Recently, I’ve had more than one person in Seattle comment “Oh, I didn’t know you were back,” when they see me. “Your blog says you’re still in Arizona.”
I’ve been horrible about updating here, I know. I’ve been swamped. Days and nights. It’s a good thing, but I do miss checking in on here.
I’m in Chicago now. I met my mom, sister and grandfather here for a family wedding. The bride was — um — I think she’s my second cousin. She’s my grandfather’s sister’s daughter’s daughter. So she’s my Mom’s cousin’s daughter. Is that a second cousin? I don’t know.
I have a LOT of cousins in Chicago. I have about 60 first cousins on my father’s side, and most of them live in Chicago. I also have about 30 second cousins on my mother’s side — half on my maternal grandmother’s side and half on my maternal grandfather’s side. When we visited Chicago when I was young — which was often — we spent time with my first cousins and with the second cousins on my maternal grandmother’s side. I hardly ever saw these cousins, the ones I saw tonight. My grandfather asked specifically that we come to Chicago for this wedding. It meant a lot to him for my sister and I to have the opportunity to bond with the family on his side. And I’m so, so glad I came.
I wish I’d had the opportunity to get to know these cousins better growing up. They’re gorgeous and talented and kind and a lot of fun to hang out with. Most of them were raised in the Orthodox or Hassidic Jewish faith, and they speak Hebrew better than my rabbi back home (many of them have an Israeli parent and/or have lived in Israel). The girls have to cover their elbows and knees, but I swear the dresses they had on were sexier than anything my sister and I were wearing. They were such beautifully constructed gowns, very modern and appealing, leaving everything to the imagination. I need to dress like that more often. Because they have awesome hottie husbands who are completely devoted to them, and somehow my tank tops and mini-skirts just aren’t pulling in that kind of man. I’ve been going about this all wrong. My cousin says she has an girlfriend in Seattle who might know some quality Jewish men. She’s going to put in some phone calls. I’m psyched. Because when I met her husband, he introduced himself as “the man who was lucky enough to marry” her. Um. I need a man like that.
My great-uncle — the bride’s grandfather — is a Holocaust survivor. He spent three years at Auschwitz before escaping to the forest during a death march. He convinced a Polish couple he was a Christian and they let him stay in his barn. When he arrived at Auschwitz on the train, his 12-year-old sister was with him. She was immediately killed.
It took him many, many years to speak about any of it, but in the past few years he’s started visiting Jewish schools and temples to tell his stories, and he’s begun writing them down. I spoke with him last night about some of it, and I was completely glued. I didn’t want to leave and he didn’t want to stop talking. I won’t get into details here — I don’t think he’d appreciate that — but I hope one day his stories are published and I can post a link to them. It’s so rare to talk to someone who’s actually lived through that horror, to hear about the very darkest side of humanity from someone who’s witnessed and survived it. He still has the tattoo. It reminds me why I’m so proud to be Jewish, to belong to a tribe of survivors.
I leave Chicago tomorrow, and it’s off to Arizona for a week. Then I’m back in Seattle — for at least a couple weeks. :)
