Today would have been my Mother’s 81st birthday.
After five years, it hasn’t become easier to live without her unconditional love, wisdom and guidance. Well into adulthood and well past my youth, her absence still cuts like a knife daily, but especially so on holidays. She wasn’t the victim of murder or genocide, so I understand why the descendants of Holocaust victims who are decades older than me still feel the terrible pain of loss, and even more so because that loss was perpetrated by the most despicable aspects of humanity. They most often weren’t allowed goodbyes, or even the knowledge of where their loved ones were or exactly how they met their ends at the hands of evil, but their blessed memories survive as spirits among the Sea of Stones.
Gabriella read to us the poem about a young child, bravely risking her life and the lives of others to sneak from the ghetto to bring bread to her starving mother, her only thought of how her mother would survive, should she perish on her mission.
Sheri sang–beatifully and hauntingly–of a daughter longing for her mother’s love, begging forgiveness for any disappointment she may have caused her, as we prayed in remembrance for 900,000 lost souls.
Adam shared the story of the imprisoned worker who felt gratitude–gratitude!–that he was able to spare his 80 year-old father a more gruesome death than the one he would have to face regardless. Such cruelty is unimaginable. But, there shall be triumph in this tragedy, and that is true humanity.
Everyone is somebody’s child.
Everyone deserves love, prayer, and the gift of life.
So, we shall continue to remember them.
Never again.