Shattered lives

When she turned fourteen, on a Saturday night in June of 1938, my mother and her parents were forced to leave their life behind and for the next ten years became people with no land.

The story about that night was never part of the family narrative. It was not passed on in family gathering, was not rehashed on cold winter nights or told as a bed-time story to wide eyed children.

This story got folded with some old black and white pictures and other odds and ends and put on the top shelf where it gathered dust for over fifty years.

***

When I pulled the old story from the top shelf my parents were no longer alive. Neither was my aunt that on the top shelf of her bedroom closet I found the fragments of the story tucked between old pieces of lace, some embroidered napkins, and a carefully folded, faded dark blue suit.

The questions in my head were stacking high and fast, a fertile ground for the growing frustration and seeds of anger that were starting to sprout.

“Why did not they tell me?”

“Why the deep secrecy, the un penetrated silence?”

“Who will give me the story back? Fill up the gaps, bring back the dead?”

***

There is no pride in being unwanted, in being tossed away, locked away from your life, your possessions taken away and even worse, your identity. You look around and other people, your friends, are still carrying their identity, their regular life. They avert their eyes when you look at them and you realize that, you become transparent, you become a threat.

I know that now.

.