Grandchildren

I am blessed with four grandchildren and three adult children. I never knew that I would love my children so much and my grandchildren as much.....I never played with dolls when I was little. Was totally uninterested in domestic arts - except cooking and baking (because I loved to eat). I had very little contact with other children generally - except at school. Having no sisters and brothers, I didn't know much about parenting other than being parented. I had seen few babies, handled none, disliked the one toddler I did know - so who knew?

When I got married, I assumed we'd have children but I was in no hurry and wasn't pining to become a Mom.

I worked at the Edison company in Los Angeles as a secretary and had several friends there that I ate lunch with and met on breaks to gossip and chit chat in general. One day one of those friends, married only a little longer than I, announced she was pregnant. I was surprised as I thought they planned to wait a while. I congratulated her and asked if I could make a baby shower for her blah blah blah. When I went back to the office, I stopped in the restroom and to my complete shock and surprise, I burst into tears. Where that grief came from I don't know, but I realized that I, too, wanted to be pregnant and have a baby.

In time, we did get pregnant and I left my job to be a stay-at-home mom. Something that was "natural" in my generation. I adored being pregnant, and I adored my baby when she was born but then the nightmares began. I was always running in a forest, someone was chasing me - maybe more than one someone. I was carrying the baby and running as fast as I could but I knew I couldn't escape - that's when I woke up.

It was a recurring nightmare.

I had a second child, and a third and the nightmares didn't stop - they became fiercer. I remember screaming (in my dream) "Damn why did I have three kids, I can't carry them all."

When each of my kids reached the age of two - I would look at them and wonder how my Mother could give me up. I'd heard that story all my life - the exchange on the platform of the train station - giving me to a strange man who spoke no German as my Mother spoke no English. She handed him my little suitcase - which my youngest daughter still has - and let me go.

I cry as I write this. My Mother loved me at least as much as I love my kids and grandkids and she gave me up. As an adult I figured out she saved my life - what I thought in my 2 year old brain, I don't know. I do know that I never, ever felt secure in anyone's love after that. I was convinced that "if anyone knew me well, they'd leave after two years." Why two years? Well, it wasn't obvious to me then, but, of course, it's obvious to me now. I just knew I wasn't lovable.

If my husband and I have an argument and he goes for a walk, I know he isn't coming back. We've been married for 53 years and I'm still not sure he'll come back.

I look at my little 2 year old granddaughter and think - how could anyone give her up? But I also think how could anyone kill her? And, you and I know, they did! Blonde hair, blue eyes, trusting smile and dimpled knees and they would kill her.

It's a terrible world we live in because this kind of thing still happens. Oh not the carefully planned, organized and coordinated killing of the Nazis. But it goes on.

On my Bat Mitzvah day I am "sharing" my Bat Mitzvah with my cousin. Sigfried Baendel. Four years old when he was killed at Auschwitz. How that can happen is unbearable to me. How I'm going to go to this country where they allowed it to happen is amazing to me. Will I be able to look them in the eye and not spew my anger and grief? I hope I can handle this.

Well meaning friends tell me to "let go" of my anger - would that I could. They tell me to pray or "turn it over to G-d". Hell, I just got over being mad at G-d for letting all this happen in the first place. But the truth is that nothing will change what happened - that old truism is that life goes on - life is for the living.
But the living can be really twisted by the process of life.