I wrote about Tante Betsy's harrowing period in hiding and her return to active life after the war. The family had a lot of respect for her. But my recollections of her are not strong. I know that I was raised to respect and identify with the Jews and that my life has been intertwined with Jewish faith, culture and people. My two husbands were Jewish and I lived within the Jewish cultural and community life. How is it that I'm most comfortable in that world and most uncomfortable in the Christian Protestant world that I was born and raised in? It can't be Tante Betsy's influence, I hardly knew her.
Yet, she left a deep imprint on my mother and father. My parents were deeply affected by her plight and felt profoundly guilty about sending her to Arnhem. It must have been traumatic and they believed they failed her. Of course they did the best they could, and my father found her a safe house, and she survived. She never blamed them, but they blamed themselves.
Did those complex feelings get transferred to me, or was it Tante Ina's remorse and guilt for not being able to protect her Jewish students? It has been and always will be part of me. I am a spiritual Jew. My child is Jew-ish, and her father, the love of my life, was Jewish.
He asked me, when Maya was born, why I had registered her as Jewish? Without hesitation I replied, I'm giving one back. He was very touched, but he had no idea how significant that statement was. Looking at it now, it is evident that, given those formative experiences and the emotion associated with them, I had no other choice.
Such is the power of collective family emotion.
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About Me
- kingmisha
- I'm bigger than a pile of breadboxes, but smaller than a Sherman tank. I'm overeducated, underpaid but very content with my life. I have loved infrequently but intensely. I dated a poet, divorced a Dean, had an affair with a jazz pianist, was engaged to a diplomat, and widowed by my child's father. The men in my life were all very special. Not all grand passions but much loved in their time: Leonard Cohen, Alfred Pinsky, Billy Horn, Wendell Goodin, and Elliot Hirschman. Thanks for the memories... I'm a lapsed artist which doesn't really trouble me because I'm a very successful parent. I lacked the requisite conceit to persevere as an artist. I just couldn't make myself believe that my art came before my child. The world really doesn't need another sculptor (even a good one), but it does need another good human being. It can use all the good human beings we can turn out. I present Mambolica as my evidence so judge for yourselves.