Before I went to sleep last night, I took the photograph of my Bubbi and her sister from my night-table and looked at it as I often do, searching for the smallest details. The men in fedoras in the background, the clothes, the shoes, the hair, their hands. Do they look like mine? It is late 1930s or early 1940s. A calm before the end of the world. I wonder if the others in the photo survived. I wonder how long after the shot was taken that my grandmother's sister was brutally murdered. How long before my grandmother was tortured to the point that she would never be able to truly live again.
My face is wide like theirs. I feel I have so much of them inside me.
My Aunt wears a sweater with a heart on her chest, pom poms hanging from the neck. Frivolous, it seems to have been made for me.
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2 comments:
i do that more and more as time goes on. there was a time when i completely discounted the connection to our extended past, but i can't help being fascinated now. i still don't know what point there is in knowing these details, but the curiosity burns hotter, nonetheless.
I think it is all a part of human development. Not to reduce it down too much, but it makes sense to me that as we become more aware of our own mortality we try to make sense of our lives in the big picture. Otherwise we are all just 'dust in the wind' (thank Kansas for the most depressing song in the history of music).
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