotel, a squat for families. There I met a 23-year-old university student who was volunteering to keep the squat functioning.

“We’re trying to show solidarity with the refugees,” he said, before describing what had happened when the government tried to dissolve some of the camps where refugees at this squat had been staying previously.

“They didn’t give them shelter, they just put them on the streets,” he said. Another thing Baba would pray about.

A few days into our trip we drove up to Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. I was interviewing the founder of a fair-trade jewelry startup when I noticed my mom’s text: “Can you call when you have a moment?”

“Is Baba alive?” I asked. I’ve always been one to get straight to the point. “I am in the middle of an interview.”

“Yes,” my mom said, “but when you are able please call.”

And then, immediately following: “How soon until you call?”

Okay, so it was an emergency. I excused myself from the interview and walked out into the Greek sunlight.

Thessaloniki is a pedestrian-centric city and the street was a collision of different realities. Motorbikes whirred past, a gypsy man hobbled by me, and students giggled as they traipsed down the sidewalk. I guessed they were headed to a cafe or bar along the waterfront. No matter what time of day it was, there always seemed to be young people in the cafes. There was no corner to hide in, so I turned my face toward a brick wall and added one more sound to the cacophony—soft crying. My mom put the phone to Baba’s ear so I could say goodbye.

She had been doing fine after her surgery but overnight she had a stroke. She was still breathing, but unconscious, and they weren’t sure how close the end was, but it was coming soon.

It took me two tries to say anything worthwhile. Then I hung up, mad at myself for being in Greece, for having nothing to say, for being unable to hold her hand and kiss her cheeks while they were still warm. I wiped the running mascara from my eyes and went back to finish my interview.

As the sun was setting that day I strolled along the waterfront. Thessaloniki is a gritty city with a choose-your-own-adventure kind of charm. In recent years it has seen growth as a tourist destination for Muslims and Jews seeking their family history, because of its importance to the Ottoman Empire, and also because it was once home to a vibrant Jewish community, dubbed “Mother of Israel,” before the Holocaust. Thessaloniki’s Jewish community perished in Auschwitz. Out of the few who survived, most moved to Israel, although a remnant still remains in the city. Now it’s a place to search for ghosts. Memories of family lines.

It would also hold a piece of my history, I was discovering: the place I was when my Baba died. My tears embarrassed me. I didn’t want the old Greek selling nuts on the boardwalk to see them. Or the Nigerian hawking his wares. Or the university students out having a laugh.

But I could not hide my sorrow. I found a slab of concrete by the water and faced the ocean for anonymity. Baba was the first person with whom I went into the ocean. She was the one who made me love music, religion, travel—and as I looked up at the Greek sun I thanked God that, at least for a few hours more, we still lived underneath it together.

Not long after that, I would eat a cheese pastry on the street while my Baba lay in her hospital bed, surrounded by her children, about to receive the “heavenly crown” she always prayed she’d get.

Boys play a pickup game of soccer outside the an anarchist squat in Athens known as City Plaza.

A few days later, back in Athens, Baba would be gone and I would lose my composure. I would call all my siblings to calmly coach them through their grief; as the oldest sister, it felt like my responsibility to make sure they were managing. But then I would find that I needed someone to look after me.

I would find myself dissolving into tears and miscalculating the time change. That would lead to me spending a day in bed relentlessly calling the man who broke my heart, until he woke up, so I could have someone with whom to cry. It took seven tries before he answered. But it was worth it, he knew what to say.

Baba wouldn’t yet have been in her grave, and I’m not sure if you can “roll over” pre-grave. But if you can, I assure you, my Baba found a way to do it at that moment. She was not a woman who asked for help. Especially not from men whose balls she wanted to cut off.

I would feel trapped in Greece and worry about my family, grieving without me. I would talk to refugees about feeling trapped in Greece. “Do you worry about your family in Afghanistan?” I asked one of them, who had been in Greece for over a year, without any hope of resettlement in Europe, and not knowing what would come next for him.

“All the time,” he said, before adding that, despite missing his family desperately, he was happy at the moment, because someone had helped him find a warm, safe place to stay. Before, he had been in a camp where he shared a leaky tent with 12 people and needed to walk out into the forest to relieve himself.

That’s how I learned about religion in Greece, you see. I learned what religion meant in Greece. Reporting on religion, visiting refugees, calling desperately for help until the phone was answered, missing my Baba like I’ve never missed anyone before, I realized that pure and unblemished religion is this: to look after people in their time of distress and to not let the world make you evil.

Or something like that. I may have heard it on the radio somewhere. But I learned it in Greece.

Author’s Baba. All photographs by the author.